In the 1980s Poland, Solidarity (Solidarność) was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using civil resistance to advance the causes of workers’ rights and social change. The Communist government attempted to destroy it during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to negotiate. The talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to democratic elections and in December 1990 Wałęsa, the movement leader, was elected President. Eventually Wałęsa became a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Originally designed by Jerzy Janiszewski during the movement’s heyday, the Solidarity wordmark was meant to represent a crowd hoisting up a Polish flag.

My friend Paul suggested that I design an American equivalent of this iconic symbol. I gave it a try and after a bit of back-and-forth, we settled on the version below.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to print and distribute, but do not use for any commercial purpose. Please note that the Solidarność logo is property of Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarność.

Let’s admit – we all have issues with others riding the rocket. Whether it’s backpacks shoved in our face, pole huggers – riders that seem to aspire to a career in stripping, or door blockers – those that choose to block the nearest exit regardless of available space in the subway car. It’s doubtful that TTC or Rob Ford will ever do anything to address these annoying habits. I decided to take matters into my own hands and designed a set of stickers that can be used to passively-aggressively point out these shortcomings and hopefully eradicate them by means of social ridicule.

For now, I’ve put together a set based on a recent poll by blogTO aimed to identify some of the top annoyances on the TTC.

All stickers are designed to be used with standard 2″x4″ Avery sticker sheets available at your neighborhood office supply retailer. With a help of a standard inkjet or laser printer you can easily print a set of your own and start policing your daily route. Simply apply a sticker to whoever bothers you – preferably somewhere that will let others know about that rider’s shortcomings for the longest amount of time possible. My hope is that they will notice this sticker when reaching their final destination, feel like complete tools and will think twice about doing it again.

Surely someone will get pissed off and direct their rage at you or whoever designed the sticker (i.e me). I do not encourage you to engage in conflict with them as it might result in a heated exchange or a fight. I also don’t encourage applying them to any TTC property as that may result in a vandalism charge. You should also use common sense to avoid personal property damage in applying them and I will not take any responsibility for any issues that might arise for you by using them.

At the end of the day, taking public transit requires a certain unspoken protocol that a lot of riders seem to ignore and need to be singled out for. Only then, I believe, we have a chance at a more pleasant transit experience. With ongoing cuts to service and increasing population these problems are bound to get worse.

I encourage you to submit your own annoyances in the comments below – perhaps I, or other riders more proficient in computer use and design can enhance this basic set. I am releasing all sets as open source under a Creative Commons Attribution License. This means that they can be reproduced in unlimited quantities without fear of violating copyright laws. Feel free to post links to your own sets in this thread, on your Facebook page or your blog.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Alte Haas Grotesk is a free font by Yann Le Coroller.

You can enlarge the diagram by clicking on the thumbnail below, or alternatively download it in PDF format.

Each piece of data is represented by a circle; the variance in radius is calculated as a percentage ratio to the next highest number.

Statistics are very easy to misinterpret – a lot of these numbers, for instance, depend on specific definitions that make various assumptions in their formula. This visualization wasn’t meant to show an accurate representation of the world economy or society as a whole, but rather as a highlight of things I’ve found to jump out at me. Putting these assumptions aside, there are some visually-staggering differences in how the money that runs world economies is spent and allocated and how various groups within our populations are treated.

This data makes me question the headlines that fill today’s paper. Our media paints a very different picture of the world – one where terrorist attacks are all too common and children living below poverty line aren’t all that much of an issue. For example, it’s incredibly unsettling to see the world-wide expenditure on war ($1.5 trillion) compared to estimated costs of solving world hunger ($30 billion a year for the next decade). Or the amount of children that live below the poverty line (close to 1 billion) compared to how many people died last year in terrorist attacks (approximately 912 – a drop in the bucket compared to how many people die in armed conflicts – 1.6 million).

Comparing and visualizing this data makes me question the economic priorities set by our society and world leaders. It’s hard to build a case for funding projects to alleviate world poverty just by looking at a few numbers – but it’s very easy to see how economic resource allocation isn’t designed to maintain a sustainable world without war or hunger.

I hope seeing this will make you think about what you can do to paint a different picture of the world.

As you can tell from the second photo, I’ve allowed for some extra space on the right for various herbs and vegetables (this is the half-sun/half-shade plot). The garden is already populated by some herbs, two apple trees and a sour cherry tree that I introduced last summer. Aside from edible plants, I am introducing a few native plant species to add some variety in the garden.

I know a thing or two about gardening and sustainable farming having learned to grow herbs, flowers and vegetables from my grandparents. They built, moved to and lived in a self-sustainable cabin in the forest in Ukraine (out of necessity and passion). I spent my summers with them and performed various chores on our little family farm.

All those years of grandma yelling at me to get my ass moving watering are finally paying off! Ah, grandma.

Now I can put these skills to good use in my immediate grown-up urban surroundings in Toronto. I hope to make the food on our table more healthy and delicious, and do my part to make Toronto and the planet a greener place to live.

Over the winter, I worked on two planters made from a set of drawers we picked up on St. Clair sidewalk. Complete with rope handles, treated with a coat paint (recycled from older mixed paints), pimpin’ wheels (picked up at Active Surplus) and filled with a mix of last year’s compost (we compost any food that can be recycled in the garden – last year we’ve collected and processed close to 100kg) and home-made potting mix. As you can probably tell, they will need one more coat of paint.

After the planters were built, I’ve ordered some untreated seeds from Stokes Seeds from St. Catherines and set up a light table for germination and seedling development. I also bought  250 organic peat pellets on eBay that will surely last me a few years. I planted the seeds in the basement under timed fluorescent lights (making sure the temperature of the light is suitable). I wish my house was designed in a way that lets the sunlight do the job, but because of harsh Canadian climate and limited light, I had to resort to these lights.

I have been watering and taking care of the seedlings according to their appropriate temperature and light setting. The fluorescent light-bulbs were timed, so that the seeds are getting the right amount of light at all times. I ran the whole rig through Kill-a-Watt, which lets me monitor the electricity consumption. So far, in the past two months that I’ve had it running 12 hours daily, I’ve clocked 50 kWh, which is about $5 at about 10¢/kWh. Talk about efficiency. And even though it looks like a little grow-op, unfortunately I am not growing pot. To avoid moisture problems (although the seeds are encased), our basement dehumidifier (which helps us keep our heating costs and gas usage down) is usually run in the room if the humidity rises above a certain level – it also allows me to recycle the water collected from the air to water the plants.

Sounds pretty OCD, doesn’t it? That’s not it, just yet.

Here is what my germination and transplanting schedule looks like. I have  a few other tables that I’ve gathered from various e-books that help me fill in the gaps on seeds that did not have any information on the packets. I never cease to be amazed at information and tools that are at our disposal in this interconnected technology-enabled world. If you can come up with an idea, you can gather all the related information and tools within minutes.

I know what you are saying. What a nerd!

But you know what – I am just hoping to have a pretty good yield of tasty vegetables and herbs throughout the summer. Some of the plant seeding (mostly herbs and salads) will occur outdoors and will be staggered so that there’s a consistent yield throughout the year. Eventually, I plan to water these with rainwater run-off collected in one of the RiverSides rain barrels. I would strongly recommend getting one – I have had the pleasure to work with them on Thirsty City walks and they are really passionate and knowledgeable about their cause. Instead of overloading our Toronto sewage system, you can water your garden with water that is collected by your roof during every rainfall. I am also planning on renovating one of the storage rooms in the basement to be a perfect root-cellar in the winter.

Overall, the whole project takes some research, work and dedication, but I think it’s completely worth it. Everyone should have an opportunity to experience food through home-grown plants. I truly believe it’s one of the most important skills to have – renew and foster what nature gives you, aside from just consuming limited resources. Of course, not everyone has a backyard to experiment, but there are always ways to engage yourself with nature and do something you really like doing, and they can be very productive and not at all costly. At the very least you can plant an oak somewhere or sit around making cross-bows out of pop cans.

Of course, all of this this is nothing new. Most of my neighbors have decent lots and most of them garden. I know a few people who compost and grow vegetables on their balconies.  I think that it is really important to fulfill your OCD-fuelled interests – and it does not take a lot of money, time or initial knowledge to do it. Here are some good resources to get you started on urban gardening or whatever obsession is your favourite.

• Instructables – lots of gardening tutorials.
• Freecycle and Craigslist – can help you get some free gardening supplies.
• Green Enterprise Toronto – get in touch with some local Toronto businesses for supplies and advice.
• Scribd – has a lot of gardening e-books.

Happy gardening!

Update:

Since my original Urban organic gardening in Toronto post has been getting a lot of attention, I felt that I needed to follow up on my progress. It has been a particularly rainy summer here in Toronto, so fruiting has been delayed. My tomatoes have only begun to turn red a few days ago once our days became more sunny (whereas last year we were enjoying cherry tomatoes all summer). But take a look! These cherry tomatoes we picked today.

They taste great – really sweet and meaty in texture. A few of the Beef Heart tomatoes ripened as well, and we ate them right away. I get a feeling I’ll be picking these every day for the next few days. I barely had to water them this summer – and spent about 15 minutes once a week plucking the plants to stunt the plant growth and add more weight to the tomatoes.

The bamboo supports did a great job, but I am not sure if I am going to use the string next year. The tomatoes are turning out to be a little too heavy for it. For tomatoes and taller plants I am going to reinforce the existing supports with more bamboo to form more of a cage. Otherwise, bamboo ended up being the perfect material for this – a better alternative to PVC or metal.

I also didn’t make the best choices when it came to sun positioning and planning. By oversight I planted artichokes and jalapeño peppers in a semi-shady spot and due to to a really wet, dark summer they haven’t grown as fast as expected. Based on this year’s results I’m going to move things around next year and move more planters into the driveway – we have lots of unused space because we don’t drive and it tends to be one of the sunniest spots in the summer.

The salad grew pretty wild and I’ve gone through several seeding rounds. We haven’t bought fresh greens all summer – I was particularly happy with green salad and parsley. Fresh parsley made all the difference in salad and cooking – awesome flavour. Salad is really crispy and juicy thanks to all the rain. The planters worked great, but I feel that I need to paint them for next season with some crazy designs.

So yeah, overall, we’ve manage to enjoy homegrown veggies, spices and salad despite having a fairly cold summer with fairly minimal effort.

P.S. One weekend, Studio Restaurant on Church St. was kind enough to put out a whole jar of crushed eggshells (about 1kg) outside for anyone who was interested. Thanks to them, my garden is happier than ever. Every diner should do this – there would be enough gardeners to collect the crushed shells. They are a great organic source of calcium. I collect my own, but nothing beats a kilo of them.