planted city

Grow Your Own: Tomatoes and Bees Edition

I’m a little scratched up, but no worse for wear. Picked 3 buckets full of these suckers along an old railway corridor this afternoon. It’s blackberry season… time to make some jam!

Going Places: Coombs, BC

Last week I posted a few photos from a camp spot on Taylor River en route to Tofino, BC for three days of sea kayaking in Clayoquot Sound (photos to come). Post-kayaking we headed north to Campbell River to go hiking and visit some people we know, but along the way I saw a sign that reminded me of an experience I had as a kid. I insisted that we briefly veer off-route and follow the sign to the small community of Coombs where they have an old country market with goats living on its roof.

It has since dawned on me that the building was probably my first introduction to a green roof, long before sustainability and green buildings had ever entered my mind. Anyway, it was cool to return there the other day and see two goats resolutely munching away on the roof top grasses. It’s worth a stop for a visit if you are ever up in the area. The giant ice cream cones they have for sale there aren’t bad either! Ahh, summer!

Update: Sommer (Walk With Me a While) wrote me a note to say that there’s a building with goats living on the roof in North Carolina, USA. She passed it a few years ago while heading to hike the Appalachian Trail. Definitely good info to know if you’re living or traveling in North Carolina! Thanks, Sommer! ;)

A Jericho Beach summer evening here in Vancouver. It’s amazing how the city comes to life when the sun comes out in this normally rainy burg.

From The Vancouver Sun:

A 30-foot-long lunch table that pops up in the middle of a street just long enough for office workers to eat lunch is the newest idea for creating impromptu meeting places in Vancouver.

Starting in July and running once a week on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, volunteers will close a downtown city street, erect the table and put out chairs. For two hours, anyone can come down and brown-bag it at the Lunch Meet event. The city is also looking at encouraging street food vendors to set up near by.

And then, just as fast as it is put up, the whole thing will be taken down and the road opened to vehicle traffic again.

The idea is the newest project of Viva Vancouver, a $390,000 city-sponsored program that is behind a number of other summertime street closures and public-space activations.

…

The project is being done in partnership with the Vancouver Public Spaces Network and will only run for the month of July. But other street activations, including a complete closure of Robson Street between Hornby and Howe will run the entire summer.

On Tuesday city council was notified Viva Vancouver will set up 10 projects, some of which will be roving events while others will be semi-permanent installations on side streets.

Starting June 23 and running until Labour Day, the Granville Mall will be closed to vehicles every Saturday and Sunday. The Robson Street closure covers the same period, and starts with the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in its new downtown home.

Additionally, the city plans to create a few more “parklets” similar to its Parallel Park installation on West 14th Avenue at Main Street.

…

The Lunch Meet table was made last year by students in the CityStudio Vancouver program from a fir tree that fell in Killarney Park. The table, which is in three sections, has been used for other public events including as “a centrepiece of dialogue” for community information around the city’s Greenest City Action Plan.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo credit: Vancouver Sun)

The summer solstice of 2012 will occur at 7:09 p.m. EDT, the instant when the sun climbs to its farthest point north of the equator. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, this solstice is the astronomical marker for the beginning of winter.

Source: Live Science

Public Art: Terracotta Warriors in the City

Here’s a shot of one of many fibreglass Terracotta Warrior sculptures that have been painted up and started appearing around the city for the summer. Previous years have seen orcas, eagles and “spirit bears” serve as templates for artistic expression, some better than others. The concept began in Zurich, Switzerland in 1998 and has since spread to cities around the world. In the fall, the sculptures will be auctioned off in a fundraiser for charity. You can read more info on this year’s crop here.