Vegetable gardening is really catching on. And if all goes as people like me hope, it will soon boom even more. Here’s an event that shows the kind of things that can happen:

On Thursday night in Cheltenham Township, a group interested in making the region more sustainable is planning an evening devoted to vegetable gardening, and getting more people to do it. It’s all-inclusive, for beginners and experienced gardeners, township residents and folks from neighboring communities.

The point is to create not just gardens, but community.

Cheltenham’s Bill Mettler, one half of the Quiet Riot comedy/storytelling/etc. performance duo and a guy who has gotten his household energy use down to 300 kWh a month — a MONTH — is one of the organizers. 

Cheltenham is on the path toward becoming a “transition town” — a notion that started in the UK. The idea, as Mettler explains it is “to build a town that is resilient and self-reliant in the face of oil crises, like peak oil and global warming. The whole idea is to bring all the necessities into the town and away from the long, fragile, oil-saturated supply chain.” So the goal is have local medical facilities, local transportation networks, local energy sources … and, of course, local food.

On Thursday, the group will explore how more people can grow more food — in their back yards, in vacant lots and on approved parklands. For inspiration, they'll show the film, “The Power of Community,” which looks at how Cuba saved itself with family and community gardens after losing their oil supply when the Soviet Union crumbled.

Mettler has invited a group of guys who have been gardening for half a century and more — “I think they hold most of the gardening knowledge in the western hemisphere,” he noted — and he’s hoping to get a liberal exchange of questions and answers.

Wanna check it out? It’s being held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the LaMott Community Center, 7420 Sycamore Avenue.
 

Saturday for lunch, my husband and I ate our first produce from this year’s garden.

It was a salad, and a tiny one at that, alas.  But I just couldn’t resist.  The lettuce I’d sprouted indoors and then planted in troughs on a sunny back patio were growing nicely.  The baby romaine was about four inches high. The mesclun greens were coming along. And the arugula was already developing its trademark tang.

So I went out with my scissors. Snip snip. I took just the biggest leaves. More might be ready soon.

I love the range of colors and shapes, the ragged edges and red blotches.

The dressing was a mixture of porcini-infused truffle oil, olive oil and lemon juice. I patted little dollops of goat cheese around the edges of the plate.  Delicious!

Meanwhile, the rest of the garden is taking shape. The pea plants are several inches high. The fence is in place. Two rows of spinach are, hopefully, about to sprout, as are other cool-weather crops. Indoors, the basil, parsley, tomatoes, peppers and marigolds are all getting their second leaves. I planted the eggplant in little peat pots Saturday after I ate my salad, and they’re in a sunny window.

The hours we’ve spent on all this are, of course, mounting. A week ago, my husband and I spent several hours together just on the fence. But none of it really feels like work.  The day we put the fence up, it was sunny and warm. Any time spent planting seeds is a date with hope and optimism.

And any time spent eating a salad you grew yourself, the most local and freshest greens possible, is sheer bliss.
 

(Here's the first column on vegetable gardening, introducing the Veggie Chronicles.)

Andy Revkin has an interesting story in today's New York Times.

Seems that at the same time a major industry group was lobbying against the evidence that emissions of heat-trapping gases could cause global warming, it's own scientists -- as early as 1995 -- were issuing internal reports saying the science was irrefutable.

Among the plethora of Earth Day events taking place all this week, the National Constitution Center tonight is airing the film “A Sea Change,” as part of its Red, White, Blue and Green discussion series. The film is  about climage change and the impact of carbon emissions on the planet’s oceans.

Afterward, producers Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby, plus Widener University constitutional and environmental law expert James R. May, will lead a discussion. Among other things, they’ll debate whether we have a constitutional right to a clean, healthy environment.

The center is 525 Arch St. on Philadelphia's Independence Mall, The event begins at 6:30 p.m. Admission costs $9 for members, $15 for non-members, and $7 for students and teachers. Reservations are required and can be made by calling 215-409-6700.

Here’s more description from the publicists:

"Told through the journey of Sven Huseby, a descendant of Norwegian fishmongers and a life-long environmentalist, the film shows how climate change is not simply manifesting itself in global warming; the chemistry of the ocean is being changed by excess carbon dioxide, creating a profound threat to the food chain from the bottom up. Traveling to fishing villages in Alaska, to conferences and laboratories, and to ancestral sites from the Copper River Delta to the barren glacial beaches of Svalbard, Norway, Huseby searched for information and answers on a quest to discover what environmental legacy his five-year-old grandson, Elias, will one day inherit."

The series is designed to feature conversations with nationally respected scholars, practitioners, advocates, executives, and government officials about unique constitutional issues pertaining to environmental policy and stewardship.
 

I could almost swear the Franklin Institute hawk chicks are growing by the day.

http://www2.fi.edu/hawknest.php

View gallery

5 p.m. I just saw both of the chicks, wriggling and wobbling, for several minutes before the female got back on the nest. Amazing.  

1 p.m.: Another photo has arrived. I think I can see the second hatchling.  For those watching and trying to sort out who's who, the male hawk is smaller and darker than the female.

Update shortly after noon. Franklin Institute has sent over a still of the first hatchling...an eyas is what a hawk chick is called. I'll attach it here.

Update just before noon: Franklin Institute confirms second is hatching. he parent is sitting tight. Tough to get a good view. But it's great to see the viewership rising. Nearly 1,000 people tuned into the drama!

11 a.m. The parent has been restless, and I just got a glimpse of the hatchling, kind of sitting in a half shell, whiteish.

Here's an earlier story about the hawk nest, when the eggs were first laid.

The Franklin Institute just confirmed that one hawk has hatched in the nest on their ledge. Two more eggs to go. Keep watching.  Here's an address that has video, chats and all.

...there was a changing of the guard at the red-tailed hawk nest on a window ledge at the Franklin Institute. The three eggs were still there, but I noticed a dark spot on one.  A piece of dirt? Or it is beginning to hatch?

My husband and I have been glued to the webcam (watch the video below) all through breakfast. I hate to leave for work! I really think today is the day to watch.

http://www2.fi.edu/hawknest.php

California -- the leader in all things green -- has proposed new efficiency standards that would require televisions sold in the state to use 50 percent less energy by 2013.

According to a report by Felicity Barringer in today's New York Times, the Consumer Electronics Association is resisting the new standards, arguing that the industry could achieve the energy savings without the rules. He said consumers could adjust brightness and contrast settings and reduce the energy consumed by as much as 25 percent.

Those levels are set at the factory to default to their brightest -- most energy-gulping -- levels. The reason? They need to look bright to look attractive in stores.

But here’s an idea, and I it to the industry freely. Instead of setting the levels high and trying to educate millions of consumers to reset them lower, why not set the levels low and educate just the stores to adjust them ... if needed?