Posts from — January 2010

Larger photo here.

Photos by Lamiot

“Bruggen naar Rabot” is the name used to designate several rehabilitation projects in Gent (Belgium), opening up the development of a district considered the poorest in Flanders. In 2008-2009 a re-development of an abandoned neighbourhood, “Rabot-Blaisantvest”, was begun behind the courthouse. A large urban agriculture community garden was established which comprised of micro-plots raised above the ground on concrete slabs that had once supported the now destroyed Alcatel factory.

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Photo by aardvark. CERES Market Garden, Melbourne, Australia

There’s a growing city appetite for what we once had down on the farm

JULIANNE SCHULTZ
The Sydney Morning Herald
January 23, 2010

When I was growing up, in the 1960s, the supply of food we ate was tangible – outside the dining room window. We had cows for milk; sheep that grew from suckling lambs to Sunday lunch; chooks whose eggs we ate, and whose feathers we plucked, when their recently headless bodies stopped the mad dervish dance; vegetables that still had clods of dirt on them.

Our animals were not pets – they were creatures that fed us and that could be trucked to the saleyard to pay pressing bills. It was smelly, dirty, unrelenting hard work, even on the fertile plains of Victoria’s western district.

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Design Trust Seeks Two Fellows for Urban Agriculture Project

The Design Trust is currently seeking two fellows for Five Borough Farm, a project to create New York’s first citywide plan for urban agriculture. For the project’s first phase, the Design Trust will select two fellows in the fields of metrics/evaluation and policy/sustainable development. Deadline to apply is February 3, 2010.

Five Borough Farm will partner New York City’s most successful urban farm – Brooklyn-based Added Value – with New York’s largest landowner – the City itself – to create the nation’s first citywide plan for urban agriculture.

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Photo by LunaModule

Just 10 minutes from Canary Wharf (London’s second financial district and home of the UK’s three tallest buildings) on the Isle of Dogs, is a wonderful city farm – Mudchute Farm. On 32 acres of fertile land (nutrient-rich as it is just next to the Thames) live 200 animals, mostly rare breeds. Mudchute Farm is also home to 70 community allotments, a farm kitchen and restaurant, horse stables, and smokehouse. Wood from the farm is used in the smokehouse where butter, geese, and cheese are often smoked.

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Phoenix, Arizona Urban Farm

By Greg Peterson
1-800-Recycling
January 19, 2010

Excerpt:

There is something to eat in my yard every day, 365 days a year. Last Thanksgiving it was a wonderful salad of six different greens, including nasturtium leaves and sorrel (a surprise find, growing in the back “wild” area); ruby red pomegranate seeds; an incredible citrus called limequat that was sliced up skin and all for a tangy/sweet sensation; and a little bit of tarragon and fennel, with a smidge of that pretty little three-leaf clover you see growing in some yards called sourgrass. The flavors were so diverse and striking that I chose not to add any dressing at all.

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From Toons At War.
1940′s image.

Disney licensee W.L. Stensgaard produced a Victory Garden sign that featured Donald Duck chasing pests from his garden. The sign was available in two sizes and was sold in five and dimes, hardware and grocery stores.

One version of the sign featured the illustration printed on a masonite board attached to a 24-inch long stake. This sign was produced in six oil colors and had a wholesale price of $10.80 per dozen. The suggested retail was $1.69 each.

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Photo by John Lehmann

Vancouver farmer’s rooftop and backyard gardens are being heralded as the next generation of agriculture in the city

Frances Bula
Globe and Mail
Jan. 03, 2010

Take one Saskatchewan farm boy and move him to the big city. Add a Vancouver condo building’s unused rooftop garden and several vacant backyards.

The result is urban farmer Ward Teulon, also known as CityFarmBoy on his website, a 45-year-old former agrologist who has put his farming skills to work in the middle of some of Vancouver’s densest neighbourhoods.

He produces $30,000 worth of vegetables, herbs and fruit a year on 8,000 square feet of land in garden plots around the city.

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“The Thomason family has been farming in the same part of Richland Parish Louisiana for almost two-hundred years, but our 1/10th acre urban eco-micro farm is located in historic downtown Ypsilanti, Michigan. We are located just a few miles east of Ann Arbor. We raise Mini-Nubian-Nigerian-Dwarf goats for milk and meat, Hubbard ISA Brown French hens for eggs, and Lionhead Dwarf rabbits as pets. We grow organic vegetables for sale including: garlic, mixed salad greens, kale, spinach, Amish paste and Sungold cherry tomatoes, broccoli, peppers and various squashes.”

Collective efforts

BY CURT GUYETTE
Metro Times
April 9, 2009

At first glance, Ypsilanti resident Peter Thomason and his family don’t have a lot in common with the residents of the Detroit collective known as Trumbullplex.

Thomason, who’s in his mid-50s, is a politically conservative, NRA card-carrying, churchgoing father of 10 who teaches construction management at Eastern Michigan University. Trumbullplex, on the city’s near west side, is an anarchist housing collective and show space inhabited by 11 people (at the moment), none of whom are older than 30. And none of them, it’s safe to say, belongs to the NRA.

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Video Interview with Tynes Viar, the Director of Development and Sustainability – (above)

The Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens is a California non-profit organization that was established in 1997 to preserve and operate Fairview Gardens, the historic farm where our products are grown. Founded in 1895, Fairview Gardens is considered by some to be the oldest organic farm in southern California, and is now preserved in perpetuity through an agricultural conservation easement.

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Buckaroo Bugs – 1944 cartoon

There’s trouble in the San Fernando Alley! The Masked Marauder has stolen an entire supply of carrots from the townspeople’s victory garden! Who is the Masked Marauder, you ask? Why, it’s “Buckaroo Bugs”! And who will stop this pesky wabbit?! Red Hot Ryder, that’s who! (Uh, yeah. Right.)

“He got away with everything.”

“What did he get, all the money from the bank?”

“No, all the carrots from our Victory Garden.”

“The sidewinding bushwacker.”

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Independence High School’s Agriculture Department

By Jane Coaston
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/17/2010

ST. LOUIS — Kara Dalton is attempting to control chaos. It’s Monday at the teacher’s pre-veterinary science class at Gateway Institute of Technology high school, and that means baths for the dogs, cats, bunnies, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs and one elusive ferret named Riley.

On one side of the room, three students are grooming a terrier named Shadow. In the walk-in shower room for larger animals, two students hose down a black Labrador retriever. Other students are attempting to corral and bathe a large black cat. Fluffy the bunny has his cage cleaned and his toenails trimmed.

Gateway Institute of Technology, 5101 McRee Avenue, is among a growing number of suburban and urban high schools nationwide offering agricultural and animal science classes. Such classes are also offered at Clyde C. Miller Career Academy in St. Louis and Edwardsville High School, among others in the region.

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Farm in Liberia

CARE
Closing date: 15 Feb 2010
Location: Liberia – Monrovia, Liberia

CARE is seeking an Urban Agriculture Expert for a proposed, USAID – funded, large-scale, multi-year Food and Enterprise Development Program to be based in Monrovia, Liberia. The Food and Enterprise Development (FED) Program will be implemented to achieve the following objectives: 1.) increase agricultural productivity and profitability; 2.) stimulate private enterprise growth and investment; and 3.) build local technical and managerial human resources to sustain and expand accomplishments achieved under objectives one and two.

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Interview with Mr. Clark Henry, an urban planner who serves in the City of Portland Brownfield Program

The Well Run Dry Blog
January 16, 2010

Excerpt:

This post is a continuation of a theme I first began exploring in two previous posts, “The Chicken That Laid Leaden Eggs, and Other Horror Stories,” and “Brownfield Remediation For Urban Homesteaders.” What I discussed in those earlier posts was the problem of soil pollution in urban environments, and the impact of that pollution on efforts to practice safe and sustainable urban farming and urban food gardening.

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“We are a partnership of two women who love to garden and want to be immersed in the dirt of our food systems.”

By Andrew Simmons
SF Weekly
Jan. 13, 2010

Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway are the guerrilla green thumbs behind Little City Gardens, a cherry tomato-sized urban farm in the Mission. Simultaneously a small salad mix business, a hub of food/community positivity, and what the farmers themselves call “a working model of food production in [the city],” Little City Gardens hooks up Bar Tartine and several local caterers with greens (delivered, quite awesomely, on foot and by bike), offers tours, conducts workshops, and generally keeps it as real as water, soil, sun, and fat, writhing earthworms.

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Ou and Muya. (Photo by Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Bob Ou, left, 43, a refugee from Cambodia, and Bilali Muya, a Somalian refugee who doesn’t know his age, share a laugh at the New Roots Community Farm in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego. The two farmers have become leaders in the community, demonstrating how to bridge cultural differences and develop friendships.

In San Diego, fertile ground for the seeds of understanding

At the New Roots Community Farm, refugees plow and share — and watch friendships sprout. It’s not just a source of food, but a connection to their homelands, their new country and one another.

By Anna Gorman
LA Times
January 15, 2010

Reporting from San Diego – A slight breeze carried the scents of onion, cilantro and mint through the roadside garden.

At plot No. 17, Bob Ou picked up a well-worn can and watered rows of radishes and Asian lettuce. At plot No. 33, Bilali Muya crouched down to pull weeds from beds of carrots and sweet chard. He spotted a bright red tomato in a nearby plant, grabbed it and took a bite.

“Your tomatoes are so huge,” Ou said, warning that he might steal one when he walked by.

Muya laughed as he licked the juice off his fingers. “Don’t touch my tomatoes, buddy!”

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Victory Garden – 1942

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Photo of FollowNathan.

4,300 miles from Belfast, Maine to Bellingham, Washington over the course of 5 months

“On May 10th, 2009 I set out on a cross country bicycle adventure starting in Belfast, Maine. My destination was the Washington coast and I had very little worry about what came in between. With a piqued curiosity into complex food movements, the mindset of the American Farmer and the never ending desire to see what type of obscure situations I could land myself in I packed 70 pounds of gear on my bike and set out to follow my dreams. Over 5 months time I had done what most people advised me not to do. I rode a bicycle from one ocean to the other heading East to West fully loaded.”

On the following page see:

A Closer Look at Community Growers an Urban and Rooftop Garden in Milwaukee, WI

Gretchen Mead of The Victory Garden Initiative Talks About Urban Gardening and Sustainability in Milwaukee

Lots To Gardens Ari Rosenberg Speaks About Sustainability and Agriculture

Meagan of Gather ‘Round Farm in Cleveland Ohio Talks About Urban Farming, Using Waste and the Local Food Chain

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The Urban Agriculture Revolution

By Jason F. McLennan
Trim Tab – Cascadia’s magazine for transformative people and design
Winter 2009/2010

Excerpt:

As urban and suburban agriculture gains momentum, it will need oversite. One possible solution would be to establish “Municipal Farmers’ or Urban Farm Czars in every community just like there are city planners or police commissioners. These officials would rank high in local government, reporting straight to the mayor or city manager, and have direct access to all key municipal departments.

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See larger image of the plan here.

A project that will transform a vacant school building on Madison’s Southside into a state-of-the art urban agriculture and community center campus.

The exterior areas of the site will include the following components:

Community Gardens serving the local neighborhood

Education Gardens serving as an outdoor classroom for students from around Dane County

Edible Landscape including perennials such as nut and fruit trees and berries

Innovative Storm Water Management that views stormwater as a resource

Rain Gardens for infiltration of stormwater

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The Rockland County Patriotic Society on their way to charge a ten-acre plot and convert it into a vegetable garden. They believe the spade is as valuable as the rifle.

How the stay-at-homes can provide the sinews of war for America and our European Allies

Popular Science Magazine 1917

America turns to the soil in earnest. Even women are responding to the call for active service. Mrs. Ruth Litt, the wealthy suffragist, has turned over her 135-acre farm for cultivation, the work to be done entirely by women.

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