Looking for an all natural fertilizer?

By Andrew

If you’ve been reading our earlier articles, you will probably already know that I’ve been working on a balcony garden in order to get myself a little closer to the food production process.  To date, I have been successful in growing chives, basil, oregano, potatoes, tomatoes, asparagus, peppers, and onions.  Unfortunately I’ve only been able to eat the first four items on this list due to the time it takes for food to grow in particularly nutrient poor soils.  The soil in flower pots are relatively nutrient poor for the reason that they rarely have active bacterial soil cultures and access to decaying organic material.  An easy answer to this would be to use some conventional fertilizer or compost.  But, if you’re like me you’ll want to try to avoid using chemicals and you lack the space for a composter.  Don’t fret, a slightly unconventional answer to this has been highlighted in Scientific American by using urine.  Now before you get all grossed out, please note that urine is completely sterile.  Read on to find out more…

Staycation: Sibbald Point Provincial Park

By Andrew

       The idea began as most far-flung adventures did and often tend to; in the company of friends over a few drinks.  It was a Saturday evening, five or six of us gathered around the television watching Top Gear’s Vietnam special.  The intrepid hosts of the program were undertaking a journey on second hand motorbikes and mopeds from the south to the north of the country.  About half way through the episode a conversation among us unfolded regarding travel and adventure.  Being springtime at the university, most of us were left wonting of this particular aspect of our lives as midterms were well underway.  It was at this moment that the harebrained scheme was hatched.  My friend Jack and I had set in our minds that we were going to bike from Toronto to Lake Simcoe, more specifically to Sibbald Point Provincial Park.

Tree Uproots Concrete

On the balcony, there's a big pot of dirt, littered with a half-dying, yet somehow half flourishing, poinsettia plant from Christmas and a few dwarf-like weeds. In the middle of the pot, a bare snake-like twig crawls upwards. “It's my mother nature pot,” my friend says. “Whatever grows, grows.”

Fresh "Food"abase

By: Noah

Until the tender age of 18 or there-abouts, my Mom still packed me a lunch every day.  Yup, that’s right...momma’s boy.  She seemed to want to do it, she made some damn good sandwiches, and working Landscaping 12 hours a day leaves you with little energy to do the little things in life.  This culinary luxury however procured a certain hunger for homemade deli sandwiches.  And this tossed me a curveball in my quest to eat Local sustainable organics; how do I reconcile my unwavering desire for these deli meats, when seemingly nobody offers them certifiably the way I’m trying to live?

Fortunately for me I stumbled across a new website launched last month from Greenbelt Ontario entitled www.greenbeltfresh.ca .  It’s a website that seeks to connect buyers, growers, restaurateurs, and markets together in a massive online database.  Regardless of who you are, it’s seemingly easy navigation and attractive layout makes it an effortless solution to one of life’s my daunting questions: What do I want to eat?

DIY - Homebrew

By Andrew

As many of you have begun to notice, it’s starting to get really hot outside.  With temperatures in May reaching the high 20s there is a good chance that the upcoming summer weather will be nice and sticky.  Beating the heat isn’t always easy, but it can be fun and delicious.  The solution that my roommate and I turned to was brewing our own beer!

Bulk Public Transit

By: Noah

Many Torontonians seeking quick, easy and environmentally friendly access to the various corners of our city turn to the TTC for public transportation.  It's snaking maze of subway, bus and streetcar routes truly makes the city feel smaller and more like a community.  Unfortnately for many of us, the $3 price tag on the service makes it a little less of an attractive ride.  Now we all knew that it wasn't going to be cheap going green, so in the eyes of Positive Pete let's just say: at least it's lower than the $10-$35 you could spend on a taxi ride!  And ceratinly it's faster than walking - and safer (most of the time) than riding your bike.  In the end, it is an undeniably responsible form of alternative (albeit expensive) trasportation when you're trying to be eco-conscious.

Joe Millionaire Reporting Live

Guest Post By: Oliver Spicer

One of my biggest pet peeves– of which I have many – is the general inaccuracy of the television media. This is, of course, the only media an ignorant blue collar boy from B-Veg ever consumes.  We don’t read papers, we don’t listen to radio, we watch television.

My Life Without Cable

By Andrew

If you’ve been following our earlier posts, you will have noticed that I decided to cut cable television out of my life upon moving into my new place.  This was not an easy decision as I was a Discovery Channel and Nature Channel fanatic, but my final decision was made based on several factors:

1. Cable TV is fairly expensive if you are living on a budget
2. TVs use a relatively large amount of energy
3. It’s easy to waste away the hours staring at useless programming
4. I have better things to do with my time

How to Make Crème Fraiche

by Braeden

Crème fraiche is the French version of sour cream that tastes better and is much more versatile. On the one hand, it is pretty expensive to buy. On the other, it is very easy to make at home if you're up for a low maintenance food science experiment.

DIY - Lightbulb Terrarium

By Andrew


For those of you that have discovered this blog, there is an extraordinarily large chance that you are interested in living a more low impact lifestyle.  What better way to live the dream than to dive into a simple green project!

Sergeant Pepper, Leftenant Salt

by Braeden

“I'm a terrible cook.”

I've heard variations of this line from dozens of people. W\e often carry negative associations with cooking because of an unsuccessful attempt at following an overcomplicated recipe. The recipes we find in books, online, have 20 different ingredients, none of which we have stocked in our cupboards. To buy all of the spices in the recipe, we spend a fortune, a gross misrepresentation of the amount of savings accrued from cooking meals at home. Making matters worse, the directions are ambiguous and our attention spans do not have the capacity to decipher culinary code come dinner.

Wash Away the Energy

By Noah

A huge drain on heating and electric costs that plagues the average North American household is a pair of “necessary” suckers that bleed energy off the grid.  Week after week people load their dirty clothes into the laundry machine, push a few buttons, and then disappear.  After a not-so-quick change-over to the dryer and a magical laundry fairy, we get soft, fluffy, clean clothes that smell like “Ocean Spray” or “Evergreen Forest”.  What we seem to forget however is not just the amount of energy consumed to produce these apparently beautiful smells, but also how ugly the amount of money that energy costs us, smells.

Sourcemap = fast and easy carbon tracking

By Andrew

Is anyone out there curious about where the materials in your computer, clothes or shoes come from?  I’ve always been interested in following the carbon trail for some of my things, especially the more carbon intensive ones.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find the site www.sourcemap.org the other day while surfing the net.  Sourcemap.org lets you explore two pathways to follow the carbon trail of your everyday goods.  The whole vision behind Sourcemap is to empower users and

dispatches from Rhamnous

On March 1st, I moved into an apartment with Noah, of CitySlickers fame. Since then we've been doing our damnedest to live a sustainable lifestyle and furnish our apartment with minimal budget.  This is part one of our twisted saga.

We live rather close to Fiesta Farms. I support their business in theory, but the reality is they have the same shitty atmosphere as every other fluorescent-lit supermarket, regardless of their philosophy or politics. I had to find another way.

The Goal: No Supermarkets.

Zero-impact camping

By John

Outdoor hobbies like hiking, climbing, and canoeing instill a love and appreciation of the outdoors and teach respect for the natural environment. Getting out and experiencing nature reminds us of the value and importance of living sustainably and protecting the natural heritage of our planet. Whether exploring the rich variety of Canada or the majesty of the world at large, it’s important to keep preservation and protection at the top of your priority list.

Cheating Chicken Stock

By Braeden

One of the biggest frustrations I've had with cooking for myself at home is that every seemingly tastey recipe calls for one thing: chicken stock.

Hmmm....let's see. I need to add chicken stock if I want to make risotto. But do I have time to roast an entire chicken, gut it, roast the the bones, prep and add in vegetables, reduce the hell out of if, chill it, and skim off the fat? Once I'm finished doing that I'll only be 1/10 of the way done with the original risotto recipe I was attempting. Screw this.

DIY Culture

By Andrew

Throughout our history, our species has relied on what we were able to create to quickly adapt to new environments.  As we developed tools and techniques, the ideas behind these were passed down to successive generations forming a cultural tradition.  For as long as we have existed, we Homo sapiens have used our tools and our intellects to conquer challenges set before us.  In fact, fossil records of our cultural traditions date back as far as Homo habilis in the form of stone tools which were used to shape our ancestor’s immediate environment.  If tool use is so imbedded in our evolutionary history, why then do you suppose so many of us today are unable to complete tasks that require a modicum of intellectual and physical dexterity?  I don’t believe that this has resulted because we are incapable of the task; I believe it happened because we have grown lazy.  Many others have reached this conclusion, and with it, a resurgence of DIY culture is emerging.

Organic Food - Part II

By Noah

A beautiful sunny March afternoon spent in Whole Foods Market in the heart of Yorkville, and I felt positively on top of the world. I had a grocery cart brimming with veggies, fruits, meats, bread, cereal, nuts and pastas – and all of them had the word ORGANIC plastered on their side. After some 30 minutes wandering the aisles of this aesthetically stunning grocery store staring at rows upon rows of produce, it dawned on me that it looked somewhat identical to any other grocery store, with 2 major differences.

A) Almost everything was organic.

Sweet.

B) Everything was uber expensive.

Not so sweet.

A sunny day on Bloor

By John

I woke late but still took my time getting out the door.

I enjoyed a bowl of cereal with yogurt, and listened to a quick podcast. The sun shone through the windows and for a moment I contemplated shirking my responsibilities, but I talked myself out of it.

Update: DIY - Unlimited Onions

Hey Everyone,

For those of you that have been following our earlier stories, I would like to give you an update on my unlimited onion and indoor garden undertaking.  Of the three onion bottoms that I planted, one is doing quite well, the second only has a ton of new roots, and the 3rd died. As this project was not 100% successful, I have determined that the onions will only take if the heart of the onion remains intact.  It is for this reason that I attempted another cutting technique to plant another onion bottom.  I cut the onion in half and then slowly removed the layers to expose the top of the onion heart.  By this time you should have a ping pong ball sized onion that is ready to plant (root section intact).  The success of this one should be much greater than the instructions in the original article as there is relatively little open surface area exposed to desiccation.

Get More Out of Life with Less

By Andrew

As a recent graduate, I’ve essentially spent the last few years living out of a suitcase.  Granted I did have a home base in which to store my larger possessions, my whole life could pretty much fit into the back of a car.  It was only after I moved out of my parents place that I realized, quite frankly, I had a lot of useless junk.  In the relatively short period of time that I'd spent living in my parents’ home after graduation I had somehow acquired another vanload of personal effects.  Sure, I could still survive for about a week with what I could fit into my backpack, but the pool that I had available to draw upon seemed to keep growing.

    

St. Lawrence Farmer's Market

By Braeden

Every Saturday from 5am to 5pm at the St. Lawrence Farmers Market, you can find local food at an affordable price (we’re talking pocket change affordable). While the daily “South Market” is a bit on the pricey side for weekly groceries, you can find baskets of local carrots, turnips, potatoes, and apples for $1 to $2 at the North/Farmer’s Market. Not only can you buy high quality, local ingredients, but you’re also helping to support the local agricultural communities that surround Toronto.

U of T's Electric Balls

By Noah

8:30pm on Saturday March 27 is Earth Hour: a symbolic gesture of millions of people in thousands of cities across the world recognizing the need for global action at such a late hour in our climate crisis.  It represents a pledge of all participants to be more ecologically conscious, and sustainable in the coming years; an homage to the pre-industrial planet. 

Wait.  Earth HOUR?

WWOOF: a primer

By John

Volunteering: as a lower-upper-middle-class kid with a huge sense of entitlement, it was a departure for me to contemplate an exchange that was so seemingly one sided. Fortunately for me, my sense of adventure triumphed over my cynical complacency, and I decided to volunteer on organic farms while I traveled Western Europe.

Alternative Transport

By Andrew


Most of us don’t have the benefit to live within an acceptable walking distance from our place of employment.  This being the case, we are generally left with the options of driving or taking public transportation.  I’m not saying that these are bad options, but they certainly aren’t the best if you’re interested in reducing your environmental impact or improving your fitness and mental wellbeing.  The main alternative option that is probably flashing in your mind is riding a bike, something that I have recently begun to do for my commute to work now that the weather is getting warmer.  As I transitioned to biking, I noticed something wonderful.

JUICE IT!

By Braeden

A couple of months ago, I was horrified when my friend Emily (one of our lovely contributors)  told me about how "not from concentrate" juice is actually a lot worse than the frozen stuff. Why? Because the frozen juice concentrate has fewer preservatives added to it, because it's, well, frozen. The cartons boasting "100% not from concentrate" labels are in fact filled with a liquid that has already spent a year in an industrial storage tank.

Food Cycles

Guest post by Emily

This past summer my roommates and I took advantage of the large balcony off of my room in a house on Lansdowne Ave. and decided to experiment with a pretty significant potted garden. I put a hold on a copy of Gayla Trail’s You Grow, Girl at the library and patiently waited a long time for it to come in  (Gayla Trail, resident gardening blogger extraordinaire is,

DIY - Unlimited Onions

By Andrew

A flavourful meal is something that we can all appreciate.  I personally like to add some savor to my dinners by adding some onions, especially caramelized ones!  So you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled across an article explaining how I can get an almost limitless supply of onions… for free!  Remember folks, spring is on the way.  The steps to do this below are so

The Beatles Said It Best

By Noah

“Hey Jute” – A uniquely titled accessory company located in Mt Albert Ontario (about an hour north of the city) that designs and creates durable, useful and rather attractive products in an otherwise bland and synthetic market.   Using an eco-friendly plant fibre called Jute (instead of your typical combination of synthetic fibres, plastics, and non-recyclables), Hey Jute manufactures products such as school binders, Ipod cases, belts, purses, wine and tote bags, ties, pillows, guitar straps and yoga mats.

Beware the vampires in your home

By John

You have vampires in your house.

They have two teeth and suck power from every room. Cell phone chargers, computers, TVs. Our houses are full of consumer electronics, and the conventional wisdom is that to save energy, you turn them off.

If only it were that simple.

The Benefits of Cooking at Home

By Andrew

There are several benefits to preparing your own meals:

1. Yes, that hair in your food is yours
2. You have the choice regarding the origin of your food, and how it is produced
3. You know exactly what you're about to eat
4. You're learning a life skill
5. You're taking the opportunity to make a statement about your political, ethical, and nutritional priorities

Organic Food - Part I

By Noah

While walking through the aisles of the supermarket a few days ago I noticed there were a number of items on the shelves that had the word ORGANIC plastered on the side.  I considered this bold claim, and decided it was a strange label to put on a food.  In high school, they taught me the word “organic” meant living, and that “non-organic” meant….non living.  To me the case was clear: lettuce vs. cue-tips… potato chips vs. my driveway.  So while staring at a can of “organically certified tomatoes” I wondered if this was simply stating the obvious.  Aren’t all tomatoes certifiably … from a tomato plant? 

St. Lawrence Antiques Market

By Braeden

Now I know it’s counter-intuitive to expect the hippest items second-hand venues have to offer from a place you’d expect to look like the inner bowels of your grandparents closet, but don’t be quick to dismiss the St. Lawrence Antiques Market. The Antiques Market is held every Sunday from 5am to 5pm in the North Market (directly across the street from the regular St. Lawrence Market). Just like any antique shop, there is a lot of over-priced junk you couldn’t pay someone to buy. However, if you’re willing to take a leisurely stroll over Sunday coffee with a friend you’re bound to stumble upon plenty of steals.

Craft Beers

By John

Canada makes a lot of world-class beer. You may not know about it though, because craft breweries favour taste, freshness, and quality over cheap beer and expensive commercials loaded with breasts and preppy losers.

A Sense of Nostalgia

By Andrew

A sense of nostalgia is a rare thing found with the products that we find flooding our homes today. It has become the norm to buy something knowing that it will break and simply replace it with an identical, or improved version. This is a simple choice within today’s marketplace because consumer goods are frequently made cheaply at a low price. An attractive alternative to paying sometimes double the amount for something that is well made for the same task.