Posts from — October 2008

Davie Village Community Garden from Michael Levenston on Vimeo. See High Definition version by clicking on the link.
Also see alternative HD High Definition version on YouTube.

David Buddle of Prima Properties describes a new community garden located at the busy corner of Burrard and Davie Streets in the heart of the West End in Vancouver. Landscape contractors put the finishing touches on the garden, bolting down public benches and raking soil in the beds as a rainy Halloween evening approaches.

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The RUAF Foundation, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Development Research Centre, Urban Harvest (CGIAR), the Chinese Urban Agriculture Association and the Nanjing Agriculture and Forestry Bureau are organizing a networking event “Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture for Resilient Cities (Green, Productive and Socially Inclusive)” to take place on Wednesday, November 5th, 14.00-16.00 hours, in the Auditorium, at the World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China. There will also be a booth at the Exhibition and a tour to some urban and peri-urban agricultural sites.

See program flyer here.

1st prize: Eitan Abramovich, Peru
“Harvest of native potatoes”
International Year of the Potato World Photography Contest

The Urban Potato: It’s Time Has Come
By Jac Smit
October 29, 2008
From the Desk of Jac Smit

A few years ago I stood on the roof of a hospital in Port au Prince, Haiti. The surface was half straw and other half organic thrash and half potato foliage. A week later I visited a friend in Washington DC. He took me out to his porch and there was a bale of hay [wire bound] with potato foliage on three sides.

I soon learned that these two cases were examples of “Lazy Man Farming”. Lazy Man was invented in Germany in the 19th Century. Its most cited practice is roadside cultivation in Newfoundland Canada. There the farmers collect seaweed, off load it on the side of the road, and insert seedlings.

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Moro East by Samuel Clark, Samantha Clark
November, 2007

In Moro East, Sam and Sam Clark renew their passion for the food of Spain and the Muslim Mediterranean, but this time they find their inspiration a little closer to home … in an East End allotment.

Bordered by the River Lea and the Grand Union Canal, on its own little island, Manor Garden allotments may seem a world away from Moorish Spain or Morocco. However, once beyond the gates, you are transported to the Eastern Mediterranean by a community of Turks and Cypriots who cultivate and cook an extraordinary range of ingredients, many of which are integral to the food served at Moro. It is here that Sam and Sam took on their very first allotment.

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Concrete Jungle – The jilted generations are turning the mean streets green

By Jake Lynch
Canberra Times, Oct 22, 2008
(Australian journalist looks at North American urban agriculture and reports for an Australian readership.)

As my first American winter gave way to my first spring, I saw veggie patches sprouting up all over the place – in backyards, but also on the strip in front of houses, and in planter boxes on concrete pathways. The local school built a garden out front where people were free to take whatever grew there. The proliferation reminded me of some poorer cities in Asia where people grew food for survival.

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The RUAF’s Urban Agriculture Magazine 20 is out. “Water for Urban Agriculture”

• Sustainable Use of Water in Urban Agriculture
• Using Treated Domestic Wastewater for Urban Agriculture and Green Areas; The case of Lima
• The Use of Reservoirs to Improve the Quality of Urban Irrigation Water
• Adapting to Water Scarcity: Improving water sources and use in urban agriculture in Beijing
• Improving Decision-making on Interventions in the Urban Water Systems of Accra

Read the complete issue online here.

“As the global food crisis drags on, urban farmers are on the rise. NBC’s Dawna Friesen looks at cutting costs by growing your own dinner.” 6 minute video.

The camera travels to many of the stories you see on this web site (cityfarmer.info) including London backyards, balconies, historical wartime footage, city farmers in Cuba, Chicago gardeners selling to restaurants, greenhouses on NY roofs, vertical farms, Royal Park and White House food gardens, and the Edible Estates author. This video reaches a huge worldwide TV audience.

Photo by Mike Rhodes

City of Fresno Wants to Destroy Garden to Make Way for Police Station

By Mike Rhodes,
Indybay, Oct 21, 2008

The City of Fresno is attempting to evict a group of Hmong gardeners from plots they have farmed for 13 years. The Hmong Community Garden, which sits on 4 acres of public land, provides food for 300 members of the Hmong community. Spokesperson Mai Summer Vue said that to the gardeners, the garden is “a way of life, a peace of mind, food for their family, exercise, therapy, stress relief, and it eases their mental health issues…caused by the Vietnam War.”

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Watch 1940 Kids Learn to Food Garden

1940 ‘Gardening’ an instructional sound film. (10 minutes)
Produced by Erpi Classroom Films Inc.
In collaboration with Ellen Eddy Shaw, MA
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Encyclopedia Britannica Films – ‘Bring the world to the Classroom”

The Child’s Food Garden – ‘with a few suggestions for flower culture’
School Garden Series.
By Van Evrie Kilpatrick, 1918
Principal of the Carlisle School, New York City and assigned to supervision of School and Home Gardens. President of the School Garden Association of America
65 pages. Includes many photos and illustrations

Preface:

Every boy and every girl who has a garden at home, or who is given a plot in a school garden, ought to learn to do the work successfully. Yet, as the author has found, children, especially those who live in cities and towns, know little or nothing about producing anything from the soil, and since the teacher cannot always be present to direct the work, there is a danger that discouraging mistakes will be made.

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Surrey may be home to region’s first vertical greenhouse

By Kelly Sinoski, The Vancouver Sun
21 Oct 2008

Rooftop gardens and vertical greenhouses could be a sign of the times in Metro Vancouver as the region wrestles with ways to tackle a global food crisis and the effects of climate change.

And Surrey could lead the trend, with at least one developer considering building a so-called vertical farm in Whalley, which is slated to become the region’s second downtown.

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The Film

HOMEGROWN follows the Dervaes family who run a small organic farm in the heart of urban Pasadena, California. While “living off the grid”, they harvest over 6,000 pounds of produce on less than a quarter of an acre, make their own bio diesel, power their computers with the help of solar panels, and maintain a website that gets 4,000 hits a day. The film is an intimate human portrait of what it’s like to live like “Little House on the Prairie” in the 21st Century.

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Photo by Donald Street Farms

Entrepreneurs set out to farm unused residential yards – and make money to boot

By Moira Dann
The Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008

VICTORIA — It all started in June for Deb Heighway with a call from her brother, Craig, proving that good ideas grow roots and flourish quickly. He had declared himself CPO – “chief pitchfork operator” – of an urban farming venture in Vancouver, and he urged her to give the concept a try.

“The timing was right, as I had just finished a contract,” said Ms. Heighway, who works helping people who have suffered brain injury. “And I said: ‘Why not?’ ”

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World War 1 poster. 1914-18. Canada Food Board
Artist: Joseph Ernest Sampson 1887-1946

2008 – Revised bylaw will welcome urban farming
By Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist
October 04, 2008

Farming will soon become a legitimate home occupation in Victoria. Victoria councillors have approved changes to the municipality’s zoning bylaw to include urban agriculture as an allowable home occupation for up to two people living in a house.

The change won’t mean dairy cattle or hogs competing for space in your neighbour’s garden shed, though. Under the bylaw, urban agriculture will defined as the growing of fruit or vegetables only.

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$100,000 gift helps feed needy – Grant to WSU nourishes urban gardens, other food resources

Darren A. Nichols, The Detroit News
October 17, 2008

Efforts to feed the needy in Detroit with locally grown produce got a $100,000 boost on Thursday from a Ford Motor Company grant.

Wayne State University officials said the money will support the school’s Sustainable Food Systems and Engagement in Detroit (SEED) program. It will aid ongoing efforts to establish urban gardens and other sustainable food resources at Wayne State and throughout Detroit.

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The Allotment Movement in England, 1793-1873
By Jeremy Burchardt, 304 pages, 2002. Link to book here.

Lyddington Garden Allotments.
Rules and Regulations.
From The Times (Britain)
November 23, 1872

1. The land shall be cultivated by the spade only, and proper attention shall be paid to its cultivation.

2. No allotment, or any part thereof, shall be underlet or exchanged.

3. The rent shall be due on the 1st of September in each year, and shall be paid before the crop is taken off the ground.

4. All tenants shall maintain a character for morality and sobriety, and shall not frequent a publichouse on the Sabbath-day. All the tenants are earnestly requested to attend regularly at the House of God during the times of Divine service, with their families, to the best of their abilities.

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A 57 minute documentary by SeedSavers on traditional diets and how they are grown and eaten in eleven countries.

Our Seeds: Seed Blong Yumi

A small crew comprising Seed Savers directors, Michel Fanton and Jude Fanton, and occasionally a local soundperson took a hundred and sixty hours of footage in eleven countries: Spain, France, Italy, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

There are interviews of farmers and expert commentators and documented seed saving, farming methods and cultural activities in both first world and tribal locations. Peasants in advanced countries, such as Taiwan, Spain, France and Italy share the same sentiments as indigenous Pacific farmers when it comes to traditional varieties.

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Painting by Beryl Cooks, ‘The Allotment’.
See Beryl Cook web site here.

Editorial in The Times (Britain)
Aug 25, 1919

Urban Allotments

There is a side to the question more important than the money value of the produce. The country is about to undergo an industrial revolution. There is to be a maximum working week of forty-eight hours for the vast majority of working men who dwell in towns. What are the artisans, clerks, shopmen, and the multitudes of indoor labourers to do with their new leisure?

Some will do nothing with it, or worse. But if facilities in the way of allotments and of instruction in the growth of flowers and vegetables are given to them, very many will gladly utilize them. It will be an interest, a recreation, and a health giving pursuit to them.

Even when the working day was long, artisans and miners readily cultivated plots when these were within reach, and the dwellers in large towns should be given the same facilities. The compulsory shortening of hours of labour must be correlated with increased provision for the hours of leisure, and in the provision allotments should be included.

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Photo: Library of Congress. ‘Must see’ larger image here.

Thomas Jefferson Park, New York City

A children’s farm garden, one of many which flourished in parks in the first half of the 20th century, opened on May 20, 1911 with 1008 plots for children to grow flowers and vegetables. Designed as a place of respite for child laborers, the farm garden later hosted nature study classes and, during the World Wars, provided a lesson in self-sufficiency for local children.

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Photo by Novella Carpenter. Larger image here.

Novella Carpenter is the author of the forthcoming book FarmCity: The Education of an Urban Farmer (Penguin Press). “I studied under Michael Pollan at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism for two years. My journalistic work reflects my interests–in farming, food, the environment, and culture. In a nutshell, I like to tell stories about people who follow unconventional paths.”

Novella blogs her life on her urban farm at ‘Ghost Town Farm’. Here is an early blog entry by the author.

Feb 16, 2007

I first started farming in the city of Seattle in 1998. At the time, I was a book editor at Sasquatch Books, and one of our favorite authors was Carla Emery. She wrote a book called the Encyclopedia of Country Living. One day I was flipping through the newsprint pages of the book (this is how editors procrastinate) and happened upon a section called How to Build a Chicken House.

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