Posts from — August 2010

In Richmond, Virginia, Mark Lilly is taking local food to the people

By Lorie Johnson
CBN News Medical Reporter
August 18, 2010

Excerpt:

After Lilly collects the food from his various local farmers, he turns around and travels back to the city: the inner city. His roving farmers market makes stops in so-called “food deserts,” urban areas where thousands of people who don’t have transportation live more than a mile from a grocery store.

In such areas, people have little choice but to settle for whatever unhealthy processed food is available at the corner convenience store, next to the cigarettes and lottery tickets.

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One man’s parking garage is the same man’s garden — where he’s proving it’s possible to grow a significant portion of his own food at home, even in a San Francisco apartment building!

By Jon Brooks
Tonic.com
August 4, 2010

Excerpt:

It started three years ago with a single tomato plant. Today, he and his wife Ellen estimate that they grow 25-30 percent of their total food intake. Current crops include tomatoes, peas, blackberries, raspberries, basil, carrots, mushrooms and several types of lettuce, almost all cultivated in nine half-barrels of soil, tucked away in a corner of their San Francisco apartment’s parking garage. He is also growing sprouts in a couple of jars on his kitchen table.

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Atlantic City Nursery Concept Plan

City Farming Gaining Ground

Our American Generation
Aug 17, 2010

Excerpt:

In late 2009, the 72-year old Atlantic City Nursery in Rainier Beach was closed by Seattle Parks and Recreation, which cited fiscal reasons. This opened up a public process to determine the site’s future use, and the Friends of the Atlantic City Nursery decided to try to turn the site into an urban farm while also restoring part of the original wetlands. Most of the participants in this process are residents of Rainier Beach; that, coupled with Rainier Beach’s lower-income demographic, should help calm fears of outsider, elitist interests.

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The Ala Wai Community Garden, above, in Honolulu.

These 10 U.S. cities have the most community gardens per capita, according to the Trust for Public Land.

By Jessica C. Wakeman
The Daily Green
August 16, 2010

Excerpts:

Seattle

Seattle’s P-Patch Program provides 68 gardens for residents throughout the city, with plans for four additional gardens by the end of 2009. The program was created by the Department of Neighborhoods and the nonprofit P-Patch Trust in 1973. Their volunteer-run community gardens offer 1,900 plots and serves more than 3,800 urban gardeners on 23 acres of land. With a youth gardening program and a 12.3-ton produce donation last year, Seattle is a city built for horticulturists.

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The Local Show on KCPT is designed to highlight artists and entrepreneurs, leaders and overachievers from all walks of life – and in the process, help Kansas Citizens discover substantially more about this place we call home.

Link to Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture here.

A garden on wheels designed by Christina Cho

By Rachel Johnson
From Green Harvard
“A Moveable Feast”
June 24, 2010

Excerpt:

A garden on wheels may soon be rolling up to your department or dorm, thanks to GSD student Christina Cho. The project, undertaken this spring with the support of an OFS Sustainability Grant, combines food, public art, and community gardening into a unique setting: the Mobile Ethnic Garden.

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Richmond, California – The seeds are rented at no cost, but you do have to fill out the correct forms and attend a small workshop

By Eric Thomas
ABC East Bay News
Aug 16, 2010

Excerpt:

RICHMOND, CA (KGO) — Urban farming is not a new concept. But, finding the time, the seed and the gardening knowledge has been hard — until now. In the city of Richmond, people can get everything they need to start their own gardens, with a little help from the local library.

“If left to my own devices, I could spend all day out here, but it’s not required,” said backyard gardener Kelli Barram.

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“These code changes will strengthen our community food security”

From the Seattle government website
8/16/2010

SEATTLE – As part of the 2010 Year of Urban Agriculture, the Seattle City Council approved Council Bill 116907 that supports the rapidly growing local food movement. The ordinance updates the City’s Land Use code governing urban agriculture uses, including allowing “urban farms” and “community gardens” in all zones, with some limitations in industrial zones. Also, residents will now be able to sell food grown on their property.

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To conduct its urban indoor farming business, Urban Ag will be utilizing TerraSphere’s proprietary system of vertically stacked growing trays

PRNewswire
Red Bank, N.J.
Aug. 16, 2010

Excerpt:

“We plan to locally produce, in urban areas, environmentally friendly and sustainably grown healthy fruits and vegetables on a year-round basis,” commented Ed Reilly, CEO of Urban Ag.  ”TerraSphere has developed an advanced growth system that should allow us to produce these products year around, regardless of weather or environmental conditions, significantly benefiting local communities.  Using these proprietary growth systems, we plan to produce fruits and vegetables that are free of herbicides and pesticides and that will have a substantially longer shelf life than agricultural products produced by traditional farming techniques.”

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Sasha, Emilee and Jere Gettle at the recently revived Comstock, Ferre & Company seed business in Wethersfield, Conn. Photo by David La Spina for The New York Times.

“Let’s rock the food supply in 2010!”

By Christine Muhle
New York Times
August 11, 2010

Excerpt:

Seed catalogs are what sustain most gardeners in the pit of winter, the pictures of bright blooms and fleshy melons stoking their fantasies. When my mother-in-law sent me the beautiful Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog in February, it reanimated me, but it befuddled me too. There was an “olde tyme” painting of a melon on the cover, while the editor’s letter — “Let’s rock the food supply in 2010!” it implored — showed an attractive young family whose father has a thing for overalls and loud shirts. What followed was the cutting edge of heirloom seeds: 1,400 varieties from 70 countries, including vegetables yet to appear in any canvas market bag.

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About 75 volunteers helped spruce up the Institute for Human Services men’s and women’s shelters in Iwilei yesterday, planting gardens as part of the organization’s urban farming initiative. Volunteer Kendra Neipp helped Autumn Ingalls, 2, left, and Gwyneth Landau, 7, plant beets. Photo by Bruce Asato.

Volunteers help spruce up the IHS facility in Iwilei to celebrate its Founder’s Day

By Rob Shikina
Honolulu Star Advertiser
Aug 15, 2010

Excerpt:

A homeless shelter has become a garden in the city.

Community members planted malabar spinach, papaya trees, grape tomatoes, banana trees, corn, Okinawan and regular sweet potatoes, and various herbs yesterday as the Institute for Human Services celebrated its Founder’s Day. The event drew about 75 volunteers from the shelter and community to spruce up the men’s and women’s shelters in Iwilei.

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Green Pizza by Cer Té

Crafted by Kari Elwell Katzander of Mingo Design, this pizzeria’s herb wall spans 2 x 8 feet and grows basil, oregano and thyme, which are used in the restaurant’s dishes. Pizza by Cer té is also Manhattan’s first “green” pizzeria, using locally grown ingredients, recyclable boxes and biodegradable utensils.

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Banashankari resident Jagadish Shri set up his own terrace garden where he grows organic vegetables like beans and carrots. Photoby Chetan Boray.

Does growing vegetables on your rooftop seem a bit far-stretched? Meet Banashankari resident Jagadish Shri who does exactly this with his own organic terrace garden.

By Vinita
Citizen Matters
August 13, 2010

Excerpt:

Meet 44-year-old Jagadish Shri, whose entry into organic terrace gardening more than a year ago was, well…organic! Having set up a rainwater harvesting (RWH) system at his independent house in Banashankari 2nd stage, he was wondering what he could experiment with next. He was also concerned about the high pricing of organic food, when a visitor to his blog pointed him to organic terrace gardening and a company that helps set up such gardens.

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Sita Rokka, a mother of two and a member of the Kalika home garden women’s group in Rupandehi district, is making great use of such synergies. Photo credit: Sajal Sthapit, Roji Suwal, and Roshan Pudasaini

The Nepalese Department of Agriculture has recognized home gardens as a viable approach for the sustainable livelihood enhancement of resource-poor and disadvantaged communities.

By Sajal Sthapit, Roji Suwal, and Roshan Pudasaini
Nourishing the Planet – A Worldwatch Institute Blog
July 27, 2010

Excerpt:

A home garden, commonly known as ghar bagaincha in Nepali, refers to a traditional land-use system around a homestead that is maintained by household members for the primary function of family food consumption. Home gardens provide 60 percent of total fruit and vegetable consumption in a 5–6 member household in rural Nepal. They are also an important source of essential nutrients. In one study, 69 percent of the 1,100 surveyed households that had adopted home gardens added six different types of nutrients to their diet.

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At a garden off Lowell Street, Charlie Radoslovich weeds around lettuce plants. Credit Abby Jordan.

A two-part series looking at the backyard farming concept of Rad Urban Farmers.

By Abby Jordan
Lexington Patch
August 10, 2010

Excerpt:

Radoslovich’s “Rad Urban Farmers” brings the idea of local food right into the backyards or onto the lawns of 15 families, including 11 in Lexington and four in Arlington. In total, Radoslovich farms a quarter of an acre spread throughout the communities.

“It’s a lot of work, and I’m loving it,” Radoslovich said.

Rad Urban Farmers, known also as RUF, looks to change lawns into gardens, and reconnect people with the land and their food. Each family gets a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) portion of the yield from all of the gardens, while the rest Radoslovich totes by bike to the Lexington Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays.

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Caitlyn Galloway weeding a test plot on Wednesday at the urban farm in the Outer Mission that she leases with her partner, Brooke Budner. Photo by Adithya Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

“It’s actually easier in Berkeley to have a pot collective than to have a vegetable collective”

Excerpt:

AnMarie Rodgers, a San Francisco city planner and the daughter of an Iowa pig farmer, is circulating a draft zoning change — one that has not been made public — that she hopes will be introduced in mid-September. It has the support of Mayor Gavin Newsom, who last year ordered the city to increase healthy and sustainable food.

“There are beginning to be relatively small-scale gardening operations that are running up against the constraints of the current code,” Ms. Rodgers wrote in a recent memo to city officials. “This is an issue that cities around the country are grappling with, and many big cities are revising or considering revising their zoning codes to support at least small-scale urban agriculture.”

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Photo: Courtesy of Brooklyn Grange

Farm City Festival

Over three weekends, Farm City celebrates Urban Agriculture and explores the possibilities of a new agrarian future within the current urban reality. Components include:

Farm City Fair 9/12/10
Farm City Film 9/12 +14/10
Farm City Tour 9/18 + 19/10
Farm City Forum 9/25/10

These events spotlight the work of artists, farmers, activists, planners, architects, chefs, and foodies, all devoting themselves to feeding the city both culturally and agriculturally. Farm City is co-curated with Lili Chopra, FIAF, and Simon Dove, University of Arizona.

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Vacant Lot Transformed into a Garden by San Diego Firemen – in 1917

By Ben Jervey
The New Ideal at Good
Aug 11, 2010

Excerpt:

From The American City from 1917
“There has been agitation this season concerning the vacant city lots, and efforts have been made [throughout] the country to make such patches of land bring in returns in the way of crops, thus relieving the situation incident to the high cost of living. A group of firemen at one of the San Diego stations secured permission to cultivate a lot across the street from their building, which had been left vacant by the removal of an old stable.

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ABCD Youth Job trainees. Jonelle and Dawnele, Sales and Outreach Team. Mujihad the supervisor.

How Victory Programs’ urban farm benefits Boston’s high-risk communities

by Emily Cataneo
Bay Windows
Aug 11, 2010

Excerpt:

Fewer than twenty years ago, Fabyan Street was lined with abandoned houses and empty lots. But things have changed for this short residential road, which stretches between Blue Hill Ave. and Harvard St. in Dorchester. These days, one of those formerly abandoned lots is home to peppers, squash, cucumbers, and collard greens, riotously colored flowers, and a greenhouse.

This is Victory Programs’ ReVision Urban Farm, a one-acre rural oasis nestled in the heart of a neighborhood that has one of Boston’s highest crime rates. The farm, which started in the early 1990s and merged with Victory Programs in 2006, is situated across the street from one of Victory Programs’ homeless shelters. For 34 years, Victory Programs has provided aid to homeless, addicted, or chronically ill Bostonians who traditionally don’t have many resources for support — especially the LGBT community.

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Justin Di Ciano. Photo by Voula Monoholias, Yonge Street Media.

New initiatives feed hungry tummies but also provide meaningful training.

By Anna Olejarczyk
for Yonge Street Media
Toronto Community Foundation
August 11, 2010

Excerpt:

Situated on a 14,000 square foot plot tucked just west of Kipling subway station on Bloor Street is a community based vegetable garden that is not only serving as an agricultural initiative feeding needy families in the community, but is also an outdoor classroom for students and volunteers.

One of PACT’s (Participation, Acknowledgement, Commitment and Transformation) newest initiatives in the Etobicoke area, “Farm-in-the-Village” targets at-risk youth and is an offshoot of an environmental program started a year ago with the Toronto District School Board where schools with kids identified as at being at-risk created a program teaching kids organic farming. In its first year, the program had two school-based gardens.

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