This year at Earthdance, we collected $5 donations for our General Hydroponic T-Shirts and General Organics Sample Packs. All the proceeds are being given to the Redwood Forest Foundation. In total, we raised $1,110.00! The foundation is a Mendocino County organization dedicated to sustaining the stunning and unique ecology of the redwood forests. Often when we think of redwoods, we think of massive towering trees, but there are many small and delicate plants living in the ecosystem as well. I’ve posted a shot I took of an orchid that is native to the redwood forests here. It’s so pretty, and so exotic, and it needs our protection. Here is some more information about the RFF, from their website:

What We Do

We are striving to create a model of “working community forests” by purchasing and sustainably managing the once great redwood forests surrounding the communities of the redwood region in northwestern California. This will be for the social, environmental and economic benefit of all our citizens in perpetuity, by returning net profits directly back to the communities served.

RFFI wants its forest management practices to demonstrate respect for the integrity of forest systems. Sustainable habitat will benefit our community and our forest industry by providing high quality water, air, and forest products along with the open space that north coast residents treasure.

The jobs created by the sustained flow of forest products will provide a family-friendly income. The long-term profits will benefit the community through augmentation of existing county budgets for education, roads and public welfare. Finally, the forest will provide a space for young and old to enjoy in culturally diverse ways.

“Not just a festival focused on music, but rather a festival of spiritual consciousness, environmental and political activism and awareness…” – Jambase.com

The 13th annual Earthdance Festival will take place at the renowned Black Oak Ranch off HWY 101 in Laytonville, CA on September 25th, 26th, 27th. The ranch is also home to many well known activists and artists, including Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow for children. For 2009, Earthdance Northern California will unite with over 350 locations in 60 countries across the world to create the most conscious global festival of our time.
The Earthdance Northern California Festival will bring together an unprecedented line-up of conscious musicians, visual artists, DJ’s, speakers and activists, who believe in a sustainable future for our planet. Working with the theme of “Blessing the Children,” the festival will host 5 music stages and will feature high profile conscious artists from many genres of the international music scene, including World, Electronica, Hip Hop, Folk and Jazz. Also included will be an indigenous elder’s council, made up of indigenous elders from many nations, who will share wisdom and sacred ceremony.

Please check out the Earthdance website for more information. This is an amazing event, and if you make it, please visit the General Hydroponics booth! We will be there with our hydroponic plants and flowers, free samples of our organic line, and as always, our t-shirts! I’ll have more details as the weekend approaches.

According to their website, “Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe . . .  [Y]ou are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community.”

It’s a great organization that empowers people through their own hard work. I am glad GH chose such a great organization to donate to with their awesome wearable art.

We gave out sample packs with 6 of the products from the General Organics Line. And free T-shirts with the GO Bio Root art. 

I grabbed a shot of one girl who had so much loot she and her friends threw it all in a shopping cart!

I was pleased to see that while the show promoted consumption, it was also responsible and sustainable in collecting waste from the event too.

Gen Hydro was promoting their new General Organics line, which is organic and vegan and works in soil, coco, and hydro.  They also had their traditional nutrient lines and supplements on hand to talk about.

The whole crew was really involved with customers and anyone that just wanted to hang out and talk about gardening.

The booth was really chill and was covered in the new art from the General Organics line.  GH reminds you, “Don’t just be seaweed, garden with seaweed“.

Here you see some more GH murals and the awesome annual Reggae Rising t-shirt, or lack thereof.

There were plenty of samples given out to customers on Sunday.  GH recommends Azamax for pests in your garden.

The music was off the hook.  Here is Lutan Fyah.  There were other world-renowned bands like Capleton, the Original Wailers, and Luciano.

This year’s Reggae Rising was amazing.  Be sure to get your tickets next year and stop by the Gen Hydro booth.  If you want to see more pics of Reggae Rising, be sure to check out the General Hydroponics Flickr stream.

The event is held right on the water in the San Francisco Bay. You can tell you are getting close when you see the first stretch Hummer.

The entire place is massive. This year Maximum Yield booked more than 40% more exhibitors than last year.

General Organics was introduced officially. The booth space was open and clean and colorful.

This shot has our flowers, Adam, and the new General Organics t-shirt.

On the flip side, the space was all about General Hydroponics.

I’ll share pics from our customer appreciation party tommorrow! And then shots from the afterparty! Until then, Imma’ try to relax and recover!

The musical lineup was very diverse, including Steve Kimock, seen below, Cake, Bad Brains, The Dead Kennedys, Shpongle, and Michael Franti

In the days leading up to the event, everyone in sales, graphics, the greenhouse and production ramped up to get ready. Graphics printed out huge banners, the greehouse operators filled trucks with the best looking plants, sales planned out the booth and production got all the product ready to giveaway. 

That’s right, at festivals, GH gives away product. And this weekend, Pineapple Rush and the new General Organics were showcased. 

I love this shot, because it shows how much product flew off the shelves! And it has flowers and a cutie!

I want to thank all the GH team for their hard work, and Jessica Lilga for sending me the booth shots from her Blackberry. Cheers!

Oh, and if you can think of any festivals you love that General Hydroponics should be a part of, let us know in the comments. We are especially looking to find some spots on the East Coast!

Dear Friends, 

We are at an exciting and pivotal moment in our history.  The Obama administration’s focus on renewable energy coupled with the need to create jobs for the legions of newly unemployed has created an unprecedented increase in demand for the educational services that the Solar Living Institute provides. 

We have seen a surge in interest over the past several months in both our renewable energy courses and our green career workshops and conferences. The recently passed stimulus package includes potential funding for the type of green jobs training that SLI has been providing for almost two decades.  With the huge amount of opportunity we have before us we feel it is of paramount importance to step up and focus our attention on continuing to provide as much quality education as possible.  

For this reason, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s SolFest so that our staff can focus entirely on our educational mission.

We have many exciting projects and events in the works this year.  We are working with an internationally renowned e-learning company towards swiftly expanding our renewable energy course offerings to include on-line distance education. We are executing our grant from a private foundation, and partnering with Solar Richmond to offer solar installation training to low-income folks in the Bay Area.  And we are very excited to be working with the City of Ukiah to develop a green jobs training center in Ukiah.  These projects and more to come will be demanding our best and we are very excited to be putting our efforts toward them.

We are tremendously excited about the opportunities we have before us and we hope you will join in our excitement about this momentous time for our organization, our country and our future. 

We hope to have a party and fundraiser around SolFest time to celebrate our accomplishments in 2009 and gather the SLI tribe.  We will revisit having SolFest in 2010.  Stay tuned…

For the Earth,

The Solar Living Institute Staff

 

The whole thing goes down in Hopland, at the Real Goods Solar Living Institute. It is an amazing campus, dedicated to a fully sustainable lifestyle. The premise of the event is one of teaching and learning. This isn’t just a hippie dance fest, it’s a place to gather knowledge from people on the bleeding edge of ecology. Speakers this year included Paul Staments, Caroline Casey and Ed Begley Jr, and preformers included New Monsoon and Maria Muldar.

But the focus at Sol Fest is always on the participatory workshops. Just reading the titles of these examples inspires me: Carbon Sequestration and Soil Managment; Convert Your Motorcycle to Electric; Reconnect to the Water Cycle with Greywater, Rainwater and Composting Toilets; Introduction to Micro-Inverters; and Community Based Farming- A Path to Creating a Viable Local Food System. Those are a small sampling of the 75+ workshops that are offered.

Here is a quickie Q&A with GH business manager Luc:

Q: Sol Fest happens right between Reggae Rising and Earthdance. How is Sol Fest different from those festivals?

A: The only commonality between these festivals and Sol Fest is that they are local. At Sol Fest, the musical scene clearly comes second; the priority is clearly given to educate on sustainability via numerous quality workshops but also companies that show how their business makes a difference in the renewable energy world. In other words Sol Fest tends to reflect the integrated sustainable solution available with our technology that could and should make a difference in our economy in the near future.

Q: Sol Fest is all about sustainability. What does GH bring to the table?

A: To start with, GH brings hydroponics on the table. Hydroponics is the tool for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA is more sustainable than the current industrial agriculture economy for the following reasons:

1-There is no interference between our ecosystems and CEA; it means that CEA production doesn’t emit toxic waste to our soils and waters as the current system does. The other way around is also true: via CEA the crop is more protected from diseases and  natural disasters like flooding

2-By using hydroponics technology the use of energy in CEA is more optimized for water and nutrient cycles.

To sum up, using hydroponics gives us the advantage of using fewer resources that do less damage to our environment. It is thus sustainable. In addition to watching the amount of energy we use for the same output and what we do with this energy we need to carefully look at the way we get this energy. This an area where GH makes a difference in the hydroponics world by featuring some high technology systems that run on solar power. Check out our eco grower, rain forest, or power grower ecos.

Q: SolFest is very cutting edge, can you list some emerging technologies that you learned about, perhaps that you had never heard of before?

A: Sol Fest is very cutting edge! The technology they feature is all at the top what we do for every sector of the economy (transportation, food, construction etc.) I haven’t really discovered any technology I hadn’t heard about before but I learned a lot on how to use this technology. A few examples are the workshops that I attended on:
-how to select and set a solar installation in your house
-how to deal with compliance issues for home made waste water systems and wet lands
-how to build a bamboo structure
Photo Credit Thanks: mary jane watson and sunshine curtis

One of my favorite acts to play the event is the Goddess Alchemy Project. They combine dance and ritual with hip-hop beats and world music. The bird costume in the photo below is so cool! 

As usual, GH sent its crew and set up a huge booth. Not only does GH put together a beautiful booth, but GH provides the prettiest, most vibrant plants for the main stage. This really contributes to the green vibe, and the mother-earth appeal of the event. At the booth, we set up all kinds of information and samples. Our team of Adam, Jessica and Ivan met with all kinds of General Hydroponics users, from hobbyists to true professionals. Everyone loves grabbing the latest nutrients and supplements. Not to mention the Earthdance 2008 GH T-shirt. 

Next week, SolFest!

Summertime and the Livin’s Easy. In August the GH crew headed into the heart of NorCal for the world’s largest reggae festival and I tagged along and captured the whole experience. Reggae Rising is an amazing weekend, and General Hydroponics has generously sponsored the event for 4 years now. We put up a huge booth in the concert bowl, and hold it down with friends and family.

The booth looks like some kind of paradise in the dead center of 20,000 reggae fans. It is a major chill out spot, with cushy couches and the best water misters. They really keep the heat from getting to you. The booth has a perfect view of the stage, and the music from the performers fills up the whole space.

This year our reps and consultants Jessica, Luc, Adam and Ivan met with hundreds and hundreds of customers. So many people learned about products and got samples. We gave away tons of loot, including free FloraNova, Floralicous, and FloraBlend. Meeting people and hearing all the positive feedback from our customers is totally fun, and helps us know what your garden’s needs are. It is such a good way to get to know people year after year.

And everyone who comes by the booth wants to score the famous reggae t-shirt that GH releases each year. The shirts are limited editons, and they feature the Lion of Judah. All the proceeds went to a really cutting edge charity that promotes myco-remediation of toxic lands.

Reggae Rising is just one of the festivals we sponsor. I’ll continue the summer festy wrapup next week with stories from Earthdance.