An island within an island

Island Botanicals, located near Bokeelia in Pine Island, truly is an island of sustainability, sound agricultural practices and smart, diversified production. Owner Mike Wallace was inspecting some onion starts he was about to put in the ground today as I arrived, and was glad to give me a tour of his 4+ acres, where he grows a dizzingly diverse variety of crops, ornamentals, exotics and natives, fruits and herbs. If you're interested in seeing some pictures of his place, you can find them here.

We actually started inside, as he was cooking some bacon for his dogs - yeah, that's some pampered dogs he has there! I checked out his Pine Island digs while he finished cooking, a typical house on pillars in the island style, beautifully blending with the vegetation all around it, and decorated with much taste inside, in an Oriental style, with many objects brought from Mike and his wife's travels around the world.

As Mike guided me around his property in his usual laid back style, we picked a healthier breakfast for ourselves, a couple of ripe bananas from one of his trees. We discussed the fact that commercially grown bananas are very prone to getting contaminated with pesticides, because of the porous nature of their skins. And what a shame it is that more bananas are not grown in SWFL instead of being imported. Put two green guys together, a rant is sure to follow!

Food production is the main focus of the place, from basic staples -sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, onions- to tropical fruit -mangoes, bananas, papayas, starfruit-, greens -lettuces, bok choi, mustards, chard, arugula and many others-, and herbs -basils, cilantro, kafer lime, used for the fragrant leaves and not for the fruit.

There's also room for ornamentals -palms, bromeliads, orchids- and one of a kind specimens: Madagascar chestnut, Ling Ling, which is the national tree of Thailand, very fragrant, smells a bit like a gardenia, also called golden shower tree for the cascading yellow flowers it produces, different kinds of ginger, passion fruit, bamboos... most of it keeping with the Oriental theme, as you can see!

There's several Moringa trees spread around the property. This is a "miracle" tree that could solve the problem of hunger, especially in Africa. According to treesforlife.org, the leaves of the Moringa tree contain 7 times the vitamin C of oranges, 4 times the calcium of milk, 3 times the potassium of bananas, 2 times the protein of yogurt... you get the picture. Mike says they are very easy to grow, literally just put a branch in the ground, and it will start a new tree. He showed me a tree on a corner of his property that he tried to eliminate on several occassions, and it kept coming back. The nuts of the Moringa are also edible, and it has many medicinal properties as well as the nutritional value, according to ancient Vedic and African lore. If you look at the map of world malnutrition, it coincides almost exactly with the tropical range where this incredible tree can be grown. So I think this is one of the examples of areas where our humble local farmers can be on the cutting edge of contributing to the solution of massive problems, Mike experimenting with Moringa trees is one case, just like Ken Ryan of Herban Gardens in N. Ft. Myers trying to grow Jatropha for biodiesel with the help of Roy Beckford of IFAS Extension is another.

As for techniques for growing the more traditional herbs and veggies Michael brings to the Green Market at the Alliance for the Arts every Saturday, he employs organic and pesticide free methods, including crop rotation, fallowing, planting in many small plots where pests can be isolated and controlled without spreading to other areas, Diatomaceous earth — also known as DE, TSS, diatomite, diahydro, kieselguhr— a naturally occurring, soft, chalk-like sedimentary rock that is easily crumbled into a fine white to off-white powder (according to Wiki) for slug control, composting, manures and even hair from local salons as fertilizer, really a wide variety of sustainable methods for growing healthy, delicious food locally.

Island Botanicals is also one of the few local growers that consistently delivers during the summer months, making it a valuable assett for keeping residents supplied with locally grown produce year-round.

Plans for the future include intensifying the production of sprouts with a partner, and introducing escargot (edible) snails to an area of the property.

I have to apologize if I'm missing something here, as Mike's beautiful dog Ramsay took advantage of a moment of distraction while I was checking out the cashew tree and tried to eat my notes (and my clipboard) for lunch! See, the "my dog ate my homework" excuse is true after all, in some cases!

We're very proud to have Island Botanicals at the Green Market, Mike always brings interesting stuff and is very knowledgeable, customers love him, he's a one-of-a-kind fellow, and I was very impressed at his wonderful groves, grounds and gardens.

After visiting him, I still had time to stop at Andy's Island Seafood for a locally caught lunch, and at Billy Sol's place to check out his experiments in vermiculture (worm produced fertilizer), edible flowers, and the production of Neem. But those stories will have to wait, as they both warrant blog posts and photo galleries of their own.

“We want to stay small and support local farmers and growers.”

November 18, 2009

Lee, Collier, Charlotte county farmers markets bloom with produce



by drew sterwald
dsterwald@news-press.com

Emily White clutched a bouquet of yellow roses in one hand and a bag of potatoes and bell peppers in the other. 

She’d just made the rounds at the Chamber of Commerce farmers market in downtown Cape Coral. With friends Marianne Masterson and Joann Hasselbeck, she drives every week from Sanibel to shop the aisles of produce, fresh seafood and bakery goods at the market.

“It’s less expensive than the store, and it’s fresh,” she said. “We come every Saturday and then go out for breakfast. We make a day of it.”

Weekly farmers markets like the Cape’s are multiplying like mushrooms. Coconut Point in Estero launched a new one last week. After a test run last spring, Sanibel’s market is celebrating its first full season. 



Turf wars are even erupting. Two markets in Bonita Springs are feuding over competing on the same day, and insiders at more than one market claim managers try to poach better vendors.

All this over fresh veggies.

These open-air markets can feel like traveling fairs. Vendors drive from one market to another like gypsies, selling their wares in tents. Musicians strum guitars and sing. Shoppers stroll with dogs on leashes.

When high season kicks in, about 7,000 people shop at Cape’s Saturday market, according to manager Claudia St. Onge.

Most come for the produce, which may be grown locally or in such Florida farm strongholds as Immokalee, Plant City and Ruskin.

“Those guys are our ‘anchor stores,’” St. Onge said. “Produce really carries the market.”

Produce also is the backbone of the almost 20-year-old Bonita Springs Lions Club’s farmers market/flea market at The Promenade, said manager John Elliff.

“The biggest draw is fresh vegetables and fruit,” he said. 



Shoppers at farmers markets in Southwest Florida now see only the season’s first offerings — the early bloomers. Growers will have greater quantity and diversity as they get deeper into the season.

A tour of markets last weekend turned up interesting food findings:

• Kumquats, white chocolate bread and fried cheese curds (Cape).



• Dried carambola stars, locally smoked pepper bacon and pretty pink salad turnips (North Naples).



• Gourmet cheese, pulled pork barbecue and hot peppers in shades of red, gold, purple and green (Alliance for the Arts, Fort Myers).



At the Alliance’s GreenMarket, Jennifer Rogers of Inyoni Organics in Naples sold arugula, bok choy, red-leaf lettuce, mustard and collard greens under the generous shade of a sprawling poinciana. Greens cost $2 a bunch; squash and cucumbers were $1 apiece or three for $2.

A month from now, she should have onions, carrots and beans, too. Planting just started in September.

“You never really know what you’re going to have from week to week,” Rogers said.
That frustrates some shoppers, especially during fallow summer months, according to Santiago De Choch. A native and organic landscaper, he oversees the GreenMarket, visiting farms to ensure vendors use sustainable practices or practice organic methods. 



De Choch also educates consumers about the seasonality of crops and the benefits of eating food that hasn’t traveled far from the field. As soon as a vegetable is picked, it begins to lose nutrients, moisture and flavor. The less time spent on a truck or shelf, the better.

Buying locally also supports the hometown economy and the future of farming.
“We’re trying to focus on local food,” De Choch said. “We want to stay small and support local farmers and growers.”

The Egg Lady vendor, for instance, had flown the coop Saturday. Her “girls” weren’t laying, De Choch said. “We’d rather not have eggs than go to a supermarket for them,” he said. “That’s what sets us apart.”

Additional Facts

Weekly farmers markets

These are some of the weekly farmers markets in Southwest Florida; it is not comprehensive and does not include single-vendor markets open daily. Many markets are open seasonally.

Wednesdays

• Worden Farm Greenmarket: 
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. January through March at Fishermen’s Village, off Marion Avenue, Punta Gorda. 

• Bonita Springs: Locally grown produce, fresh seafood, potted orchids, cut flowers, potted plants, Florida citrus and much more. 7 a.m.-1 p.m.
27300 Old 41 Road, south of Riverside Park.

Thursdays

• Downtown Fort Myers: Fruits, vegetables, fresh flowers, local seafood, plants, palms, fruit trees, flowering shrubs, and doggie treats are available. 7 a.m.-2 p.m. at Centennial Park under the Caloosahatchee Bridge. 321-7098.

• Coconut Point, Estero: Fruits, vegetables, baked goods, fresh fish, plants and flowers, jams and chutneys, local honey. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. in the parking lot adjacent to Panera Bread. 249-9480.

Saturdays

• Alliance for the Arts’ GreenMarket: Fresh vegetables — most locally grown and some organic — as well as fresh fish, natural salsas and chutneys, locally produced honey, bakery goods, native plants, gourmet cheese, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., 10091 McGregor Blvd., Fort Myers. 939-2787. 

• Bonita Springs: Fresh cut flowers, folk art, collectibles, fresh local produce, fresh off the boat seafood, local artists, baked goods and crafts. 7 a.m. to noon at The Promenade Shoppes at the northwest corner U.S. 41 and Bonita Bay Boulevard. Sponsored by the Lion’s Club, the market has also just expanded to Wednesdays.

• Cape Coral: Fresh fruits and vegetables, Gulf seafood, baked goods, native plants and trees, Wisconsin cheeses, fresh roasted nuts and more. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. October through May at Club Square off S.E. 47th Terrace and S.E. 10th Place. 549-6900. 

• North Naples Green Market: Fresh local produce, organic fruits and vegetables, herbs and plants, gourmet breads and pastries, fresh flowers, seafood, meats, tropical fruit jams and salsas, local honey, personal chef creations and a unique selection of upscale artisan items. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. at Collection at Vanderbilt, corner of Vanderbilt Beach Road and Airport Pulling Road. 249-9480.

• Third Street Farmer’s Market: Fruits, vegetables, breads, pastas, sauces, cakes, pies and other pastries, cheeses, fresh crab, and prepared foods, flowers, plants, soaps, shell mirrors and frames, woven coconut frond hats and baskets, dog treats and accessories. 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. behind Tommy Bahama in the Neapolitan parking lot between Third Street South and Gordon Drive.

Saturdays and Sundays

• Pine Island Tropical Fruit Market: Tropical fruit, plants, organic vegetables and greens. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday (also 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays June-September). Stringfellow Road at Ficus Tree Lane, Bokeelia.

Sundays

• Sanibel Island Farmers Market: More than 30 vendors will have local fruits and vegetables, flowers, plants, seafood, bakery items, cheeses, jams, nuts, pasta, dog cookies and other products from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Tahitian Gardens, 1975 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel. 691-9249 or 218-1055.

The Archaic Revival

I borrowed the title for this post from one of Terence McKenna's books. I'm sure Terence wouldn't mind. He passed away a few years ago, but left a body of work and a number of deep, original ideas, to justify his time on this Earth, and that of several thousand of his contemporaries, left and right. Actually, just the other day I was looking for skeletons in closets, and a letter from him appeared. From the late 90's. Happy that his work was being published in South America.

Old Terence McKenna, on his soap box, a soap box of the intellect really, and of deep spirituality, railing against the sprawl, the materialism, the mega-malls, the turning of our backs to Nature.

This is where Nick Batts' farm, Inyoni Organics, appears in the narrative, because.... I mean just look at the pictures here. All this, with chicken manure, and soap water, and an old John Deere tractor and some very dedicated hands. Just look at the scene. Doesn't it awake something in you? Something long forgotten, something that you may never have experienced yourself but is in your jeans-genes? That's right. A patch of land, surrounded by forest on all sides. Human toil, sweat, the uncertainty of the floods and the locusts and all the biblical stuff. To eke, to coax something out of the Earth. The Archaic Revival.

Right off the bat, let me say that Mr Nick and his people deserve all the support we can give them, so if you happened upon this and you live in this part of the world, please show up every Saturday morning, from 9 to 1 (although I hope he runs out of stuff to sell before closing time), buy some of their produce, be their friend. Support them, like I said. Colonial and McGregor, the big park around the Alliance for the Arts, you can't miss it. So that's that.

It seems that all I say, and all I write about, is about how we've become so out of touch with the realities of the land, and of Nature, and how we need to start paying more attention to how our food is grown and what compromises we make regarding this, and all that. So I won't say anything about that now. Except that Inyoni Organics doesn't make any compromises at all, and I saw it myself, and it's not bullshit. A lot of people have PR departments working on making them look green and sustainable and whatever. Mr Nick & Co. are the real deal, period.

I will talk about how it feels to be driving on Immokalee Rd, and this happens every time I'm in that area, in fact I have a friend that lives near those parts too, who raises chickens and is the most knowledgeable guy about local insects and plants, but to be driving along that road, and one whole side has been colonized by aliens. I mean on one side of the road, East I guess, the sun was coming up that way, you have a reality one can make sense of: Florida pine forest, nurseries, farms, some scattered houses. Like I said, it makes sense. We can live with that. It's not an Eden. It's not the primeval forests that Terence spent half his life wandering into and about. It's a compromise. The US Mail gets there. You can mail-order seeds or shells for the shotgun or a subscription to Vanity Fair. You can have a kick-ass organic farm there, too. You can raise some chickens, like my friend B, and go to work elsewhere every morning if you need to. You can get cable TV, if you care for that.

But the other side of the road has been colonized, razed, it's become a caricature of paradise, a completely unsustainable distopia of golf course after golf course, all greedy and thirsty and hungry for pesticides and fertilizers and cheap illegal immigrant labor, for gas-guzzling leaf blowers and lawn mowers and all full of desperate signs, "NOW DOWN TO THE LOW 200's", etc, you get the picture. And next to the golf courses, McMansions. All built in haste to milk the bubble. All made of cheap vinyl and faux stuff and Chinese drywall, all built on a little plot carefully poisoned for generations before the foundation is laid (they do that, you know... it's not a figure of speech), all with generous foyers and family rooms and granite countertops and garages big enough for the Pathfinder and the Patriot with room to spare for the jet-ski and the ATV.

Good farmland razed for this. Native forest razed for this. Charming country lanes, old homesteads, bald eagle nests, citrus groves razed for this shit. It makes sense, if you can only measure life in cold hard dollars. If you measure life that way, you're a poor cretin. I don't want to meet you or talk to you or be your friend. Because, look at what you're doing. Just look for a second.

OK, what I'm trying to say here is that all that land would have been much better off had it been left to the care of the likes of Nick. Or Horace. Or Ken. Or any farmer with an old pickup truck, a shotgun on a rack and a confederate flag (and I hate those, the flags I mean, not the shotguns, they're OK in the hands of decent adults)

Will we see an Archaic Revival, with the whole fucking bubble deflating and losing steam? Will we see Suburbia reconverted to farming? Will our current Gulf Coast Town Center shopping extravaganza be the last one built, ever? Will we have to suffer yet more golf courses and McMansions for graying people who can't think of anything better to do than to hit a little white ball on a chemical lawn and then drive the Caddy to Carrabba's for early bird dinner?

Who knows, and the current administration doesn't have a clue. These guys, starting with the empty suit in chief (and I voted for him, so shut up), are creating Cash For Clunkers schemes with yet more hastily printed money, making all the right noises about "growth" and blowing the Goldman Sachs honchos every night, if you'll pardon my French. When they should be supporting small farmers and manufacturers, thinking hard about how to reconvert our society to something more sustainable that can survive the coming crises, thinking about how to grow our food close to home, invest in rail and bicycles and dense urbanization that doesn't require Mom putting 70 miles a day to drive to work and then drive Bratleigh around for ballet and Cici's pizza in the Suburban. In a word, I don't have a lot of hope anyone has a clue. Except for a few guys here and there. Like Nick, gentleman farmer, who I hope makes a killing at the Market and has a really good season.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm too tired to think straight. It's the best I could come up with, and apologies if any feathers were ruffled. It's all in good cheer.

Good night, and good luck.

Of Markets and Farmers

Some of you know that I started managing the Green Market at the Alliance for the Arts a while ago. It's something that I'm very proud to be doing, it gives me a lot of satisfaction and pleasure, and a few headaches too.

Being a bit of an oddball myself, a lot of the pleasure comes from working with so many wonderful characters. Very independent-minded people, very proud of their individuality, very hard working, original and creative members of our community. From the farmers to the musicians to the green entrepreneurs to the cooks, they are the grassroots making change happen.

Now, ours is a smallish outfit. We value quality over quantity. But not only that. We have a very clear idea of where we want to go with it. The main thing we're interested in is local production. Buying local is the solution to so many of our problems. Limiting carbon footprints? Check. Reducing dependence on foreign fossil fuels? Check. Stimulating the local economy, reducing unemployment close to home? Check, check.

Of course, we can't be 100% local. Not yet, anyway. We don't produce our coffee here in SW FL, for example. But there's one area where we are very clear we want local, and only local, and nothing but local: fresh farm produce, fresh eggs, fresh fish, fresh honey, fresh fruit. We don't make compromises there. And that's where some of the headaches I was talking about appear.

We Americans have grown accustomed to having what we want, when we want it, no questions asked. At a good price, too. Isn't this what globalization is all about? Well, it turns out globalization has a cost. There's a hidden cost to cheap tomatoes year round: you grow them in Mexico, using human shit for fertilizer and cheap child labor for picking, not caring too much for environmental regulations, and send them over here using cheap fossil fuels. Or you grow them in California, under slightly better conditions, using illegal immigrant labor and tons of chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides. In both cases the end result is the same: your local Big Mart has tomatoes that taste like cardboard and are probably not very good for you always available.

With dwindling oil supplies, the "cheap fuel" part of the equation is about to change pretty radically. The only reason we are not seeing the cost of a barrel of oil shooting through the roof is a widespread global recession that curbs demand. Yeah, there's alternatives to oil. But nothing that can bring strawberries from Chile to the produce aisle and Pacific tuna, whose populations are depleting rapidly anyway, to the sushi counter cheaply and efficiently.

There's more to creating wealth, it seems to me, than video game developers in Oakland hiring software engineers in Bangalore to create the latest shoot-'em-up to be manufactured in China and shipped to our malls just in time for Black Friday and the Holiday Season. That might be a part of it. But how about growing food near where we live? Outsourcing what we put on our table every night to giant agribusinesses thousands of miles away doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. I mean those guys hiccup, we go without dinner. Not to mention their stuff is not very good, really.

Our little Green Market, unlike other markets in this area, makes sure it is doing its part to stimulate local production, supporting local farmers and other food vendors, without false advertising. I'm tired of visiting other markets, and I won't name names here, and seeing the same iceberg lettuces that you can get at Big Mart, the same peaches from Georgia and apples from Argentina. During the summer months, very little can be grown in South Florida, everybody knows that, or should know that. I'm constantly explaining to visitors that our produce offerings are very limited during the summer. But that this is so for a reason. And that, marvel of marvels, people lived with this fact for many generations here in Florida, and in many parts of the world still do. There's mango season, and avocado season, there's some wonderful guys growing stuff in shade houses and hydroponically, there's great locally made pickles and jams and preserves, there's starfruit and fish and chickens... but some stuff is just not available. "You can't always get what you want", like Mick Jagger used to sing... maybe that's a good thing, working on the expectations side of it, not assuming everything has to be there all the time, getting a bit more educated about it. It also helps you enjoy those peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers when they finally show up, they taste delicious, nothing like the cardboard produce at the Big Mart...

So you can see that we are trying to educate the public about local food production, which is what I do with my Green Coaches project too - that's why I think the two jobs work so well together. As the cooler season nears (and it's been a brutally hot and unusually long summer), more produce vendors are joining us. And we make sure that when they say "local", they are local. Tomorrow morning I have to check out a farm, see what's on the ground, make sure it's the same stuff that will be at Market on Saturday. Make sure nobody's buying stuff from a wholesaler and unwrapping it and putting it in crates and boxes that look "rustic" and "just picked", if you catch my hint here. No way. Not us.

And going to farms, learning from farmers, has to be one of my favorite things in the world. Farmers have a great sense of humor. A bit coarse and down to earth, sometimes. Fart and manure jokes are not uncommon. But most farmers are great observers both of nature and of human nature, see right through the BS and tell it like it is.

I'll take farmers over advertising executives any day of the week.

There's this great German gentleman farmer I visited a while ago, with the biggest collection of VW's in the world, 5 cows, many hogs and turkeys and chickens and a pond full of tilapia - he insisted I take some home, fished them right out of the water (with a hook baited with bread) for me while we drank a couple of cold ones. He owns this great restaurant that is a vendor with us, and I'm trying to get him to do some killing in his herds and flocks and put them in sandwiches for our Market customers: "locally raised, locally killed, locally cooked and locally eaten", how about that for a tagline.

There's Ken with his microgreens and gourmet herbs and heirloom veggies, with his great sense of humor and attention to detail, and the encyclopedia-like amount of knowledge he has about his craft. There's Mike with his outsized island style sombrero, easygoing ways from the times he was a wanderer and bohemian in the Caribbean, his gingers and carambolas and yams. There's the women of Rabbit Run Farms with their great eggplants and hydro greens. There's Nick from Inyoni Organics joining us in a week or two, when his stuff is ready, and some others too.

And still, it's never enough in the summer. I always have to answer questions about us not having grapes or lettuce "like the other markets". And I answer them with a smile, as many times as necessary. I talk about all the stuff I just talked about here, and much more. With pleasure.

We have other vendors at the Green Market, with great products, natural homemade soaps and candles, eco-friendly cleaning products, plants and planters and fertilizers and flowers and breads and salsas and jams. We have some arts and crafts, and more want to join us all the time. We have some pretty cool stuff.

But farmers are our best friends. The original markets, back in the day, were by farmers, for farmers. You either bought from them, or sold to them. They were the economic engines of their communities, the people you could depend on to put food on your table.

And at our Green Market we recognize that, and we want to support them as much as we can. I think you should too. Summer's almost gone. Soon, there will be more local produce available. Take the time for a pleasant stroll outside of the Alliance for the Arts this Saturday and every Saturday, see what's just come out of the ground, the beehive, the tree, the Gulf. Check out the great crafts and delicious foods and green products. Let your local dollar stay where it belongs, here. In the end, it will make its way back to you.

An urban community garden in Fort Myers

When Green Coaches was created, a few months ago, one of the decisions we made was to not advertise in the traditional sense - for one thing, our budget was (and is) too small, but there's other reasons as well. We are drowning, choking, in advertising. Sometimes it seems that we are approaching a sensory overload, where every single second of our lives and every available square inch is taken with a commercial message. The folks at Adbusters have been exploring this subject for a while.

So it was decided to do things differently, away from marketing & advertising: instead of claiming to be good at something, we just try to be good at something and hope that word spreads around. Doing a good job is the best advertising. Also, being reliable and honest, not using pressure tactics to force a sale, that kind of thing. Totally old-fashioned, I know. Besides, not a lot of landscaping companies do edible and organic projects, although I'm sure that's about to change, fast.

But the best thing we are doing so far is getting involved in neighborhoods and communities, volunteering to help with starting community gardens everywhere they'll let us. Community centers, private homes, churches. If they want a garden, we'll help.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to spend the morning helping set up a large community garden on Cuba St, just off of Martin Luther King, Jr, Blvd, sponsored by a great community organization, Quality Life Center. Many volunteers showed up, both from the neighborhood and from groups like SW FL Coalition For Change, to work under the direction of QLC memebers Ms Vonda Curry and Mr James Matthews, as well as local environmentalist and community organizer Kim Trebatoski. 13 raised beds were created, and planted with tomatos, beans, greens, okra, lettuce and carrots. Home Depot donated most of the tools, including two wheelbarrows.

This was so much fun, my mood improved even more in the following days (I say "even more" because I've been pretty happy since I don't work in an office doing graphic design -advertising- all day long anymore, and since I quit smoking several months ago). Someone needs to work on a theory of how doing stuff that you really enjoy can have enormous health and mood benefits; or perhaps it's been done already and I don't know about it.

In any case, there was so much crammed together in one morning that is positive and enjoyable, that I can't think of a better way to spend my time: not just the satisfaction of seeing the garden take shape, but also teaching a bunch of kids how to plant stuff, and learning from neighborhood old-timers that showed up, as well as exercising, cracking jokes with everyone and promoting my business in a sustainable way.

I can't post photo albums here, but if you'd like to see some more pictures from that day, they are here. And don't forget to contact Green Coaches if you have a garden project yourself!

The Whole Foods fiasco

The other day, I had the opportunity to visit the famous Whole Foods store, the one located in Naples, for the first time. My impressions on it are mixed, but they tend towards the negative.

While having access to products that are produced in a sustainable way is, I reckon, generally a good thing, the way everything is now branded as "green" would be funny if it wasn't so depressing.

I mean, the first thing you see when you walk into this Wal-Mart sized monster of a store is crates upon crates of bottled water. Drinking water in plastic bottles, which has to be one of the most outrageously unsustainable consumer products available. Oh, but this bottled water is "green", see. I can't figure out how or why, as it uses a plastic bottle, just like the other brands at the other stores.

The BS and the hype were everywhere you looked. I had to laugh at the produce section. How is flying "organic" berries and apples from California and Chile "sustainable"? This "organic" label, by the way... it's gotten out of control. I was talking to local farmer Ken Ryan this morning, and he was telling me how it's all a racket, where you have to kick back a percentage of your profit to the certification agency that gives you the "organic" label, where you can actually use some chemicals as long as you purchase them from their vendors list, and similar stories that show you how shady the whole deal has become, a game with words and perceptions, just like the carbon offsets fiasco, and so many other miracles of branding and marketing, where you are allowed to carry on with the old ways as long as you are fluent in newspeak and can convince the public that "my water in a plastic bottle is better than other waters in plastic bottles because there's an 'authority' somewhere that says so".

Take the development at Babcock Ranch, where they are once again razing some of the few remaining untouched natural habitats in the area to the ground, to make way for sprawl and shopping, and calling it a "green community" because they will be throwing in some solar panels and stuff. Another bulldozed forest, and extra pressure on the water resources, plus adding lanes to a bunch of roads, and the whole litany of what's needed for "growth", to build another cluster of McMansions, with their schools and churches and fast-food joints (and Whole Foods stores, no doubt) in the middle of nowhere, and branding the whole project "green"... give me a break... and still people buy it? If this isn't a lesson learnt from Wall Street's creative accounting, bundling, marketing and advertising, I don't know what is...

And the public is only too eager to go along with it. To pay the premium for the label and the peace of mind. It's easier to pay a little more (or quite a lot more, in fact), especially if you live in Naples, Fl, than to ask some hard questions. Like, "why are all the lights on, even next to the windows, in the middle of the day, in this supposedly 'green' store?". Or, "can I live with the fact that some kinds of produce and fruits cannot be available year-round unless you fly them in from thousands of miles away?". Or, "does my produce really need all this plastic packaging?".

Don't take me wrong here. Like I said before, there's some stuff there that is great. For instance, I was able to find some yerba mate, the South American tea, that I had given up trying to find at local stores. The organic and fair trade kind. Great. Not that it tastes any different from the stuff I grew up drinking, although it sure costs more. But after a long time, I'm drinking mate again, and I'm grateful for that.

There were also some crappy products on sale. My wife insisted on buying some organic brown rice that we discovered was completely infested with weevils when we got home, and had to be discarded right away. With the avocado season in full swing here in Florida, their avocados had to be brought in from somewhere far. And they didn't look good either. Ours are not "organic" enough, I guess.

The bottom line is, in my opinion, "local" beats "organic" any day. Consuming locally grown food does more for sustainability than looking for the USDA organic label. Basically, your diet is based on staples (rice, dry beans, pasta), most of them not local but cheap and sustainable to transport and store because of their long shelf life, complemented with whatever's available seasonally. Historically, populations depended on this kind of diet.

Staple foods can be transported in bulk with very little cost to the environment - think sailboats and trains. You throw in a little meat now and then, and local produce. That's sustainable.

It's only recently that we have grown accustomed to having organic cherry tomatos and bananas available 365 days of the year. It cannot last. We need to go back to a reliable way to distribute staple foods using very little fossil fuels input, and growing the rest ourselves, within a few miles of our towns.

We don't need a fancy, air-conditioned store like Whole Foods to buy a few pounds of rice, some produce from local farmers, and a couple of fish - a warehouse next to the railroad tracks or the port is enough, or better yet, an open air market, like they have in the 3rd world.

I miss open air markets. You walk around, see what's available, ask questions, meet people, stop for a taco al pastor or a falafel or a mote con huesillo from the guy with the cart, walk some more. There's the smell of spices, there's people selling live birds, there's radios blasting rancheras or whatever, there's old comadres that not only sell you the nopalitos or aguacates but also explain to you how to prepare them. A lot of what you see is local and environmentally friendly, and it doesn't even promote itself as such! Zero hype... that's my favorite part.

WF, on the other hand, is all hype. That, I guess, is my problem with it...

a Green Punk reflects...

Back when I was younger, people like Joe Strummer, Iggy Pop, Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins were my heroes. I was into punk rock. It wasn't just the music and the left-of-center politics. It was this concept, that punks borrowed from tinkerer-dads of the 50's and Popular Mechanics magazine: Do It Yourself, or DIY.

The music industry won't publish anything other than bloated, self-indulgent, more-of-the-same crap like Pink Floyd, Eagles and Elvis in his 19th comeback tour in Vegas? Put together cooperative efforts to make and promote new records without waiting for the big companies, and use word of mouth and alternative channels to spread the message. Do it yourself. You get the idea. Let the rest of the world catch up to what you're doing now, later.

The classic-punk era of Britain and NY in the 70's and the California hardcore of the 80's may long be over, but you can see the legacy everywhere, from anti-globalization protests to the slow-food movement to Naomi Klein's "No Logo". In music, one of last year's biggest hits was British-Sri Lankan avant-garde extraordinaire M.I.A. singing over a sampled Clash track. "London Calling" has definitely aged more gracefully than Elton John, and the urgent message of the Dead Kennedys music is more relevant today than, say, Poison's.

While the System's message seems to be "go shopping or the terrorists have won", people of all walks of life, young and old, Black, White, Latino, Asian and every hue in between, are once again embracing the DIY ethics in their everyday life. I see it more and more, and the economic downturn is nothing short of a blessing in that respect. Why go along with the planned obsolescence of Burberry logos and Chinese-made junk, designed to be replaced next year? "Make it do, or do without" was the mantra both during the Depression and the punk rebellion, and it's here again.

This rather lengthy intro is to comment on the fact that your favorite Green Coach spent a number of hours the other day introducing young citizens from the "wrong side of the tracks" as the cliche goes, to some DIY concepts, including: grow as much of your own food as you can, learn a useful skill and don't waste your time pursuing the chemical mirages offered by the corner dealer and McDonalds, be yourself, it doesn't matter that your jersey isn't P. Diddy's brand if you're gonna get it dirty working in the garden anyhow. The message was "you're young, don't take no shit from nobody, growing this tomato plant to fruition is gonna teach you more about life than countless hours in front of MTV or BET, the mall sucks, and I may be an old fart but I know what I'm talking about here", and generally, I must say it was well received. I felt really good, I felt like some seeds were sown on fertile soil, which is a good description of what I like to do every day.

If people like us, who are social and environmental activists, can learn to reach out and speak the language of 10-year old kids and use it to give a positive message, then there's hope. Never mind the millions and millions of fops and airheads, the Wall St. vampires, the TV zombies and mall rats. DIY is cool. Riding your bike is cool. Not having any money is OK as long as you have friends and skills and a sense of humor. That's the message. The fops and dandies don't have any message other than "be like me, spend all this money buying stupid shit that's not gonna make you happy" - if we old punk warriors can convince a kid, who lives in a different part of town and has a different skin color, that you can create your own reality completely on the margins of what the System expects you to do and be, then we have the upper hand. Then, the torch gets passed to the next generation. That old Black Flag of punk looks Green to me these days, and there's kids out there ready to pick it up. Right on...