Posts from — April 2010

Bomb crater, blitzed gardens 1942

London. M/S of Westminster cathedral, the camera pans across to a bomb crater near it which has been turned into a garden. M/S of Mr Hayes who has grown and tended the flowers and vegetables. Various shots of him in the garden.

Various shots as girls of the National Fire Force walk into a big allotment with their gardening tools. The garden has been grown where rubble used to be and now boasts a variety of vegetables. Various shots as the girls tend the garden. C/U’s of little tomatoes and apples. M/S as cabbages are gathered.

See the video here.

See more films on the next page.

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Mary Gazetas of the Richmond Fruit Tree Sharing Program stands at Terra Nova rural park, where farming classes are held. She says there’s ‘a renaissance’ of people wanting to connect with the land again.
Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG, Vancouver Sun

Budding farmers can learn from the ground up at Richmond farm school

By Kelly Sinoski,
Vancouver Sun
April 14, 2010

Excerpt:

Most of its farmland was paved over decades ago, but the City of Richmond has found new ground to support a growing resurgence of the community gardener.

The city this week finalized a three-year agreement with the Richmond Food Security Society, giving the group a one-time $15,000 grant to run the city’s four community gardens as well as the $8,000 it collects annually from the gardens.

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Garden to be demolished this year due to redevelopment in the area

Inspired By The East Harlem Community Gardens And In Celebration Of The 40th Anniversary Of Earth Day At The Somniac Gallery

New York – Oliver Rios, founder of Orios Designs Co. , brings you The Magic Garden (TMG), an exhibit inspired by a community garden in East Harlem. TMG was founded in 1991 by Lydia Roman (Oliver’s mother). After 15 years of its prominent existence in the neighborhood, the community garden, located at 118th St. and Park Ave., will be demolished due to redevelopment. Through this exhibit, Oliver hopes to raise awareness on the importance of gardens in urban communities and also to motivate residents in supporting those gardens that are still in existence.

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Swiftlet breeders, eyeing the lucrative edible nests market, have taken over 8.3 per cent of some 3,500 pre-war buildings in George Town, Malaysia.

Sabah To Prepare Guidelines On Proper Swiftlet Farming – The nests are built entirely from threads of the bird’s saliva, and are collected for the famous Chinese delicacy bird’s nest soup.

KOTA KINABALU, April 9 (Bernama) — The Sabah Local Government and Housing Ministry will prepare guidelines for proper swiftlet farming in all of the 24 districts in the state.

Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor said today this was because the state cabinet had decided to ban swiftlet farming in the city and town areas.

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A Visit to Cuba

By Roger Doiron
Kitchengardeners
April 13, 2010

Cuba is not only an island nation in terms of its geography, but also its economy and politics as a result of the US embargo and the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s largest source of trade and aid until the Berlin Wall fell in 1991. Cut off from the world’s pipeline of food, oil, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, Cuba embarked upon an ambitious program to grow as much of its own organic food as possible in the 1990s during what was known as the “special period.”

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Children’s gardening book

By Annie and Veda
As told to Justine Kenin
Photographs by Becky Lettenberger
Tenley Circle Press, Ltd.
May 1st, 2010

(Washington D.C. April 6, 2010) Tenley Circle Press announces its latest children’s book to engage hand, eye, ear, taste bud, nose—and imagination. We Grew It – Let’s Eat It! is a story by D.C twins Annie and Veda who learn about gardening, and growing their own food.

NPR’s Justine Kenin chronicles the story by her twin 5 year-old daughters as they learn about the White House vegetable garden and wish for a garden of their own. How do you garden if you live in a city apartment? Watch the sisters and senior gardener Ida work and play their way through planting, tending, and harvesting in a neighborhood Community Garden. Then comes the fun of preparing and eating simple, tasty, homegrown food.

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Opinion by Michael Levenston
City Farmer
April 13, 2010

(Note: My wife thinks this is too obvious a point to make.)

City and country farmers, who produce our food, will never see their crops replaced by bits and bytes. Food has to be grown and delivered to our lips. The work of the farmer is as important now as it ever was.

CD’s can be downloaded in an instant, digitized movies are watchable on our phone screens, and now Kindles and iPads are selling fast, threatening the end of the paper book. However the peaches, fish and pasta we eat cannot be transformed into digital form.

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Royal Visit to Allotments – Queen Mary and King George V – 1914

Shot of King and Queen along with Mayor and probably Mayor’s wife; heading up a group of people on this tour; walking along through a garden. Pan as they pass rose bush. Next a man is holding up a piglet. The Queen laughs, pats the critter and scratches its ears.

Shot of the King and 5 other men standing in a garden. George points with his cane at what seems to be a huge prize lettuce. Pan to Queen. Then CU Queen Mary in a line with others; looking down at something.

Note: Queen Mary looks positively jolly in some of these shots! Location of events unknown – somewhere in Britain.

See the film here.

More films on the next page.

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Panorama of Dar es Salaam city a few minutes before dusk. Photo by Benjamin William Mkapa

Urban Farming – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

By Afton Halloran
Afton Halloran is a urban agriculture project officer with Sustainable Cities: PLUS Network Africa Project.
This Day
April 13, 2010

Excerpt:

Examples of innovation on the behalf of farmers in Dar es Salaam include the zero-grazing method of livestock rearing as it reduces the amount of land needed to graze. Zero-grazing cattle reduce soil compaction, soil erosion and other environmental stresses caused by over-grazing.

A direct result of this method is the milk we drink from peri-urban areas in Dar es Salaam. Other farmers have designed vertical poultry “apartments” to provide more space to raise chickens in the city.

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A public lecture by Doug Farr – March 2008

From the website posted April 13, 2010:

This evening, Doug Farr is going to talk about integrating sustainable urbanism and agriculture on the urban edge.  Having evaluated the sustainability of East Fraserlands, a project along Vancouver’s river edge planned by DPZ, Farr has been commissioned by Century Group (this evening’s sponsor) to consider opportunities for sustainable solutions at the suburban/rural edge in the Southlands of Tsawwassen.  For those who care about the future of this region, this is a must-hear lecture.

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March 9, 2010. Homegrown Harvest: Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray tend to Brooklyn’s first window farm. This form of urban agriculture is catching on in cities around the world, as downtown farmers go online to share techniques for growing greens indoors.

Window Farming: A Do-It-Yourself Veggie Venture

by Jon Kalish
NPR.org
April 4, 2010

Excerpt:

If you have a green thumb, a window and a serious Do-It-Yourself ethic, you too, can be a farmer … even in your downtown apartment building. Spring is here, and for urban dwellers with no access to soil, hydroponic gardening is a way to grow fresh veggies indoors.

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Forthcoming June 2010

Regionalverband Ruhr
1. Edition 2010, approx. 112 Pages
150 color Illustrations, Hard cover
German, English
The volume editor, the Regionalverband Ruhr (RVR; Ruhr Regional Association), is an alliance of the communes of the Ruhr region.

Agricultural areas in industrial and urban regions will in the future no longer be seen merely as functional space but rather as “islands of the beautiful and the useful.” In the extremely densely built Ruhr region, two projects explore the space between postindustrial forest landscape and useful agricultural landscape: the Industrial Forest of Rhine-Elbe and the Ornamental Farm of Mechtenberg.

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Agricultural Urbanism – new book

by Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland (Editors)

This book is a collaborative work with contributions from many local food and agriculture leaders in the Vancouver Area including Peter Ladner, Patrick Condon, Kent Mullinix, Mark Holland, Bob Ransford, Michael Ableman, among others.

April 2010
Green Frigate Books
200 pages, paperback
100 photographs and illustrations
20 tables and diagrams

Awareness of the significant challenges our food supply system faces in the 21st century is growing rapidly. Agricultural Urbanism, rooted in a sustainable food systems approach and written by leaders in the planning and design fields, outlines a powerful strategy for understanding and taking action on the full-scope of sustainable food system opportunities in cities and how we can build them.

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Phoenix Permaculture board member and eco-entrepreneur Diann Peart. Photo by Chris Cameron.

The Andrew Long Show

Episode 6 [47:05m]
April 10th, 2010

The Andrew Long Show is dedicated to bringing the best and most interesting Arizonans up to the microphone to tell their stories. The show is recorded weekly and is hosted by local journalist, Andrew Long. Andrew is a senior news artist for the Arizona Republic and an adjunct professor for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. The show is recorded at the Cronkite School.

Diann Peart is a member of the Phoenix Permaculture Guild Board. Diann lives in a flood-irrigated old neighborhood in Tempe and is actively converting her large yard into a teaching and demonstration garden for the East Valley. Diann hosted and produced The Urban Gardener for Chandler Educational TV.

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We’ve broadcast these before but British Pathe contacted us and kindly sent still images from the films. Definitely worth a second look at these three! Mike

“Universal Newsreel – All Out For Victory”

Voice-overed American news reel item.
United States of America (USA), circa 1941

Various shots of chimpanzee dressed in clothes using tools to dig vegetable patch. Part of a call to Dig For Victory on behalf of the American people.

See the video here.

More video on the next page.

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Austin’s agrarian past rises again – four urban farms

At Sunday’s East Austin Urban Farm Tour, you can experience a taste of Austin’s past, the present, and an invaluable element in our future. April 11, 1-5pm

By Virginia B. Wood
Apr 9, 2010
The Austin Chronicle

Excerpt:

The current East Austin farm renaissance began in the early 1990s. Determined to farm, Larry Butler and Carol Ann Sayle bought the last 5 acres of a Republic of Texas-era homestead; meanwhile, Glenn and Paula Foore were purchasing a city block around the corner on Springdale Road for their landscaping company with no idea that they, too, would one day become farmers.

In 2000, Stephanie Scherzer and her partner, Kim Beal, found a cozy cottage surrounded by 4½ acres along Boggy Creek that appeared to be the perfect home for their landscape design business, the success of which enabled Scherzer to pursue her real passion for farming.

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An urban community garden in central Vancouver, Canada. This project shows that food can be grown in densely populated areas. Photo by Michael Levenston

By Thair Shaikh
CNN
April 8, 2010

Excerpts:

London, England (CNN) — As the world’s urban population continues to grow at a rapid rate, communities around the world are increasingly turning to “city agriculture” to produce cheap, locally grown fruit and vegetables.

Among skyscrapers and housing estates, previously vacant lots are being used to produce millions of tons of organically grown food that experts say are “greener” and cheaper than commercially grown produce.

But while many countries are in the early stages of their urban agriculture development, China, Japan and Cuba have had successful city farms for decades.

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Farm And Urban Life Collide: Goat Rental Business Chews Up Construction Sites All Around The Seattle Area.

John Hopperstad
KCPQ-TV
April 7, 2010

SEATTLE – They have been in TV commercials, but the goats owned by Tammy Dunakin make their meal money by eating their way through brush all over the Seattle area.

Dunakin started Rent-A-Ruminant a few years ago as a “Green,” way to clear blackberry bushes and other brush from construction sites.

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Farm-in-a-bag offers Kenya lifeline

By David McKenzie, CNN
April 8, 2010

Excerpt:

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — For centuries Africa has been a rural continent, but there is a steady stream of people heading into the crowded cities — where many find their new home is in a slum.

In Nairobi’s densely populated slums people have hard lives and some are going back to their agricultural roots to get ahead.

The “farm-in-a-sack” project provides poor families with more than 40 seedlings, which can be grown into food in just a few weeks.

Nairobi’s Mathare slum is not a paradise for green-fingered ambitions — the streets are narrow and garbage is strewn everywhere. But mini-farms are cropping up on spare land.

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City slickers learn to farm their veggies.

CNN video by Frederik Pleitgen
April 8, 2010

The program is run by Meine Ernte. The website is in German but Google Translate will translate for you.

Excerpt:

Depending on how many people you want to feed, we recommend different sizes:
 
Garden Suitable for garden size.

The little kitchen garden for singles and pairs, or 1 – 2 persons 50 sqm 149, – €
The standard vegetable garden for families and friends, so 3 – 4 persons approx 100 sqm 289 – €
The Great Vegetable for garden clubs or groups, for a total of 5 – 6 people 150 sqm 433, – €

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