Posts from — May 2010

Gardeners and Food Bank Planting Seeds for Urban Farming

Rachel Ward
WXXI Centre for Public Affairs
2010-05-06

Audio story: Listen here.
WXXI’s Rachel Ward reports on a coalition of urban agriculture advocates hoping to find a new way to deal with hunger in Rochester neighborhoods.

Excerpt:

ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – At first glance, the farm does not look promising. It’s overgrown with tall grasses and weeds. There’s a high brick wall surrounding it, which casts deep shadows over the cluster of apple trees. And there are kids running around everywhere.

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CNN Video. May 6, 2010
St. Phillips Academy. A school in Newark, New Jersey, is teaching sustainability, healthy living and respect for the environment.

St. Philip’s Students Cook What They Grow

From The Trumpet
St. Philip’s Academy
Fall 2009

St. Philip’s Academy students are trading in their uniforms for aprons to cook in Newark’s first teaching kitchen. Our EcoSPACES program (“St. Philip’s Academy Cultivates Environment Sustainability”) continues to grow in ways that promise to inspire and engage students. The teaching kitchen, our newest addition, encourages students to explore the origins of the food they consume and understand the role of locally grown produce on environmental sustainability. Each month, students prepare ingredients from their rooftop garden plots, transform them into meals and, finally, eat what they started from seed.

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Brooke Salvaggio at Bad Seed, the urban farm she started at Bannister Road and State Line Road. Photo by Sylvia Maria Gross / KCUR.

Kansas City Council Considers Nurturing Urban Agriculture

By Sylvia Maria Gross
KCUR
2010-05-03

KCUR’s Sylvia Maria Gross recently visited a home farm in southwest Kansas City. Bad Seed Farm has become ground zero for the debate over urban agriculture. And real estate agent Stacey Johnson-Cosby, with the Center Planning and Development Council, weighs in with concerns about the proposed ordinance.

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Young Urban Farmers

The YUF garden system incorporates two styles of gardening: rasied garden beds and direct in-ground gardening. This allows us to utilize the best of both worlds to grow a variety of delicious produce.

Our raised bed planter measures 4×4 feet and is assembed in attractive, organized grids. This setup allows for 16 square feet of planting space, and a wide array of plants. Within each square a different type of plant can be planted, however it is recommended to choose your top 4 or 5 favourite fruits, vegetables or herbs to get a full harvest of each type.

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Zucchini and Okra on the 50-Yard Line

By Julie Tam
NBCDFW.com
May 5, 2010

From football to cucumbers and okra, Paul Quinn College in southern Dallas has turned its former gridiron into an urban farm.

Just months after losing and then regaining its accreditation because of financial problems, Paul Quinn College is planting new seeds. The college is giving its students sustainable skills, teaching the basics of farming and the complexities of running a business that sells produce.

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Public Forum on Urban Farming at The Commonwealth Club of California

Sarah Rich, a former editor at Dwell and the co-founder of the Foodprint Project, will be leading a discussion about urban farming at the Commonwealth Club on May 12, 2010. The event will feature panelists Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, Jason Mark, the co-manager of Alemany Farm, Christopher Burley, founder of the Hayes Valley Farm and David Gavrich, founder of City Grazing. The event begins at 6 p.m. and tickets are $20 ($7 for students).

The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum, bringing together its more than 18,000 members for over 400 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy.

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Originally named ‘MacetoHuerto; now released in English as ‘Potted Garden’, it has been a Nº1 app in Spanish and Italian AppStores

Potted Garden

“Having a vegetable garden at home is becoming a vital necessity for many people. Harvesting our own vegetables, watching them grow, taking care of them and bringing them to the table is an unique experience that brings us closer to nature and gives us the opportunity to rediscover the authentic flavours of fruits and vegetables.

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In the heart of the city, behind green metal fences, the cycle of growth marches on.

Directed by George Sander-Jackson

Produced by Hilary Light for ArthurCox 2009.

“The animation was inspired by working on my allotment in the middle of the city surrounded by a busy main road, train line and flightpath from the local airport. I wanted to capture the abilty of plants and nature to find a way in any setting, and the fact that being there digging and planting you become oblivious to the noise of the city around, all you attention taken with the cycle of growing.” George Sander-Jackson

See “Plot”, the animated film, here.

Photo of a Big Bend farm next to suburban homes in the crowded municipality of Burnaby. Photo by Michael Levenston. Larger version here. (2MB)

Highly productive Chinese-Canadian market gardens in the Big Bend area of Burnaby

In 1979, John Jeavons, a California intensive grower, visited City Farmer and toured the Chinese market gardens in Burnaby. He was astounded at the productivity of these urban farms. They were producing for the urban market in the 1800′s and continue to do so today.

The importance of the Chinese-Canadian market gardens in the Big Bend area of Burnaby was described in 1912 by The British Columbian as such: “The Chinese farmers have been for years developing and reaping the benefits of the rich soil. By draining the land with a series of ditches, the [growers] have reduced what was once little better than a cranberry marsh into a richly productive farming area which is one of the most valuable assets to…Burnaby.”

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The FFA chapter at W.B. Saul High School teaches inner city youngsters all about farming and brings new recruits to those planning careers in agriculture. See video report here.

America’s Heartland – Episode 513 – Urban Agriculture

Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, the city of brotherly love. But, right in the middle of one of the largest cities in the country is a high school whose students have a heart for the heartland. When these teens leave their classrooms and books – it’s all about cow pens and brooms.

That’s daily life at W.B. Saul High School, a farm school so to speak with one of the largest FFA chapters in the country. Students spend half the day in class – and for the other half – it’s all ag!

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Dog carrying pig food to pig bin

Feeding food scraps to livestock in World War II

This practice is not common today and it is banned in most countries due to animal health concerns. But in England during the war, the activity was promoted and seniors, who grew up in England, remember the Pig Man.

Revised extracts from ‘A Sheltered Childhood ~ Wartime Family Memories of an East Acton Child’
Contributed by Brian Brooks
The Brooks family lived at 18 The Green, East Acton, West London.

“Not only paper and metal had to be salvaged but now food swill to feed animals, such as pigs, as well. This would help meat rationing. A round metal bin and lid, nick-named the ‘Pig Bin’, was put by the lamppost opposite The Bye, beside the path to the public air raid shelter on The Green. This was for everybody’s food scraps and meat bones. The bin was emptied every few days by unhappy-looking POW’s in a very smelly lorry.
The bin became very dented and the lid wouldn’t fit on properly. It also split and smelly yellowy gunge oozed out. People started to avoid walking too close to it because of the smell, unlike the flies which loved it. It was my job (more war work for me!) to take the food scraps to the pig bin.

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Three definitions of “urban farmer” at Urban Dictionary

From Wikipedia: Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words and phrases. As of April 2010, the site contains over 4.85 million definitions. Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors.

1. Urban Farmer

April 28, 2010 Urban Word of the Day

A person who constantly plays Farmville and acts like they know everything about a real farm — but all they do is live in the city, sit at a computer, and at a certain time, need to stop what they are doing to farm their imaginary crops.

Example: “Carly won’t shut up about her stupid farm and throwing sheep. What an urban farmer.”

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Farmscape is an urban farming company located in the Los Angeles area.

Companies are sprouting up across the country, offering help building and maintaining backyard vegetable gardens for those who lack the time — or green thumb — needed to keep the crops coming.

By P.J. Huffstutter
Los Angeles Times
May 2, 2010

Excerpt:

Ignoring his aching back, Todd Lininger squatted down on his knees and inched his way around the vegetable field.

The yields were up on three arugula plants. A snail crawled in the row of lettuce. And it looked like the onions might be ready for that night’s dinner.

All in all, not a bad harvest — considering that these crops were growing in a Lilliputian backyard plot in a Claremont cul-de-sac.

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Michael Ableman says: “Vibrant and alive, a spirited journey to meet those who are rediscovering the economic, social, and healing power of growing food in the city.”

City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing
By Lorraine Johnson
Greystone Books
May 2010

The dedication in the book reads:
“For Michael Levenston, Canada’s unofficial minister of urban agriculture for more than thirty years.”

Excerpt from Chapter 10 ‘The Edible City’:

Surely we’re ready, in cities throughout North America, for civic actions that ignite our imaginations and engage the possibilities far beyond things like a single pilot-project planter. Here’s a modest list, a start:

Install community greenhouses in public parks, where people can grow seedlings for their yards and community garden plots.

Provide municipally run soil-testing programs, for people to quickly, easily, and affordably determine the health of their soil.

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