Did you know that there was a Certified USDA Organic facility in the Greater Cincinnati area?  In fact, Marvin’s Organic Gardens has been Certified USDA Organic since 2003.  The certification guarantees the entire property follows strict, organic growing methods and never uses synthetics or chemicals.

Marvin’s Organic Gardens offers a vast selection of plants and garden products, as well as an organic farmer’s market.

Beyond landscaping and gardening products, Marvin’s Organic Gardens hosts lots of regular programs to teach you about the benefits of being a locavore and how to have a green, green thumb.

You can find out more by visiting the Marvin’s Organic Gardens online calendar of events and website.

Are you a local company with a green business specialty?  Share it with us!

Fresh food is local at one of Cincinnati’s most interesting places: Findlay Market.  Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch.

Want to know what’s in season in Ohio all year?  Visit Ohio’s fresh fruit and vegetable harvest calendar.

Check out our other Live Green Cincinnati video pods on You Tube.

In response to this weekend’s wind storm, Whole Foods is donating 1,000 bags of ice and giving free lunch to those without power today.

Thanks to them for supporting the community!

Also, don’t forget that the last 2 Whole Foods Farmer’s Markets of the season are 9/9 and 9/23.  You can find the Whole Foods Farmer’s Market throughout the summer on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays from 4-7pm in the side lot.

Findlay Market’s Farmer’s Market is an excellent place to pick up some locally grown foods and plants. They help fill your belly with in-season foods and they want to thank you for continuing to visit them.

From the Findlay Market website:

Saturday August 30th, from 11 AM to 1 PM, the local growers in the Findlay Market Farmers Market will hold a Customer Appreciation Day celebration on the Farm Shed Plaza.

They will be grilling their own fresh vegetables and fruits for you to sample. There will be other fresh foods to taste, flowers for the kids, and free recipes so you can take new ideas home to try.

Stop by and try grilled leeks, okra, eggplant or even peaches! Sample homemade pesto or smoked garlic on crusty artisan bread. Talk to the folks who grow your food, and let them tell you “Thanks!” in person.

And if you need more inspiration than that, check out our Live Green Cincinnati video pod featuring the Findlay Market Farmer’s Market on YouTube!

Nothing keeps a city looking green like a nice, thriving garden.

The Civic Garden Center supports a number of gardens around the city with guidance and knowledge maintenance. They have been changing lives by using urban gardens as tools to teach valuable skills including the benefits of self reliance, the joy and pride of being involved in your community, the fruits of your labor, and the importance of having a bit of Earth in your life. This week is your chance to celebrate the good work and tour their Children’s’ Community Gardens.

Details from the event release:

25th Annual Neighborhood Gardens Tour:
Celebrating 27 years of Community Gardening in Cincinnati
Thursday, July 24, 5:30- 8:30pm

The 2008 Neighborhood Gardens Tour is a celebration of Children’s Gardens.

This year’s tour showcases three of our city’s outstanding community-based children’s gardens. These gardens were selected to highlight their commitment to and work with children. The gardens provide opportunities for children to plant, grow and harvest vegetables, dig for worms, compost, eat healthy food, and of course, the opportunity to get dirty. Participating Children’s Gardens:

Peaslee Neighborhood Center’s Children’s GardenThe Peaslee Neighborhood Center’s Edible Schoolyard is one of the core components of its literacy-based curriculum for early childhood education. Activities in the Edible Schoolyard are directly related to classroom curriculum. The outdoor space serves as a gathering place for community building that fosters an increased connection to the natural world. In creating gardens and art, children and families experience working together as well as celebrating the results of their work. The garden is a place where people might gather to barbecue or just enjoy green space in an inner-city neighborhood.

Race Street Children’s GardenThe Race Street Children’s Garden was established in 1989 and today the garden hosts weekly sessions of the Summer Sprouts Program serving the children in the immediate neighborhood. The garden provides the children a safe green place to play and garden during the summer. Community life is explored when the fruits and vegetables grown by the children are harvested, prepared and eaten at snack time, as well as shared with the neighbors.

UC Childcare Center GardenThe University of Cincinnati’s Childcare Center Garden includes an herb and vegetable garden, apple orchard and butterfly garden – even a hill for children to dig in! The children explore with all their senses by touching the plants and seeds, smelling the flowers and herbs, looking at the colorful flowers and plants as well as hearing the plants blow in the wind. The garden has become a special place for pre-school children and teachers to enjoy the natural world through multi-sensory experience, creative play and gardening.

WHEN: Thursday, July 24, 5:30 – 8:30 pm

WHERE: Civic Garden Center

2715 Reading Rd.

Cincinnati, Ohio 45206

- From CGC we will board air conditioned buses and head out to the gardens

COST: $10.00 Please make your reservations by calling 513.221-0981, Ext. 18.

The CGC acknowledges and thanks Whole Foods for providing refreshments for the Neighborhood Garden Tour reception.

Styrofoam take-out containers got you down? Check out this earth-conscious doggy bag from Marcella’s in Columbus at the Short North District.

This BioPlus Earth container is made from recycled paperboard, endorsed by the Green Restaurant Association, and is recyclable to boot (just make sure you’ve cleaned out any food residue, the paper needs to be clean to be accepted by Rumpke in our curbside bins).

Don’t accept styrofoam for your next doggy-bag. It’s a second rate material that is not recyclable and generally not biodegradable (translation: it will be around in the landfill for a long, long time). Ask your local restaurants to ditch the styrofoam and make the transition to a more environmentally responsible product like the BioPlus Earth containers.

Still using styrofoam cups for your coffee at the office? Quit that and start a win-win program that will support a local business and be kinder to the environment: check out these biodegradable hot drink paper cups made at the Clovernook Center in North College Hill. You can order in bulk from the Clovernook Center, or pick up a small pack for picnic or home use at Park+Vine. Or better yet, bring your own mug to work.

Here’s something you don’t think about everyday:

Your choice of wine bottle can make a significant difference in your carbon footprint.

It turns out that Bag-In-Box packaging of wine can save a lot of carbon. Because the packaging is lighter weight than bottles, it reduces the shipping weight significantly. Since most wines come from California, Australia and France, they travel a very long way to get to your dinner table.

Granted, the best wines aren’t packaged in bag-in-box, but Cincinnati is actually a part of the country where wine is produced locally. Instead of buying that bottle of wine shipped from Australia, try buying your wines from a local company. Then recycle or reuse the bottle.

Here are a few local wineries:

• Vinoklet Winery
• Henke Winery
• Woodstone Creek Winery and Distillery
• Chateau Pomije in Indiana
• Valley Vineyards in Morrow, OH
• Harmony Hill Vineyards in Bethel, OH

For more information on the carbon savings of bag-in-box, the San Francisco Business Times details the 60% reduction in carbon production that one wine company forecasts by using bag-in-box technology.

Eating local in Cincinnati just got simpler.

The Central Ohio River Valley (CORV) Local Foods Initiative has create an Eat Local Food Guide for the 2008 Growing Season. The booklet features details about food grown locally and sold at dozens of local farms and farmer’s markets.

From the press release:

The Central Ohio River Valley Local Foods Initiative is a grassroots effort to connect local community members with local farmers and fresh, healthy, local food. In this age of fast food, factory farms, and huge grocery stores that treat food as a mere commodity, we envision a vibrant, ecologically friendly, sustainable local food economy that treats food as a gift of the land.

For a copy of the Central Ohio River Valley Eat Local Guide visit the website or contact Susan Miller-Stigler at susan[at]eatlocalcorv.org or Deborah Jordan at deborah[at]eatlocalcorv.org. You can also visit the Eat Local CORV website to download the guide.

To learn more about why eating local is good for the environment and community, check out these past Live Green Cincinnati articles:
Count down to Earth day Tip#4: Eat Local.
Get green in the CityBeat.
Local is the new green.

This environmental take on wedding planning was originally run in the the Live Green Cincinnati column in the Pulse on May 13, 2008.

Weddings may be based on age-old traditions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t innovate and transform your ceremony into an environmentally friendly affair. Choose to have your personalized, time-honored commitment while keeping a small environmental footprint!

Consider these options to green your wedding:

Rethink your registry. Consider registering with a local store or an environmentally minded store like Park + Vine. Recommend that your guests wrap gifts in recyclable newsprint or a reusable canvas bag so there’s no wrapping to throw in the trash. You can also forgo the obligatory toaster and waffle-maker purchases by asking your guests to make a donation in your honor to the local park system or even to a Web site that allows you to choose which charity or socially conscious project you want to receive your gifted funds, for example GlobalGiving.com.

Give eco-friendly favors. Consider using small potted plants, recyclable paper origami doves, or a bowl of fruit stamped with your name and wedding date as ideas for guest favors. Giving something living or edible will allow your guests to enjoy their favors without adding any waste to the landfill.

Light up your life. Choose to have your wedding and reception during the day so that you and your guests can enjoy the great outdoors and save energy by taking advantage of natural daylight.

Use vintage class. Finding your wedding formalwear in a vintage shop is a thrifty way to find an amazing and unique look. Using a gown or tux that has been passed down in the family is an even better way to reuse, and it can create a very intimate family bond on your big day.

Give your decorations a longer life. If you can reuse flowers from a wedding earlier that day or decorations you inherited from a parent or grandparent, you can conserve natural resources. If you buy or make your own flowers and decorations, consider donating them to an assisted living facility or your community center so that they can be enjoyed by someone else as well.

Send green invitations. Consider paper with post-consumer recycled content when printing your invitations. You can also find seeded paper, which can be planted after it’s used. If your guests are connected, try sending a digital invitation to use no paper at all. There are even online RSVP services so that your guests can confirm attendance with a call or Web site visit instead of using self-addressed, stamped reply cards.

Serve local fare with flare. Select a caterer or chef who will prepare your party food using locally grown and raised food. Nothing beats the taste of fresh, in-season tomatoes and corn grown right here in Ohio. You can also ask that the tableware be reusable and not disposable to minimize waste. If you want to go all out, add the food scraps to your compost pile and use it to help grow a backyard garden with foods you can eat while you celebrate each month you’ve been married.

Consider this: Location, location, location. Choose a location that is near the majority of your guests. Destination weddings may be dreamy, but whisk her away alone on the honeymoon instead of transporting the guests the extra miles. Getting hitched in your local church or community center can make carpooling or even walking more convenient for your guests. Having the wedding and reception at the same venue in the center of your community or at a hotel saves gas and travel time, all the while reducing the chances of any of your guests driving after the champagne.

If you’re up for the challenge, put together your something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue in an environmental theme. You’ll open up a new level of creativity in the event planning, and you may even save a few bucks in the process!

CityBeat released their green issue this week, and it’s packed with great environmental information.

The lead article, “Unplug, Rethink, and Simplify Your Life“, gives 10 solid ways to make the world a better place, starting here in Cincinnati. Live Green Cincinnati was mentioned in the article as a way to get educated.

Educate yourself
You’re bound to learn something new about the Green Movement when you visit Live Green Cincinnati (www.livegreencincinnati.com), a web site started just over a year ago by downtowners Brianne Fahey and Suzanne Hanners. Fahey manages the content, and Hanners codes the site. Both share a passion for environmentalism and for helping to foster growth in Cincinnati’s urban neighborhoods.

“There are so many grassroots groups already doing things here,” Fahey says. “I was hoping to translate these things already happening into something that anyone could look up.”

The result is a daily blog on Green news, advice on sustainable living, a calendar of local events and links to like-minded environmentalist groups in the area.

Fahey says she focuses on new urbanism, which meets a sweet spot that she calls a “triple bottom line” of social, environmental and economic needs.

“The idea is tying these things together,” she says. “It’s not just the right thing to do, it’s a way to make money.”

Yep, that’s pretty much what we said. We’re not all about the cash, but we believe that business, progress, life, community, fun, and environmentalism can all work together with each other for the greater good. It’s all about being clever and thoughtful about working with the resources we have; be they people, materials, finances, land, or the CityBeat.

A special shout-out to Suzanne, who silently takes care of business with the website while I get to have all the fun writing, posting, and reaching out. It wouldn’t happen without her web expertise, green research, and strong support.

You can also find out about eating local, recycling, composting, networking, and lots more in this CityBeat issue. Our green friends at Park+Vine and Cincinnati Locavore are also interviewed. Read it online to see the full stories and check out the print version to see the green specials advertised by local businesses.