Battling Bad Behaving Bamboo!

Is your bamboo not behaving itself? Is what started out as a dainty garnish in one particular corner of your yard and now out of control? Perhaps you’re the new homeowner of a garden already littered with unkempt patches of these hearty shoots. Maybe you’re just not a fan of bamboo and want it gone. If you fit into any of these scenarios, sorry friend, but you’ve got your work cut out for you! Like unwanted body hair, trimming or yanking are nothing more than temporary solutions with ugly results. Good news though, in this case, you won’t need to invest in expensive laser treatment.

What makes bamboo such a great renewable resource also makes it incredibly difficult to get rid of. Bamboo contains rhizomes. Rhizomes are a type of stem that spread out horizontally through the soil and sprout new shoots (culms). What could look like several individual plants might very possibly be just one, where each culm is interconnected underground. This makes it difficult to trim away undesired culms, as you won’t be able to predict from where new ones will sprout. Furthermore, it’s nearly impossible to uproot all of the rhizomes. Some will inevitably remain in the soil, and bamboo will continue to grow.

If your aim is to contain the bamboo, building a barrier is essential. You can adapt the same technique we suggested last week in the blog post “Get started with your Bamboo Garden”. Be sure to dig a trench far enough away from the existing bamboo so that no stray rhizomes remain outside the barrier. This can be difficult to guarantee, especially if you’ve uprooted some of the existing growth. Building a stream or pond is far more effective, as bamboo will not grow through bodies of water. Concrete will work in place of water, but just doesn’t look very nice and will eventually succumb to the elements.

Although management and adaptation is environmentally ideal, if you simply must kill your bamboo your best bet is using a natural herbicide like vinegar. This is a tricky and time-sensitive process. Using a pair of shears, cut the culm about 6 inches from the ground. With a paintbrush, brush the vinegar onto the end of the culm. The goal here is to have the sap in the exposed end absorb the herbicide and carry it down the culm into the rhizomes, thus killing the whole plant. If it takes you longer than 15 seconds to apply the herbicide, the sap has already receded down the culm and it will be too late for the herbicide to have any effect. Here’s hoping you weren’t reading this step-by-step as you gave it a shot!

The herbicidal method is only viable if you’re ridding yourself of a manageable number of culms. For removing bamboo en masse, you may wish to hire professionals. The technique involves a backhoe and large quantities of gravel. On the smaller scale though, all you need is yourself, some diligence, and a little bit of elbow grease to succeed.

Clumpers and Runners: Getting Started On Your Bamboo Garden

Clumping & Running Bamboo (by the little farm acre)

Elegant and easy, growing bamboo is a cinch to get started. And forget those nay-sayers warnings that this striking shoots will overtake your personal Eden. Never you worry, growing bamboo and keeping it in line can achieved with minimal effort.

The first step is to figure out the type of bamboo you’d like to grow. There are many varieties, but they generally fall into two groups: clumpers and runners. The root structure of bamboo is complimented by rhizomes (a type of stem that stores nutrients and spreads horizontally through the soil), and these rhizomes will produce offshoot bamboo stalks (culms). The rhizomes in clumping bamboo never stray far from the initial shoots, but they will spread out across a much larger area in running bamboo. Clumpers are recommended in almost all instances except for when planting an expansive hedge or grove, as all additional culms will naturally grow within a fairly constrained area. Runners can easily get out of hand in the garden, and their invasiveness is difficult to remedy.

Spring or early summer are the best times to plant bamboo. But before you start digging up a hole for planting, you’ll need some sort of material at hand for containing the spread of rhizomes. Metal strips or concrete will work, but will degrade through weathering. High density polyethylene (HDPE) that is at least 40mil (~1mm) thick and 24-36 inches (~61-92cm) wide is recommended. Your trench should be no smaller than a square yard (~92cm squared), and about 2 inches (~5cm) shallower than the width of your containment material. Compact the soil in the bottom as well as you can, then install your barrier along the sides of the trench. It should stick 2 inches (~5cm) above the surrounding soil in order to stop any rhizomes from growing unnoticed over it. Carefully place the bamboo plant into the centre of the hole, and gently fill the trench with soil. You’ll want to carefully compact the first half of the fill, while leaving the second half loose. Lightly watering the soil as you fill up the trench can also be beneficial to the plant, but don’t overdo it.

Now that it’s in the ground, your bamboo will require a little bit of pampering over the next several years. It’s important to keep it well watered (if the leaves curl, the bamboo’s thirsty), especially during the first year. Bamboo grows very quickly, so staking the taller initial culms can help to prevent uprooting. Leaving mulch over the surrounding soil is great, as it controls soil moisture and temperature. High nitrogen fertilizer is the food of choice, but is not to be used at the time of planting. Instead, fertilize in March, June, and September. Try to keep the immediate area weed free, as bamboo doesn’t appreciate the competition. Annual pruning of dead culms will be necessary, and you’ll need to make periodic checks for rhizomes hopping the barrier. Cut them back to avoid undesired spreading. Pruning doesn’t damage the plant, and can even promote its growth.

Although it’ll take about 3 years to fully establish itself, if you follow these instructions your new bamboo will be growing so quickly you can expect beautiful results within a month or two!

The Bamboo Basics: Introducing an Extraordinary Plant Resource

Bamboo Flowers

So get this: bamboo isn’t a tree, it’s actually a type of grass. Not only is it the tallest grass on earth, it’s also the tallest plant. Its list of achievements doesn’t end there. It grows faster than any other plant, about 3-4 feet or more per day. For this reason, it’s an amazing renewable resource. It can be efficiently reharvested every 3-7 years with minimal impact on the environment. The root system can be left intact when harvesting, and so the cycle of regeneration and cutting back in fact can improve the health of the individual plants.

Luckily enough, this abundantly renewable resource has an endless number of uses and already finds it way into our daily lives in many ways: in our food, gardens, clothing, linens, architecture, furniture, etc. Various methods have even been devised to produce fuel from bamboo. Still, despite its exhaustive prevalence, the most definitive image of bamboo for many of us is that of its culm (stalk). Sleek and staggeringly upright, we often picture it as one of many in a forest of cool and calming green vertical lines. What we often forget is that bamboo produce flowers, and their blooming is extraordinary.

The flowering of bamboo tends to be a remarkable event, although the flowers themselves aren’t too spectacular. They bear no petals, and are unable to attract insects to aid in pollination. What’s unusual about the flowering of bamboo is its frequency. While some rare types do flower annually, most flower only once over a period of decades—sometimes as long as 130 years. By some sort of scientifically unknown mechanism (probably genetic), all bamboo plants in a region will bloom simultaneously. This normally marks the end of the life cycle for whole populations of the plant, and in some cases can be immediately devastating for both humans and animals that rely on the local bamboo for their livelihood and sustenance. However, the bamboo flower deposits a huge number of seeds onto the ground that effectively renew the entire population of dying plants relatively quickly. Icing on the cake for an already resilient and virile species. Without a doubt they’ll continue to outgrow and outlast the infinite uses we can find for them.

A Serious Sting: The Current Bee Colony Crisis

Photo from fOTOGLIF

The inner workings of bee culture are fascinating. From the way these little busy bodies work around the clock to their limbo lingo form of communicative dance. But did you know bees are an integral part of our livelihoods? Their cross pollination process is one of the main ways plants reproduce and diversify. And plants of course, are important for almost every reason in the book, from food to soil and water sustainability. Without them, living or even surviving would be a struggle.

Whether this is an intro to bee-cology for you or you’re a long time bee enthusiast, it may be time to brush up or fill your kids in on the fact that bees are rapidly disappearing.

When a bee on a scouting mission finds a source of pollen, it flies back to the hive to let the other workers know where to go. The scout performs a complex dance that explains the direction and distance of the pollen in relation to the hive. The individual workers stock up enough honey to fuel themselves for the journey there and back, and set off to collect the pollen. The fruit of their labour is then used to make more honey.

Of course, the success their mission depends on remembering where it is they’re headed, and bringing enough food to keep them going for the round trip. The scout’s choreography is extremely accurate, but the presence of genetically modified crops’ pollen is making this dancing duty difficult. This is lethal for the workers, and leads to Colony Collapse Disorder. The hive loses the workforce it needs to sustain itself.

Most genetically modified crops are designed to host Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which is a natural insecticide used to fight crop-destroying bugs. Bees are not harmful to crops, in fact they are important players in the reproductive process of plants. However, Bt from the pollen of genetically modified crops is ending up in the bees’ food supply. While it won’t kill a bee directly, it elicits an immune response in the bee that consumes protein. The bees need this protein to form memories and learn effectively. Without them, the workers can’t judge how much honey to stock on their pollen runs, much less remember the instructions of the scout. Lost and starved, the worker bees die. Honey supplies diminish, and the hive falls into decline.

A sad but very true set of circumstances. Fortunately, knowledge is one of greatest tools to spark change. Letting your family and friends in on the many ways we can reduce our carbon footprint can help us all, even the littlest creatures.

Coming Soon to Grocery Stores Near You: the animated adventures of food

Vancouver-based animator and Vimeo member The Juki Museum created Home is where the food is for the 100-Mile Diet Society as a promotional piece to support local British Columbian produce, dairy, and seafood; and highlight some easy consumer choices we can all make to help reduce our eating habits’ environmental impact.

Mixing a cooking show with a documentary, accented by charming animated line drawings, the film explains how almost every ingredient in a delicious pasta recipe can be obtained locally without sacrificing the convenience of a supermarket. Even the narrator at one point is surprised by how easily she is able to acquire what she needs. The only exception is the butter, which comes from Quebec, and serves as an example to why buying locally is the greener choice: over three thousand kilometres’ worth of carbon emissions are released in transporting the butter to the west coast.

• http://www.getlocalbc.org/en/
• http://www.bcfarmersmarket.org
• http://www.actnowbc.ca/everyone/buy_local,_in_season_fruits_and_vegetables
• http://www.bcfarmfresh.com/

The Bamboo Warehouse: Ringing in the Next (re)Generation

Gerry Brumer of Bamboo Warehouse thinks big. His vision for how bamboo can potentially change our planet is inspiration to say the least. With this versatile resource on the brain and non-renewable resources like wood, plastics and steel off, Gerry and his company are educators first and foremost in environmentally friendly awareness.

In 2005, Gerry met with Michael Berlin, who was importing Asian antique furniture for a company he called Kipunji. Berlin proposed they utilize his already apt product sourcing skills to start a home furnishings company. Gerry agreed under the condition that it must be eco-friendly. Berlin showed Gerry a piece of bamboo he had brought back from China, and after sourcing a few suppliers, the two men hit the ground running with their idea. “We wanted to use bamboo in a different way, not just as flooring, but as a resource.”

China, Gerry tells me, has not only 1200 species of bamboo, but also the strongest, called Moso. This type of bamboo only grows in China, and naturally, it is ideal for flooring. Of course, sourcing from China also had its share of problems. Gerry soon realized that the bamboo flooring also scratched easily because the bamboo plywood’s finishing (glues, varnishing, oils) also came from China, meaning it had formaldehyde in it. It was then that Gerry conformed the Bamboo Warehouse to European standards, using formaldehyde-free European finishing products or leaving the plywood unfinished until they arrived in Montreal, leaving the company to control the level of carcinogenic components.

Also, having the ability to import the materials yet transform them locally allowed Gerry to ensure the finishing as well as custom design the product. Gerry tells me that having Bamboo Warehouse as the first company to introduce bamboo plywood to be transformed locally has really appealed to the public. Designers especially like working with bamboo for several reasons. Firstly, bamboo is new and exciting material to work with. On that same note, bamboo is also different from wood and therefore carries an exotic element appealing to many, not to mention its green chique-ness! Bamboo boards are available finished, prefinished or stained. Scratches on wood are stark and noticeable. With bamboo, a carbonization process allows the option for a lighter, more blonde hue to the boards, making scratches less conspicuous – a very attractive quality of bamboo boards indeed! Finally, designers appreciate the option of buying one rather than twenty boards at a time with Bamboo Warehouse, saving themselves and their clients from unnecessary costs.

Like Gerry, his employees are not sales representatives, but educators in the field. With so much misinformation out there, Gerry stresses the importance of awareness. “We give you the same attention and education whether you’re buying one piece or a hundred.”

When buying bamboo flooring, Gerry heeds one word of advice: “for the sake of your health, ask your bamboo retailer where their toxic finishing products come from and ask them for proof.” Most of Bamboo Warehouse’s products for example, are stamped “BONA”, an environmentally-friendly bamboo provider based in Sweden.

Understanding that nice flooring will always be more a luxury than a need, Gerry and Michael looked into other facets that compliment the sustainable benefits of bamboo.

Today, the Bamboo Warehouse is offering a wide variety of products made of bamboo see: www.bamboowarehouse.ca Gerry is so convinced of the versatility and eco-sustainability of bamboo as a resource, he predicts that within three years bamboo fibers may even replace paper money on account of the antibacterial element! “2010 is the year we get bamboo into markets no one could even imagine it being in!”

Warming our Hearts or Warming our Globe?

The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games have come and gone, but what’s left behind may be more than an air of pride and patriotism. Advertisements and souvenir license plates still declare the city and province “the most beautiful place on earth.” Maybe it’s an enthusiastic expression of pride in line with Olympic team spirit more so than an unabashed statement of fact, but you can’t deny we live in a stunning corner of the globe.

Actions speak louder than words, and with green issues in the forefront of many Vancouverite minds, a bold and very public statement like that needed to be backed up with official deeds – enter solar powered pay parking ticket dispensers.  And let’s not forget GM providing around 4600 vehicles to the VANOC fleet for use in carrying out Olympic business.  About 33% of those were based on hybrid and other alternative fuel technologies, the rest incorporated cutting edge fuel efficiency processes in their engines.  A small handful of experimental and pre-production models also made it to the party.

However, it is unfortunate that an all too common sight during the games were official and often higher occupancy vehicles driving around town without any passengers.  The remaining two thirds of the fleet were still producing emissions, even if they weren’t as polluting as most other cars out there. This past month the majority of the fleet has been made available for consumer purchase, complete with original Vancouver 2010 markings.  Most of them went on sale in the States, spreading these eco-friendlier vehicles across North America.

Let’s hope Olympic branding can add the extra incentive need for average shoppers to purchase cars that are environmentally conscious and increasingly less dependent on fossil fuels.

GM isn’t the only one focused on greener automotive production considerations.  Canada’s KUMHO Tires also advertise environmental friendliness as they are HA oil free.

Here is a range of current and common rides for the environmentally-minded:

Volkswagen Jetta TDI

With a bio-diesel concoction of 1 part renewable diesel to 19 parts conventional petrol, driving this Jetta will reduce emissions by 5%. Greener bio-diesel mixtures will increase that percentage even further. It also helps that the car nurses it’s gas tank like a glass of fine single malt scotch.

Ford Fusion Hybrid

Featuring an already extremely fuel efficient engine regardless of the integrated hybrid system, Ford claims this model only needs to visit a gas station about once a month. Saves you some money, saves the planet some clean air.

Smart Fortwo

Compact and distinctive, the Smart Car is not only fuel efficient but also renders emissions mostly innocuous by simply blowing fresh air into the exhaust to produce an oxidising process. It is almost completely manufactured from recyclable and recycled materials, and the assembly line aims to be as ecologically friendly as possible: vastly reduced delivery distance for supplies, chemically mild paint, and a European record for shortest production time start to finish are just a few of the measures currently maintained.

Aptera 2e

Resembling something out of Minority Report, the Aptera 2e aims to facilitate efficiency by being as aerodynamic as currently possible. Solar panels keep the cabin temperature just the way you like it without impeding the car from it’s primary job: getting you from point A to point B whilst seamlessly and conveniently integrating your smart phone’s communication and jukebox features. Just don’t forget to plug it into your standard household socket to charge overnight.

Toyota Prius

Also taking no longer than your average cell phone to charge, this auto can take you 20km at speeds up to 100km/h without consuming a drop of gas. Switch to hybrid mode for longer journeys and enjoy an efficient and economic voyage that’ll let you take your eyes off gas station prices for a while.

Tesla Roadster

Providing optimal torque even when stationary, the electric Tesla Roadster is several times more efficient than gasoline powered cars when it comes to performance. You better have deep pockets though, as it costs $125 000 and up!

Nissan Altima Hybrid

Performance needn’t be sacrificed to take a load off the environment and your bank account. The standard gas engine is only used when the electric motor needs assistance, or when taking over completely is the most efficient use of fuel.

Honda Civic Hybrid

Slow this Civic down to rest at a red light, and the engine automatically shuts off. No emissions while idle, and extremely low emissions when driving, this environmentally friendly car also benefits from engine performance enhancements made possible by a magnetic electric motor.

Egg-cology 101

With Easter just around the corner, eggs are on the brain! From candy coated to foil wrapped to cream filled, the egg icon has come a long way from its original intentions of symbolizing rebirth (what bunnies and chickens have to do with Passover is still up for debate!).

Like many families, you might enjoy the tradition of dunking and decorating hard boiled (or uncooked and hollowed) eggs for this holiday. But as thousands upon thousands of these delectable domes leave supermarket selves this weekend, let’s consider some uses beyond the ornamental. We hope you’ll l’oeuf the results!

1. My personal favourite use for eggs is, of course, eating them! In addition to making a tasty snack, eggs are also jammed with essential proteins and amino acids. These help reduce muscular degeneration and help keep your hair and nails healthy and strong.

If you’re watching your wasteline this Easter after a number of rich holiday meals, one hardboiled egg is quite filling, giving you more bang for your calorie buck! Like nuts and avocados, eggs have the useful kind of fat, only 5 grams of it at that and only 76 calories.

When selecting your eggs, keep an eye of these labels:

Natural

• These eggs must be approved by the USDA to have no artificial colors and ingredients. Almost all eggs these days are natural, so if the carton doesn’t read it, maybe you’re in the wrong grocery store!

Certified Organic

• the hens laying your eggs roam freely outdoors and consume an organic feed

Certified Humane

• Strictly regulated by the Humane Farm Animal Care organization, these hens roam stress-free in a spacious zone under the care of professionally trained farmers.

2. Compost and is always a great idea. In addition to making your soil rich and fertile, the sharp surfaces of crushed egg shells also deter snails and slugs from reaching your plants. The vitamins in egg shells are also particularly useful for cacti fertilizer.

Also, let’s not forget the carton itself. These soft, biodegradable egg holders are great for absorbing excess water in your compost.

3. For years now, farmers have used ground up egg shells in chicken feed to provide calcium and other essential minerals. Try doing the same thing for your dog or cat’s wet food. Like your own hair and nails, the vitamins in the eggshells keep your pet’s coat thick and shiny. Make sure you use the eggshells from your boiled eggs only though, as you’ll need to kill the bacteria first.

4. Many farmer’s markets and local grocery stores, especially mom-and-pop run, will refill your old egg carton. Give it a try next time you’re in.

5. The little compartments of egg cartons have endless reusable options, from sewing kits to jewelry boxes. However, try keeping glassware like lightbulbs or, that other big holiday’s accessories, Christmas ornaments in egg cartons.

6. All the energy put into beautifying those eggs don’t have to go to waste after Easter. Instead, consider using the already-decorated, pre-hollowed shells as tea light sized candles. Simple crack open the top of the shell, fill with wax (a funnel helps), scented with your favourite essential oil and a wick and voila! Place the candles on egg holders and you’ve got yourself a work of art. For more detailed instructions, click here:

7. On the same note, another fun and festive alternative for decorated (and even plain) hollowed shells are using them for potted planters. Fill the shells with soil and seeds, ideally those that grow easily in small spots like rutabaga, barley, wheatgrass and watch them grow. They make great gifts, friendly for the environment and friendly for your wallet. I often keep a little potter of grass for my cat, who enjoys the tasty treat’s benefits in digestion.