The Greater Edmonton Alliance (GEA) is the most exciting thing to happen to Edmonton, sustainability-wise, in forever.

The alliance, composed mostly of churches and unions, has taken on local food and energy efficiency retrofits for existing houses as its two main initiatives.

They have produced some amazing results so far. Among other things,  they packed a city hall meeting with almost 700 people to help save some of Edmonton’s priceless agricultural land last year, and they also organized the very high-profile potato giveaway last summer.

Sustainable Works Launch on Wednesday

If you’ve wondered how to go about retrofitting of your older home, the Sustainable Works program is for you. GEA plans to help retrofit thousands (thousands!) of homes in Edmonton over the coming years. The big launch is on Wednesday . I’ll be there, and I hope that you’ll consider showing your support.

The Greater Edmonton Alliance (GEA) invites you to the launch of  read more... »

Raspberries growing in Edmonton, Alberta

It’s been quite a dry year, much to the relief of TV weather people all over the city. They’ve barely had to complain at all about their waterskiing getting interrupted just so the pesky ecosystem can get some water.

The dryness is one reason that I’m impressed by the raspberry harvest. The iconic prairie canes are chock full of fruit at my community garden. With little maintenance or water, no fertilizer, and no pesticides, raspberries are as close to a zero-carbon food as there is.  read more... »

Indian Tomato Rice Soup

I'm always on the lookout for vegetarian recipes that can be made with local organic ingredients. When I get to eat straight from my garden, especially in November, I get even more excited. The rice aspect of this soup isn't so local, but I always use leftover rice, so I'm reducing food waste. Plus, it's shipped dry (from California), so the calories per gallon of diesel fuel ratio is pretty high (I can say things like that because it's already well established that I'm the world's biggest eco-nerd).  read more... »

Readers at both my blog suite-mck.livejournal.com and here at greenedmonton.ca asked about the taste of the dandelion root coffee that I described here.

As you can see below, after grinding and brewing, it certainly looks like coffee, and the 50-50% blend with real coffee is barely distinguishable for having been economically adulterated.  read more... »

Edmonton has a new movement: guerrilla gardening. A group of Edmontonians has started organizing and enacting gardening events that aim to promote "issues of community ownership, food security, native habitat, biodiversity, and the direct replenishing the environment in which we live our daily lives". Awesome.  read more... »

It's harvest time in Edmonton, and that means fresh, delicious food from our gardens at virtually no cost to the environment. Last night I made some soup, with 90% of the ingredients coming from my garden or the farmer's market. If I had a bigger/better garden, it could have been a 100-foot diet soup.

Ingredients:  read more... »

I grew up eating Sunny Boy hot cereal. It use to come in a box. And the sunny boy looked different. With a bit of brown sugar, the taste probably reminds many Edmontonians of Saturday morning cartoons and cold winter mornings before school.  read more... »

If you've somehow stumbled upon this "Market Report" hoping to get an update on your IBM or Bear Stearns stock, please move on - nothing to see here. If, on the other hand, you've come here because you're interested in local food in Edmonton, come on in.

When it comes to "eating green", vegetables have it all over meat (despite the advancements in "in vitro meat"!). Even better, if you can eat in-season, organic, locally-grown produce, you've hit the trifecta.

For those of us without the benefit of a garden in our backyard (or a backyard at all for that matter), the farmers' market is our best source of locally-grown produce, much of which is grown organically. Beyond the environmental benefits, the vegetables are fresher, they taste better, and you can often talk to the folks who grew it.  read more... »

This is Tree Stone bakery in Old Strathcona. I love living near such a great bakery, and I would include walking distance to a local bakery on my list of must haves when choosing where to live.

Nancy Rubilak, the Tree Stone's owner/operator, buys almost all of her ingredients from local farmers, and uses organic ingredients in many of her creations. Plus, I love the fact that I can buy bread in one of the reusable cloth bag that she sells.  read more... »

In countries like Germany, beer and many foods play an important role in local culture. A small German city of 75,000 - 100,000 people will have one or two local breweries that its people are fiercely proud of. If we followed suit, Edmonton would have ten or more local beers for us to choose from. Drinking beer would be way more fun.  read more... »