The New York Times has a story up on their website about a new phenomenon sprouting up in North Carolina: Crop Mobs. Like flash mobs, but with an actual purpose, these coordinated gatherings of manpower help small sustainable farms rip through labor intensive projects in a jiff. They also give the landless an opportunity to

The Marcellus Shale formation is a 7,500 feet-deep mass covering 50 percent of Pennsylvania and the neighboring states of West Virginia, Maryland, and New York. With the use of newly developed methods of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, scientists estimate that nearly 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be extracted from the formation. Such a

Growing Power’s Will Allen, keynote speakerOne of the many unintended consequences of Snowmageddon 2010 was the cancellation of the hotly anticipated (at least in the Grid offices) Pennsylvania Horticulture Society Compost Matters Conference. The one-day conference will examine the current state of composting in the Delaware Valley with a focus on new developments in food-waste composting

Can the Jewish Deli survive the sustainable food movement? It's an interesting question, and one addressed by a recent story on haaretz.com. In early February, the Jewish community center in Berkeley hosted a panel discussion on the fate of delis in a world where local, seasonal eating has started to really matter to people. Michael Pollan

According to the New York Times, Philadelphia-based architecture firm Kieran Timberlake has defeated the competition to land the contract for the new U.S. Embassy in London. The building is being described as "the greenest and one of the most expensive U.S. diplomatic buildings in the world."
A light-filled cube, the 12-story building will be surrounded by

Birchrun Hills Farm's Birchrun BlueOn Sunday, after a lovely long bike ride along the Schuylkill, I checked out the brand new Garces Trading Company at 11th and Locust.
It's a beautiful, clean space and our table was immediately greeted with a basket of warm sourdough bread, baked in-house. The bread was perfect for dipping in a

Last night I was at the Fair Food Farmstand after work, picking up some groceries: a couple yukon gold potatoes for a roasted sausage dish I planned on making with my Meadow Run merguez, some yogurt, a couple apples, a tiny block of Birchrun Hills Highland Alpine (a cheese I am intensely devoted to) and

Biking, bowling and beer: These are a few of my favorite things! On March 6, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia hosts their third annual Red Bowl event. The cost of a ticket includes FREE bowling, raffle prizes and Globe Sprints. (Yes, Globe Sprints.) There will also be a cash bar and food for sale.

Recently I've been looking for a world to describe the people who make me go weak at the knees, from a sustainability standpoint. It's a special variety of non-sexual crush, one you develop on someone who truly impresses you with their passion and initiative. I was thinking about "Grush"—like Green Crush—but people didn't seem

Attention entrepreneurs and local business people: On February 26 and 27, the business world and the environmental world merge with The Sustainable Business Network’s (SBN) 8th annual Social Venture Institute. The conference, the only one of its kind on the East Coast, is dedicated to improving businesses with The Triple Bottom Line philosophy—a new way of doing business that encourages entrepreneurs