New Stories From ‘Urban Agriculture Notes’

See these tomatoes grow each day in five different environments. Tomato Habitus is a project by the artist couple Driessens & Verstappen

Five variously suitable production environments for tomatoes were selected in and around The Hague: an industrial greenhouse in the Westland, a hobby greenhouse, an urban garden and a roof terrace in the inner city, and a shop window in a shopping street. In preparation, twenty five little tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum ‘Dirk’) were grown from seed in equivalent circumstances. Five of these little tomato plants were bedded out at the same time in each of the environments chosen. From that moment on, each plant became a reflection of its habitat. Differences in temperature, light, atmospheric humidity, precipitation, soil structure and care are expressed in the growth process of each separate tomato plant.

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Harris & Ewing Collection (Library of Congress) between 1910 and 1920
See larger image here.

Sheridan School War Gardens. Trespassers, Destroyers and Thieves. Beware $100. fine. One year imprisonment. Dogs are subject to the law. Keep them off.

By Elizabeth Orton Jones 1945

The warm sun is shining in our garden.
That’s where I planted seeds not long ago.
Such little wrinkled things they were
As I held them in my hand!
Now they have grown into vegetables,
Many shapes, many colors, many tastes.

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By Dave M. Matthews
CNN June 29, 2009

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — On a plot of soil, nestled against the backdrop of skyscrapers in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, a group of residents are turning a lack of access to fresh produce into a revival of old traditions and self-empowerment.

HABESHA Gardens is one of many urban gardens sprouting up around the country. Fruits and vegetables are thriving in this community garden located in an economically depressed area of the city known as Mechanicsville.

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We grow lots of garlic at the Vancouver Compost Garden. But not many people know about scapes, the flowering stems that appear in June about three weeks before the bulbs are harvested.

Maria picked some of our scapes and prepared a quick and easy recipe for delicious pesto sauce.

Click through on the YouTube icon to go to higher quality video.

Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackcurrant, Gooseberry, Tayberry, Saskatoon berry

Maria takes us on a tasting tour at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. It’s the end of June and we love sampling what we grow.

The World Future Council brings the interests of future generations to the centre of policy making. Its 50 eminent members from around the globe have already successfully promoted change. The Council addresses challenges to our common future and provides decision-makers with effective policy solutions.

Policies to Change the World, prepared by Miguel Mendonça in 2006 and discussed and approved at the World Future Council’s Annual General Meeting in 2008.

Excerpt from the report. Page 29

Urban Agriculture

Introduction

Urban agriculture, as the literature will often make clear, has an extremely long history. This is understandable, in that transportation was limited in the past, and the hinterland of an urban area may not have been entirely safe from enemies. Agriculture within the walls or close to the city was safer, and its produce took less time and energy to distribute.

Passing rapidly through time to the modern day, urban agriculture is once again finding favour for a great many reasons. Increasing pressure is being applied to governments to also favour the practice through legislation. Policy can significantly support and enhance the production of food in urban areas.

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June 24, 2009
ABC News report

See the video story here at ABC News. (after the short ad)

Link to Urban Farming website here.

Casa Frela Gallery presents The Fruitful Wound, photographs by Dennis Santella. The exhibition runs from July 18th through August 22nd, 2009 in Manhattan, New York.

The Fruitful Wound

For a full year, Dennis Santella has been searching out and photographing gardens and green places across Harlem using a special panoramic camera manufactured by Siciliano Camera Works of Brooklyn. His large richly detailed gelatin silver prints draw on the improvised beauty of Harlem’s open spaces — from cultivated areas such as community gardens, to empty lots, and neglected border areas where plants struggle to survive.

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A film by Mark Lewis (2000)

“Through interviews and reenactments, The Natural History of the Chicken investigates the role of the chicken in American life and tells several remarkable stories. A Maine farmer says she found a chicken frozen stiff, but was able to resuscitate it. Colorado natives tell a story of the chicken who lost its head– and went on living.

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Phase 1 plans utilize more than 70 acres of underutilized vacant lands and abandoned properties on Detroit’s lower east side.

World’s Largest Urban Farm Planned for the City of Detroit

Preliminary Plans Call For The Development Of Underutilized Land To Produce Fresh, Local, Natural, Safe Fruits, Vegetables And Trees

Press Release:
 
Detroit, Mich., Mar. 23, 2009 – Preliminary plans for a newly developed urban farm within the City of Detroit will utilize vacant land and abandoned property to create Hantz Farms, the world’s largest urban farm, announced John Hantz, CEO of Hantz Farms, LLC.

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Mayor Robertson and Councilors announce City Hall community gardens. Vancouver has always prided itself on being a green city - and now it seems city hall might have the greenest thumb. Thirty new plots have been opened to the public as part of a new community garden in Vancouver. June 20, 2009

Vancouverites dig into city hall plots

By Jon Woodward
CTV British Columbia
Saturday June 20, 2009

Eager gardeners were given the green light to dig into a number of plots in a community garden on city hall land on Saturday.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said the decision to convert part of the park north of city hall into fertile ground would stand as a symbol for Vancouverites to grow their own food.

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Maya Donelson tends the rooftop garden of Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. Photo by Peter DaSilva for The New York Times.

By Marian Burros
New York Times. June 16, 2009

This summer, Tony Tomelden hopes to be making bloody marys at the Pug in Washington, D.C., with tomatoes and chilies grown above the bar, thanks to the city’s incentives for green roofs.

Mr. Tomelden, the Pug’s principal owner, says he’s planting a garden to take advantage of tax subsidies the city offers in his neighborhood if he covers his roof with plants.

“If I can do something in my corner for the environment, that seemed a reasonable thing to do,” he said. “Plus I can save money on the tomatoes.”

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2nd International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture Bologna, Italy, June 9-13, 2009

Session 1 - Food and flower production in/for the cities: urban horticulture in developing and developed countries, for food and flower production.

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The Gardener. by Giuseppe Arcimbold

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (also spelled Arcimboldi; 1527 - July 11, 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books — that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognisable likeness of the portrait subject.

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Staff from Buckingham Palace gardens and Garden Organic discuss the new venture.

The Queen has joined the “grow your own” revolution after creating a vegetable plot at Buckingham Palace.

By Andrew Alderson,
The Telegraph, 14 Jun 2009

For the first time since the Second World War vegetables are being grown in the Palace’s grounds alongside ornamental plants.

The move comes amid a surge in demand from people up and down the country to have their own allotment to grow their own food during the recession.

The Queen’s organic vegetable patch is about 10 yards by eight yards in size. It is at the rear of the garden in an area which is called the Yard Bed. (article continues on next page after the video.)

Gardeners deal with a bumper crop of turnips in the gardens at Buckingham Palace.

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Click here for large high-res image.

“What if one block in Texas became the sustainable model for the world?

XERO Project, a proposal for an “X” of greenways and zero-energy building design in downtown Dallas, earned one of three first-place prizes in the Re:Vision Dallas design competition on May 28, 2009.

Urban Agriculture

As a complement to neighboring arts and historic areas, the XERO District is focused on urban agriculture and food. Public orchards, community gardens, private planter boxes, food stalls, and locally supplied restaurants contribute to the district character and buzz.

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Late last fall in the rain, I interviewed David Buddle of Prima Properties about the community garden his development company was setting up in downtown Vancouver.

Just eight months later, on a sunny June Saturday, I interview a very happy community gardener who is successfully growing food on her plot.

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“Dead Victory Garden”. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Lithograph by Kenneth Hartwell

George Kenneth Hartwell (1891-1949) was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He was a painter, illustrator and printmaker. He studied at the Art Studies League of New York under George Bellows, Edward Hooper and others. Hartwell was an American Realist who rose to prominence during the Depression.

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Poster advertising Urban Farms & Gardens Tour

By Janet Brown-Moss (excerpt from Urban Grown newsletter)

Food from the City for the City officially kicks off June 18, 2009, with a gathering of Kansas City’s leading practitioners and visionaries to talk about the area’s urban food production and how it is changing city neighborhoods and family diets. Join us at the Downtown KCMO Public Library at 6PM for an inspiring conversation preceded by a reception featuring local food and wine.

A couple days later, head over to the Ruiz Branch Library, KCMO, and learn about “Farm Animals in the City”, a topic that got quite some press recently here in Kansas City. Then check out the just-released documentary Mad City Chickens to be screened on June 23 at All Souls Unitarian Universalists Church. It is a sometimes wacky, sometimes serious look at the people who keep chickens in their urban backyards.

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