Earth’s General Store have been offering a great selection of Certified Organic, Open pollinated, Heirloom, and Local seeds for over a decade now. Last year we added organic seed potatoes and they all disappeared into peoples gardens to be grown and feed them in the fall. Nice.

We brought in double the amount of Organic Seed Potatoes this year and more that half of them have already been sold.

We have four varieties this year:

• Norkotah Russet Potatoes – good for baking and frying, excellent storage properties
• Sieglinde German Butter Potatoes (Heirloom variety) – yellow flesh and good for storage
• Yukon Gold – good keeper, very versatile (baking, boiling, roasting and frying), yellow flesh
• Chieftain Red Potato (Heirloom variety) – high yielding, stores well, versatile (boiling, roasting and frying)

I believe we are the only source for Organic Seed potatoes in Edmonton.

I have seen estimates of between 3 billion and 9 billion bags a year being used and discarded in Canada. Now I don’t know about you but to me that is a staggering number. And quite shameful when you think of all those bags at one time. When you go shopping and get one it doesn’t seem like much. Then you go to another store and you get your purchase in another one. Before you know it you have a bag of bags at home and you send them off to the recycling centre and you feel good that you have diverted all your bags to a recycling stream rather than the garbage.

Did you know that in most cases it is more expensive for the recycling program to collect and separate than the money they receive for the raw material? We are subsidizing the recycling.

It makes sense to reduce this ‘waste’ stream so that petroleum and plastic can be used for more important products – ones that last longer than their usual life of about 30 minutes. How? By reusing bags. All those plastic bags can be reused MANY times and you can invest in some good quality cloth bags that can be used for decades.

I assume you have all heard the buzz around a new documentary called Revolution. Several of the staff and customers have gone to see it and have said great things about it.

For Earth Day 2013 the film producers would like to encourage more people to check it out. They have provided us with 5 (Five) double guest passes that you can use during the run of the film at the cinema.

So what we will do is the first 5 people that come into the store on Monday, April 22^nd, 2013 (we open at 10 am) and to make it more interesting and educational you have to tell us what year was the first Earth Day Festival held on April 22^nd.

I will post on Twitter and Facebook when the tickets have all been taken.

The tickets are valid until the end of the engagement and only Monday – Thursday. It is playing at the Cineplex Cinema North (14231 137th Avenue, Edmonton).

Yesterday (April 20th, 2013) we celebrated Earth Day in Edmonton with a mini festival at Earth's General Store. This event took up the WHOLE parking lot. This was not so great for our customers so we thought we would encourage them to come out to the festival on Saturday but to come to do their weekly shopping on Sunday by having an Earth Day Sale.

Sounds good?

So by avoiding and possibly being disappointed by the crowds of people and the lack of parking in the area yesterday we want to offer you 10% off EVERYTHING in the store - including sale items!

That's right 10% off your whole bill if you come to the store today only - Sunday, April 21st, 2013 (10am to 6pm)

It is a great day to pick up that Excalibur Dehydrator that you were thinking of purchasing.

Happy Earth Day Sale!

- Posted April 21st, 2012

Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) are an interesting business model a model that meshes well with my philosophy. CSAs are farms (growing operations) where the grower has an arrangement with consumers to supply them with fresh and usually organically grown produce for a specified time period. It is a direct relationship with between consumers and producers. It is meant to be respectful and mutually beneficial – consumers get locally produced fresh produce and the growers get paid directly.

I have participated in this international day of action for many years now. It is such a simple act that many of us could quite easily do but many of us forget that it is an option – we are in the routine… pull clothes out of washer and put in dryer right next to it.

The patterns that we have developed over the past three to four generations are starting to severely effect the climate our personal health (climate change and pollution). If we are to turn around the problems we have created we cannot continue in our usual routines. We need to change. One of the routines we can change is how we dry our laundry.

I have been hanging my laundry outside in the sun for most of my life using my own personal solar device – the clothesline! I hang it throughout the year and when I don't hang it outside I hang in in my basement. I was only using the dryer about 4 times a year and when it was time to rearrange the basement area gave it away (put it in the alleyway with a sign that said FREE and it was quickly gone). That was over 15 years ago. Besides doing all the household laundry (1-2 loads a week) I also do the laundry for the store (2-3 loads a week).

Earth's General Store is working with the Edmonton Earth Day Festival to host an intimate mini pop-up Earth Day Celebration - 'Small is Beautiful' on Saturday, April 20th, 2013 from 11am to 4pm.

After approaching numerous venues for this year's festival, and being unable to find any that were suitable, able or available to host the event, Earth Day coordinators shared the unhappy news with EGS's owner Michael Kalmanovitch.

"We were thrilled when Michael approached his neighbours Adara Hair and Sai Baba Center and agreed to repurpose their parking lot so that a mini version of the festival could be held." says former Earth Day coordinator, Janice Shoults.

Since that time (about 2 weeks prior to the available date of April 20.) a mini Earth Day celebration has been collaboratively created featuring:

Mainstage entertainment

I love cycling and I think bicycling is one of the best ways to enjoy our neighbourhoods, our city, improve our health, reduce our ecological footprint, clean the air, fun and many other wonderful factors. I also love the Edmonton Bicycle Commuters’ Society (EBC) which has promoted the use of the bicycle as a viable and fun way of transportation. I have been involved with this group since 1986 as a volunteer, a member, and as a director.

On May 5th Earth’s General Store (EGS) and Edmonton Bicycle Commuters’ Society will be hosting a bike day. A day that you can bring your bicycle down to Earth’s General Store and volunteers from EBC will do a free tune up. Tune ups will be from 11am to 3pm.

On April 9th there will be several actions taking place across Canada opposing the possible approval of GMO Alfalfa to be sold to farmers in Canada. Earth’s General Store, and my self personally, are opposed to GMO technology and the resulting pollution it is causing.

I encourage everyone to join me on April 9th at the local event – see this Facebook page – and to write to your MP to express your concerns and opposition to GMO and in particularly GMO Alfalfa. You can also drop by the store and sign the petition here (over by the check out counter).

Here is the statement that I signed onto at the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network site:

We invite all organizations, producer associations, companies and community groups to endorse the "No to GM Alfalfa" campaign by signing on to the following statement (Your group’s name will be used in a list of groups that state opposition to GM Alfalfa):

Yesterday we reached 3,000 Likes on our Facebook Page. Thank you everyone that helped us achieve this milestone. I feel flattered that such a small company as ours has some many people that think we are special and have in turned ‘Liked’ us on Facebook and come to the store to financially support us.

So here is a shout out to all of you that have liked us, those that choose to support us, and those that may decide to do one or both of those choices.

Take care and thank you!

Michael and all the staff!

- Posted March 30th, 2013