New Environmental Insights Program to Be Held on June 10th

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How to Design and Implement a Rain Garden in Your Landscape

Become Water Wise and Protect Our Native Species

If you can only do one thing for the environment this season we suggest reducing some of our vast suburban monoculture by removing some of your lawn and planting a garden. If you plant a rain garden near a downspout to intercept roof runoff  and filled with native plants; even better.   It will help to slow the flood of storm water, reduce erosion, and absorb pollutants.  The birds, bees and butterflies will also repay your hard work by appearing regularly and pollinating your landscape.  And then enjoy the fun of watching wildlife up close!

What Are Rain Gardens?

Rain gardens are plantings that are specifically designed to soak up rain water from roofs, from driveways, parking lots, and lawns. When it rains, the rain garden fills with a few inches of water and allows the water to slowly seep into ground filtering out pollutants such as fertilizer, pesticides, and oil, rather than having it run into the waterways or storm drains. This purifies the water and lets it replenish the aquifer rather than having it flow unfiltered into streams, lakes or the ocean. The ground should not remain wet, but should dry in a day or so of fair weather. It is planted with native shrubs and flowers that can tolerate wet or dry conditions and add to the beauty of the neighborhood and attract wildlife.

Rain Gardens not only beautify your landscape, but also serve practical environmental purposes. Their interception of water runoff from impervious surfaces provides a number of benefits for your landscape. It acts to minimize the volume and improve the quality of water entering conventional storm drains and nearby streams. It also works to minimize soil erosion. It helps you provide a habitat for wildlife which can be sorely lacking in home gardens. And finally, the volume and quality of water is better whether it is absorbed in or leaves a rain garden.

Lindsay Blanton, our 2013/2014 AmeriCorps Watershed Ambassador at NJDEP, will present using training materials created by Rutgers University.  She will teach the basic steps to building and maintaining this simple, proven and inexpensive solution to the problem of storm water pollution.

Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Hollowbrook Community Center, Nutrition Room, 320 Hollowbrook Dr, Ewing Township, NJ 08638
Cost:  Free and Open to the Public

Community Conversation Less than One Week Away

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The countdown to the Ewing Green Team’s Community Conversation is in full swing.  On Saturday, June 7th, only 6 days from today, the Ewing Green Team will gather along with  other citizen activists for a morning of planning to begin a process of creating a comprehensive community sustainability plan.  Led by a team of facilitators from Maga Sustainability, Lori Braunstein and Natalie Barney, sustainability champions from Cherry Hill, we will endeavor to Preserve Our Past, recognizing where we have come from, evaluate our township as it currently exits and  identify what is it about our community that we most value.  With our strengths identified, we will then endeavor to discern how to Transform Our Future, imagining where we would like our community to be in ten or twenty years and to create a shared vision that will form the basis for developing goals and completing actions that move the community toward a more ideal, sustainable community

We are extremely excited to have this unique opportunity to formulate a sustainable future for our town in a more planned way based on the input of concerned citizens.  It will be the first time a global community focus on sustainability will have been addressed in an in-depth way in Ewing.  The process is being funded by a PSE&G grant through Sustainable Jersey.

Regarding the process, all ideas will be welcome.  Can you imagine a Ewing that will make it into NJ Monthly Magazine’s bi-annual Best Places to Live article?   One vision for a perfect future might also include more of a front porch community where people no longer retreat to their backyards but commune more with their neighbors. Where block parties for neighborhoods to come together are common.  One that is more walkable and bikable.  One that is prettier, with more  community plantings and more community gardens.  What would you like to see in our town?   We look forward to joining with other participants to each bring our unique visions for Ewing’s future.

Date: Saturday, June 7th
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location: TCNJ, Education Building, Room 212

For more information email ewinggreenteam@gmail.com

Shred Day – Saturday, May 31st

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Dispose of your sensitive documents safely and securely at Ewing’s second Shred Day of the year, Saturday, May 31st from 9 – 1 at the municipal building.  Document shredding will be done on site.  This service is for Ewing residents only and proof of residency is required.

The Ewing Green Team will be on hand to assist.

Date: Saturday, May 31st
Time: 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location: Municipal Building

Environmental Insights

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The Conversation about our Industrial Food System Begins with Food, Inc.

Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: The College of New Jersey, Education Building, Ewing, NJ 08628, Room 113, Parking in Lots 17 and 18 (Directions)
Cost: Free and open to the public

Organic, Grow Local, GMO/GE, rBGH, antibiotic usage, factory farms, food labeling laws, processed foods, obesity epidemic, high fructose corn syrup… These are just a few of the issues about the American food supply that now bombard an awakening public. Its industrialization has filled our supermarkets with plenty, but at what cost? Are our bodies able to safely handle the thousands of chemical additives that are now routine in our diet? Is the American diet indeed responsible for the epidemic levels of food allergies, Autism, ADHD, Type  II Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and many other conditions that are being suggested by some health and nutrition professionals? What do they all mean, how are they related, and finally, is our industrial food supply being properly regulated by the government agencies that are supposed to protect our health? Let’s start the discussion about our food in our town with a showing and discussion about documentary film Food, Inc.  Ewing Green Team is delighted to introduce as our moderator, Camille Miller, the Executive Director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

About Food Inc.

Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”), Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals shocking truths about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

About Ms. Miller

camillemillerCamille Miller is an organic food advocate and has worked extensively in raising awareness around food and farming issues at the local, state and national levels.  She also serves as Vice-President of the Board on the NOFA Interstate Council, a seven state organic farming coalition. She is an active member in the National Organic Coalition (NOC), an alliance of grassroots organic groups and environmen-tal organizations working to provide a “Washington voice” for farmers, ranchers, environmentalists and others involved in organic agriculture as well as a national trained speaker for the Institute of Responsible Technology on Genetically Engineered food.

Master Gardeners’ Plant Expo and Garden Market Saturday, May 3rd

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Are you looking for quality perennials, herbs, and veggies of various types for your garden this spring?  The Mercer County Master Gardeners’ annual Plant Expo and Garden Market  on May 3rd will feature such from top notch local area nurseries.  The Master Gardeners and County Horticulturalist, Barbara Bromley, will also be on hand to answer questions and give assistance in making your selections.   A secondhand sale of gently used items will also be conducted.  So take this opportunity to reduce waste with a little reusing  instead of buying new. The Expo will be held at the Mercer Educational Gardens this Saturday, May 3rd from 9am – 2 pm.  Don’t forget to tour the gardens while you are there and catch up on all the Master Gardeners are doing.  For more information see http://www.mgofmc.org/compostsite.html.  The Gardens are located at the Mercer County Equestrian Center4 at 31A Federal City Road in Pennington.