Come help build raised garden beds for families with low incomes on Saturday, May 18, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in Redmond with the Just Garden Project, a new Seattle Tilth program.

These gardens empower families to grow and eat fresh, local, organic food. Gardens help King County families experiencing hunger meet their basic needs by transforming their relationship with food—from consumer into producer, and from eating enough into eating well. 

Meet at the Old Firehouse Teen Center, 16510 NE 79th St, Redmond. Contact Wendi Jiang at wendijiang@seattletilth.org to volunteer.

Redmond Parks are already pesticide free, why don't you have your yard follow suit?  Washington Toxics Coalition will send you a free, colorful 'pesticide free zone' ladybug yard sign if you pledge to keep pesticides out of your yard and garden.

Why go pesticide free?  There are numerous reasons from protecting our children's and pet's health, to protecting the environment.  Runoff from pesticides enter our waterways which end up causing local pollution and impacting our salmon runs.  Pesticides are also indiscriminate killers, and they often end up killing beneficial bugs and insects like bees and other important pollinators. 

For more on why you should commit to going pesticide free, check out Washington Toxic's fact sheet. 

Impact Redmond also has tips on how to garden for your site without relying on chemicals here.

Finally, King County has a great resource for people who are looking for play spaces that are pesticide free, like all of our wonderful Redmond Parks.

Our friends over at King County have a very cool new tool to help you live more sustainably!  Localize Sustainability helps you calculate and improve your sustainability profile to save money, improve health, and lighten your environmental footprint.

We loved that you can compare Redmond and your neighborhood against other neighborhoods in King County.  Another neat feature was seeing the "real time" impact your lifestyle is having on not only the environment, but your health!  By incorporating a few of the website's suggested lifestyle changes we were able to see exactly how many calories, dollars, and pounds of CO2 we would save!  The website also has a great list of resources for residents looking for sustainable solutions.

Check it out and let us know what you think!  http://green.kingcounty.gov/localize/