Jun 30 2009

Charlottesville Rain Barrel Rebates

I am excited that both the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County are offering $30 rebates for purchasing and installing rebates (up to $60 for two rain barrels!)

Both programs are grant based, so once the funds are gone, they’re gone.  Get your rain barrel and your rebate now!

At the Blue Ridge Eco Shop we have 65 gallon rain barrels that come with:

-Two Over Flow Options–this means a gutter diverter is not needed!

-Three Year Manufacturers Warranty.

-(1) Brass Spigot and two spigot options–NOT plastic so it won’t break in a year or two.

-Our rain barrels are molded to be rain barrels–meaning your rain barrel won’t stretch and wear out in a year or two!

-Black Color–no bacteria or mold groth here like in brown, wooden, blue or white barrels.

-Don’t like the black color?  It is easily painted with exterior paint from the Blue Ridge Eco Shop.  Match your house or get creative and make a masterpiece!

 
 
Download rebate forms here (or stop into the shop and we will print yours out with the purchase of your new rain barrel!). 
 
 
Don’t miss the Women With Nails Water Conservation Class on July 25th @ The Habitat Store 8:30-10 a.m.  The Blue Ridge Eco Shop will be talking about rain water harvesting!
Posted by Paige at 10:24 AM 24 comments
Jun 12 2009

Nourish(Meant)

Two University of Virginia students, one student and one recent graduate to be precise, stopped into the shop the other week to share about their summer plans.  Graham and Emily received a grant to make their summer dream come to life.  They will be driving cross country in a bio fuel-fed old bus with a handmade garden on top.  In their words "Nourish(meant) is both a collection of projects and a belief.  At its most basic, the idea is this: to run a garden and kitchen out of a biofuels vehicle and travel around America, feeding folks."
 
The Blue Ridge Eco Shop got involved by donating our Velvet Oil Cabin and Deck Finish, a low-VOC exterior wood stain made of soy oil, to protect the wood in their roof garden.   Our awesome employee, Jessalyn, also got involved with the project this week by donating her Worm Castings and Red Worms from her Vermicuture Compost.  Read their latest Blog about the experience of harvesting the castings and saving the worm eggs.
 
Try your hand at Vermicultre here with the Wormtopia.
Posted by Paige at 9:09 AM 0 comments
Jun 10 2009

Women With Nails - How To Compost

Just a reminder that the Blue Ridge Eco Shop is partnering with The Habitat Store to put on a FREE Composting Class tomorrow night.

The event is in conjunction with The Habitat Store’s new series "Women With Nails" - education for women by women.  (Although all are welcome!)

Event Details:
 
Topic: How To Compost
Location: The Habitat Store, 1221 Harris Street, Charlottesville, Virginia
Time: 6:30-8:00 p.m.
 
This event is free and open to the public.  Come have all your composting questions answered.  Prizes and refreshments will be provided.

I will be highlighting several different compost bins, including the Garden Gourmet, the Enviro-Cycle and the Wormtopia.

Posted by Paige at 2:08 PM 0 comments
Jun 2 2009

Influences Over Our Kids

I read an interesting article this morning that showed findings that  parents food behaviors didn’t translate to healthy eating habits in their children.

"Factors other than parental eating behaviors such as community and school, food environment, peer influence, television viewing, as well as individual factors such as self-image and self-esteem seem to play an important role in young people’s dietary intake," said May A. Beydoun, PhD, co-author of the study and a former postdoctoral research fellow at the Bloomberg School. (Read Full Article Here)

It is interesting to think about.  As grown children, my husband and I eat a vegetarian diet.  Neither of us were raised this way.  Although my parents aren’t vegetarians, I still feel they raised me to eat healthy and omit greasy or sugary foods.  I thought it unfair at the time, but we didn’t eat fast food, soda, never had candy in the house and my mom never bought sugar kids cereals.  My husband on the other hand was raised to eat healthy, but he was allowed the items I didn’t have in the house. 

I feel my husband and my eating habits as adults really connect with some of the reasons we opened the Blue Ridge Eco Shop in the first place.  The environmental and health impacts of a vegetarian diet are immense.  We also grow our own food and buy locally grown foods.  We are very fortunate to live in a place that makes buying locally grown foods very easy.  Yes we spend a little more money on our monthly grocery bill, (and it’s not that we have extra money, owning your own business is not lucrative) but we value the health effects, environmental effects and societal effects this has.

All this leads me to think about how my future children as adults will eat?

Posted by Paige at 1:11 PM 1 comment
Jun 2 2009

Composting at Crozet Elementary

We are now in Week 2 of the Composting Project at Crozet Elementary.  I stopped by today to check out the progress and make sure everything was set for the summer break where we will hopefully have a batch of compost complete to come back to!

To start the project, Crozet Elementary purchased three Urban Compost Tumbers.  I was notified today that a parent is donating a fourth tumbler to add into the mix!

So far the project has been in trial.  We started two weeks ago, knowing there were only two weeks of school remaining and we wanted to work any kinks out over the summer.  The project currently works by diverting the kids cafeteria and snack food waste from the land fill by have the kids put food waste in a separate container rather than the trash container.  Fifth grade students then carry the compost containers to the tumbler which sits about 10 yards outside the lunchroom.  They empty the compost and tumble the composter everyday.

Maggie Morris, a kindergarten teacher at Crozet Elementary, has been my school counterpart and the cheerleader for the project at the school.  I noticed immediately this morning that their compost needed a little bit of help.  It is food dominant, which we assumed it would be.  I was prepared and had brought a large container of leaves from my yard and added that into the tumbler.  What I didn’t expect was the high acidity level.  The kids have been eating a lot of fruit!  Since there isn’t a large variety of "greens," the mixture was a little sour, which I could smell right off the bat.  I had Maggie add a box of Baking Soda and we mixed that and the leaves into the tumbler.  Right away the odor subsided.

Being only week two I am honestly amazed at the speed of the breakdown in the tumbler.  It has great sun exposure, which is really boosting the composting process.  The mixture was fairly indistinguishable on the inside.  The food had broken down enough, that I couldn’t tell what it was to start with!  They had even added in two days worth of "brown bags" a special lunch day, and hadn’t shredded the bags.  The bags were completely gone.  With extra leaves, which we are working to secure regularly, their compost project could turn over complete compost every 1.5 to 2 months–my best guess.  Pretty exciting.  Stay tuned for more updates!

Posted by Paige at 12:45 PM 2 comments