It’s already mid-March and that means the snows will melt and if the ground’s not too saturated farmers will soon be planting seeds for the food that will feed us this year.

Since time immemorial farmer’s markets have been with us: farmers harvest, bakers bake, dairy farmers milk their cows and they all meet at a central location where there’s lots of foot traffic … and they sell. The common theme: the food is fresh.

In addition to the standard organic fruits, vegetables and eggs, farmer’s markets offer items you wouldn’t usually consider: hand-made brooms, herbs, bath and body care products, lobster rolls, wine, organic teas and “traditional handcrafted leather goods and repair”, rabbits, natural and dyed yarn and spinning supplies, photographs of local scenes, elk and moose meat, organic spice blends and increasingly, fresh fish.

1. It’s locally grown

Most but not all Farmer’s Markets in the US require vendors to have grown, produced or crafted what they sell at the market. Most vendors are small, one- or two-person operations and they grow only what they can manage. They grow what’s in season and it’s local. Ask the farmer if they grew what they’re selling, ask if it’s organic. Don’t buy until you’re satisfied with their answers.

2. You know the farmer personally

You know where the farm family lives; you’ve seen their farm, your children go to school with their children, you see each other at church or at Little League games or at a movie. You know the farmer and you trust him. He’s a neighbor.

3. It’s where the chefs and restaurateurs shop for fresh produce and baked goods

Patrick Soucy, chef at a Portsmouth, N.H. restaurant that specializes in New American cuisine, buys at the local farmer’s markets because of the “better health, better quality” of the food.

“And the produce defines ‘tree-ripened’. It’s fresh. ”

Raj, chef at an Indian restaurant in southern Maine, buys there “because it’s local, within a 20-mile radius. It didn’t come here from California. Also, I support the local community.”

4. Prices are often cheaper than supermarkets

… but not always. Organically-grown and the small-operation produce is very labor-intensive. Individually planted by hand, individually nurtured during the growing process and then individually harvested by hand obviously takes a tremendous amount of time. But the local farmer doesn’t have the tremendous labor, mortgage, transportation and other expenses of a supermarket, so cost comparisons show that all-in-all the farmer’s market sells food for less than a supermarket.

5. There’s less of a carbon footprint: field to farm

What about the bananas at a supermarket in America that come from El Salvador, the berries from Chile, and the kiwis from Australia … how can they possibly be their freshest when they were harvested so early in their growth process and they grew older on their journey? Local produce usually travels less than 10 miles from field to market. Take a bite from a store-bought peach and then take a bite from a locally-grown peach. As chef Patrick Soucy says, “I needed five napkins to wipe my mouth after biting the locally-grown peach”.

The sickening effects of atmospheric formaldehyde may have become a hot topic thanks to FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina, but the problem is hardly limited to mobile homes. Formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a widespread health concern introduced to buildings through industrial textiles like carpeting and by materials, like plywood, that use certain adhesives.

That doesn’t mean we have to accept living in toxic rooms. Researchers in Korea have measured the extent to which household plants can clean the air, and their discoveries are encouraging.

In a report whose findings are currently circulating online, Kwang Jin Kim of Korea’s National Horticultural Research Institute says that he was able to use plants to remove 80% of the formaldehyde in a room within four hours.

In rooms without the plants, levels decreased naturally by around 7% during a five-hour period.

The team tested unusual configurations of the plants, from setups in which leafy parts were trimmed away to others in which the below-ground portion of the plant was sealed off from the room’s air.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best performer was an array of complete plants – specifically, the Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina) and Fatsia japonica, an evergreen shrub. Microorganisms in the potting soil contributed to the air-cleaning process, the scientists believe.

Copyright ©2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

A new product turns to technology to help your plants thrive. Your plants sit there – silently begging for your attention. And many of us stare back and wonder what to do.

>> Watch now

The idea of training plants to grow into odd, useful forms isn’t a new one. It’s been done for ages, has been the subject of enthusiast-penned books, and in recent years has attracted the interest of fine artists and architects.

Photo: Dr. Mitchell Joachim, Terreform 1

Now two professors at Tel Aviv University hope to move eco-architecture into the commercial realm, designing products that can be sold and grown around the world.

As envisioned by Professors Yoav Waisel and Amram Eshel, the structures would emphasize the use of tree roots instead of branches: Manipulating “aerial root development,” they imagine using aeroponically grown (that is, without soil) tree roots that remain easily pliable for unique applications like tree-root dwellings that would be inherently earthquake-resistant in California.

Nothing like that is currently being offered by the professors’ commercial partner Plantware, which is showcasing more whimsical and decorative items like tree-shaded chairs and coat hangers that grow out of pots. The joint TAU/Plantware effort is starting modestly, with plans to “build” street lamps and park benches out of growing materials in locations around the United States, Australia and Israel.

But that hasn’t stopped the researchers and entrepreneurs from releasing some very fanciful drawings depicting whole homes that use trees for their skeletons. Plantware CEO Gordon Glazer admits such dwellings are further down the road, probably at least a decade. But they would have some nice green features – beyond being intrinsically green – such as built-in composting and rainwater capture systems. See the dissection below.

As a press release puts it: “While the method of ‘growing your own home’ can take years, the result is long lasting and desirable” — especially for prospective home-growers who don’t live in regions with heavy woodpecker populations.

Photo: Dr. Mitchell Joachim, Terreform 1

Copyright © 2008.Distributed by Noofangle Media