Jeremy Oaten engages the change by deciding to take shorter showers!

Today is a day to make some changes! One of the first tables you’ll see set up at the festival is The Change Tent, and it is definitely one you want to visit. Annalea and Brad are there from The Change to tell you all about local companies that are “Greener, Fairer and Truer.

At The Change Tent pick up an Organic Islands GREEN PASSPORT. This baby is basically a scavenger hunt through the festival exhibitors. Stop by the 12 tables listed, find out about that company, get your passport stamped and have a fun day in the sun learning about everything Victoria has to offer the green movement!

When you’ve traveled through all the exhibitors and your passport is fully stamped head back to The Change Tent to complete your final mission. Annalea or Brad will ask you what you already do, or what you are going to do to engage with the change and go green! They will take a video or photo (or if you are media-shy you can just tell them the old-fashioned way) and in exchange you will get a ticket to enter to win some fabulous prizes.

Jeremy Oaten was one of the first visitors to complete his GREEN PASSPORT. He was inspired to take shorter greener showers after visiting the Terasen Gas booth where he got a free shower-timer. His goal? The 5 minute shower!

So, while enjoying the festival make sure you pick up your passport from The Change Tent so you can be part of the movement too! The prizes you can win include:

- $1500 door prize from La Vida Eco
- Test drive the $1 million fuel cell car

And the following prizes donated by members of thechange.com

- Gift bag from thechange.com
- $20 gift card for ethicaldeal.com
- 2 gift cards for Spinnakers
- 2 bags of Fair Trade Coffee from Salt Spring Coffee
- Stainless Steel water thermos from Fairware
- 24 healthy cereal bars from Nature’s Path Organic
- 2 bags of Fair Trade Coffee from E
- $25 gift card for hip baby
- $20 gift card for ecoeverything
- Hand crafted wooden art piece from Clegg Woodcrafts
- An Eco-product from the good planet
- Foot butter and a 6 piece soap set from Rocky Mountain Soap Company
- 3 GB of online data backup from Swift Kick Computers.

Now go get those passports stamped!

(Also make sure you enter to win a green shopping spree for ethicaldeal.com while you are at the Change Tent and with some luck you might just score yourself some prizes!)

“Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, we have to choose. We can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.”

With “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food”, Carolyn Herriot’s greatest hope is to kickstart a movement: the “grow your own food” movement. As Herriot says, it is important to “make sure your neighbour is fed”, because when they are fed, you will have greater food security too. While most of us are detached from our food and the soil its springs from, the modern industrialized model of growing food has an impact that can be measured. Where our food used to be grown in healthy soil and ripened by the sun, it is now grown in depleted soil that is filled with a high level of pesticides. This means that many of the products we currently consume are low in phytonutrients, which are essential nutrients for good health and originate from the plant. It only takes a small step to begin, maybe a container plant of tomatoes, or even something larger that can feed the whole family. With this, the seed of sustainability is sown and the idea of food security becomes more achievable. After all, it is only the individual who can liberate food from the vise grip of industrialization and increase the quantity that is grown and consumed locally from 5% to something more substantial. “The Zero-Mile Diet” can represent the first step in changing the way that we think and look at food, and, in the long run, it can change the way that we live. Come hear Carolyn speak in person about her vision and passion for this movement on Saturday, July 10th at 2:30 at the main stage of the Organic Islands festival.

A tomato recipe for you:

Salsa Fresca

1 cup (250 mL) tomatoes (cherry or salad tomatoes are best)
¼ cup (60 mL) onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. (5 mL) jalapeno, seeds removed and minced
3 Tbsp. (45 mL) fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 lime, juiced
Salt and pepper to taste

Whirl the tomatoes in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and leave to marinate. Stain off liquid and freeze as ice-cube-tray cubes or in plastic tubs. Perfect for the winter munchies.

Thank you to Carolyn Herriot and Harbour Publishing for recipes and information from “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food.” You can attend the book launch on July 10th, 2010 at 2:30 PM at the Organic Islands Festival in Victoria, BC.

Herriot’s first rule is seed selection, which involves choosing to plant vegetables that you already enjoy.  While the idea of planting unfamiliar or new items is enticing, it might not assist you in actually using the items in your garden. If you have a limited amount of space, you might also want to grow plants that will save you more money at the grocery store.

Another important rule for the garden is diversity. If your garden contains a variety of items like flowers, grasses, and berries, bugs will be kept away and plant growth will be improved; a homogenous garden will only serve to attract pests and disease.

The last rule I’m going to give you is crop rotation. While you may not notice a problem if you don’t move plants around in the first few years, diseases like white rot and pests like weevils will eventually show up. If the host plant is moved, the life cycle of the disease or the pest will automatically be broken.

While I hope some of these rules will help, you’ll have to read the book for the rest!

A recipe for your own fertilizer:

Mix four parts (by volume) seed meal (Nitrogen) with one part dolomite lime (potential Hydrogen), add one part rock phosphate (Phosphorus) and one half-part kelp meal (Potassium).

Thank you to Carolyn Herriot and Harbour Publishing for recipes and information from “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food.” You can attend the book launch on July 10th, 2010 at 2:30 PM at the Organic Islands Festival in Victoria, BC. For the complete Program Schedule, click here.

It’s not that you don’t like Mother Nature. In fact, you quite adore her. You hike or bike or row or run and enjoy all the trails this city has to offer. You just like doing things the way you always have and buying the things you always buy and sometimes you rationalize that the world can’t be that bad off -

But, you finally admit to yourself that the future snuck up on you, bit you on the butt, and now the green movement is here to stay. You hate to admit it, but you’ve got to evolve out of necessity. You’ve got to become one of them.

If it makes you feel any better, you aren’t alone! Until a couple months ago I was tossing Starbucks to-go cups like there was no tomorrow. And, then suddenly, I realized that bit about tomorrow very likely might be true if I didn’t get my act together.

Out with the Old, in with the Green

Lucky you, the best thing about going green in Victoria is the amount of local resources right at your proverbial doorstep! The local green, eco-friendly, organic and sustainability centered businesses and resource centers in our city are utterly remarkable. Going green is more than possible, and there is no better place to start than at the Organic Islands Festival (where you will find 150 exhibitors and all the tools to get you started).

If I can do it – so can you. This burgeoning greenster now has an apartment compost (nope, it doesn’t smell), biodegradable, eco-friendly cosmetics, a ticket to the Organic Islands Festival and a growing social conscience.

And you know what? Going green doesn’t change who you are. Being part of the green movement doesn’t make you anything! You, in fact, do the making and therein lies the beauty of it. By being green, you make the world a better place.

No really, I’m asking you – what does sustainability really mean?

To some, sustainability means choosing the lesser of two evils. Wikipedia tells me sustainable is “the capacity to endure” (sounds a bit painful, doesn’t it?).  It can mean ensuring life for the next seven generations, or indefinitely. To others, it is a word that has a comfortable vagueness allowing for marketability. Conversely, It may be a mathematical calculation of population and greed. The trouble with sustainability today is as much about finding out how it’s done as what it genuinely means.

The theme of this year’s Organic Islands Festival is sustainable transportation, sustainable buildings, and sustainable food production. I’m writing this because I want to challenge you. I want you to get the most out of this festival. I want you to put meaning back into the word: sustainable. How do we measure sustainability? What does it look like when it’s transferred from a proposal to a reality?

I have a couple of good ideas (okay okay, they’re not my ideas).

First, I think that sustainable means cradle-to-cradle design, a phrase coined by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Cradle-to-cradle means that new items are composed of only two categories of materials, either technical nutrients, which can be recycled in industrial cycles or biological nutrients, which can re-enter natural cycles. This also means that all waste can either be recycled or composted, without introducing toxicants into the earth and without downcycling products.

We can’t ignore energy either – which is why I think something called embodied energy is important. Embodied energy is the energy required to create a product from extraction of raw materials to delivery to the consumer. Choosing products with low embodied energy values and choosing clean energy sources would seem as an important factor in sustainability.

Lastly, I have a hunch that sustainability means consuming less.

These are difficult questions, and I admit that I may be glossing over some details, but please, I want you to join into this dialogue. Here, if you want, but more importantly, at the festival. Even, if the dialogue is only in your head.

“Imagine what a world of prosperity and health in the future will look like, and begin designing for it right now. What would it mean to become, once again, native to this place, the Earth – the home of all our relations? This is going to take us all, and it is going to take forever.

But then, that’s the point.”

- William McDonough and Michael Braungart

There is a wheelchair accessible ramp for access into the Glendale Gardens. Inside the Gardens there are two main areas of the festival: The Gathering Place and The Village (please click here to see the map for details). A golf cart will be available to transport people needing assistance between The Village and The Gathering Place. There are very accessible crushed gravel paths throughout The Gathering Place suitable for wheelchair, scooter or walker use. The Village is located in a grassy field and may be challenging to access. However, there will be volunteers available for assistance if needed.

There are three handicapped portable washrooms available at the festival. The first is located near the entrance to the Gardens by the Greenhouse. The second is located near The Soccer Zone in the Children’s Village and the third is located in The Village.

Volunteers will be available throughout the festival grounds if you have any questions or require assistance.

A classic summer recipe made with some common garden items:

The Garden Path Potato Salad

2 lb. (907 g) new potatoes, cooked ‘til just tender, cooled and chopped

1 sweet onion, minced

1 small cucumber, chopped

2 dill pickles, sliced, or 1 tsp. (5 mL) capers

2 hard boiled eggs, chopped

2 tsp. (10 mL) dill

1 tsp. (5 mL) salt

½ tsp. (2.5 mL) black pepper

3 Tbsp. (45 mL) mayonnaise

Toss all together and chill in refrigerator.

Thank you to Carolyn Herriot and Harbour Publishing for recipes and information from “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food.” You can attend the book launch on July 10^th, 2010 at 2:30 PM at the Organic Islands Festival in Victoria, BC.

This is Derrek’s first time to come to the Festival – his sister, Andrea Larson, brought him along with her.

Derek was surprised to see no plastic bags. Since seeing a documentary on the harmful effects of plastic on our environment, he has become more aware of it in our daily life and the effect on our ecosystem. He was also impressed with the recycling that is carried out at the festival.

He feels that going organic is the healthier way to live.

Ortal came to the Festival to work in one of the booths and was surprised to see the number of organic products available. This is the first time that she has been exposed to the organic lifestyle and has learned lots about the products that are available.

She was especially impressed with the organic vodka available in the alcoholic drinks area. It is so smooth and has a wonderful flavour.

Ortal enjoyed the setting – the gardens and the large area that provides a feeling of calm, even though there are lots of people. She will come back again.

This is David’s first time to come to the festival. He was pleased to see so much information about water and ways to conserve it. He sees water (or lack of it) to be big concern, now and in the future.

He was also interested in the information on solar energy, even though he now lives in a condo. He would like to finds omething small that he could put on his balcony (along with his wife’s herbs.)

David was a little surprised to see jewelry at the Festival and wasn’t quite sure how that fit into the organic theme. . .

He was also surprised at the number of people coming through. He had no idea that there were so many people interested in an organic lifestyle. And yes, next year, he will be back.