Posts from — September 2010

Our first salad leaves, red mountain spinach, rocket, edible flowers, herbs, peas, radishes and courgettes are on sale since 4th July 2010.

Supermarket Farms Yield Produce for Shoppers, Environment

By Matt Fuchs
Fuchs Foodie Journal
Aug. 24, 2010

Excerpt:

According to Andrew Thornton of Budgens supermarket in the Crouch End area of North London. “Because of the cost of an acre of land in an urban environment, field-to-farm is not something that is viable,” Thornton says.

So, instead of food from the backyard, he opted for Food from the Sky – the name of his project to convert the roof of his supermarket into an organic vegetable garden. Thornton and business partner Azul Thome, head of Positive Earth Project, needed only six weeks to complete construction.

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Seeks to become a nation-wide movement

By Vinita
Citizen Matters
Sept. 16, 2010

Excerpts:

The recently concluded two-day national seminar on Organic Terrace Gardening at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) Alumni Association Convention Centre, Hebbal was in all respects a great meeting point and a good start to a process that seeks to become a nation-wide movement.

One of the primary objectives of organising such a seminar was to ensure that organic terrace gardening spreads as a movement across the country, rather than merely as a hobby or passion for a select few. There was also a need felt to bring together like-minded practitioners, individuals and institutions on a common platform and use the momentum to take the process forward.

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See the TV episode here.

TV producer is an urban garden educator

By Growing a Greener World

Excerpt:

In this episode we visit with Joe’s Associate Producer of Growing a Greener World, and urban homesteading expert, Theresa Loe. Joe, Nathan and Patti descend on Theresa’s small but productive urban garden in LA to see first-hand how this popular blogger and trained Master Canner incorporates enough produce aesthetically to feed her family of four. Annuals and perennials are intermingled with vegetables, herbs, fruit and chickens for a visually pleasing yet highly productive garden and outdoor learning environment for her two young boys.

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See the TV episode here.

Must-see interview with Mary Seton Corboy of Greensgrow Farms

By Growing a Greener World, a groundbreaking new television series that delivers the latest trends in eco-friendly living mixed with traditional gardening know-how to a modern audience.

Excerpt:

Joe and Patti journey to Philadelphia, home of Greensgrow Farms, fulfillment of the dream of visionary in urban farming, Mary Seton Corboy. More than ten years ago a city block in the Kensington area was the site of an abandoned galvanized steel plant and an EPA brownfields project (see below) that the neighborhood had given up on. But not Mary. Beginning the experimental transformation she was growing lettuce hydroponically (growing plants in a water and nutrient solution without soil) for her clients; high-end local restaurants in need of fresh, organic produce. But the one attribute she prides herself on is her ability to change.

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A pumpkin grown by a family in Nanluoguxiang. Photo: Courtesy of the Nanluoguxiang community.

“Things that you grow yourself are extra tasty.”

By Li Shuang and Chen Jing
Global Times
September 14 2010

Excerpt:

The Beijing Agricultural Bureau is trying to encourage the cultivation of mini-farms on balconies and in yards by offering residents free seeds and farming equipment. Growing one’s own greens can help to reduce carbon emissions, clean the air and release stress.

Starting this Saturday, Beijingers can go to their residence committees to receive a limited number of seeds and fertilizer offered by the bureau.

The information hotline 12316, which used to only serve Beijing’s rural population, is now prepared to field any questions posed by urban farmers.

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September 14, 2010. SOLEfood Farm urban farmers and Michael Ableman discuss their work growing food for market in a parking lot in downtown Vancouver.

Selling produce grown in downtown Vancouver

SOLEfood Farm is an urban farm consisting of hundreds of planters. The farm provides training and employment opportunities to residents from Vancouver’s Downtown East Side to build, plant, maintain and harvest the farm. The locally grown food is sold to restaurants, at Farmers Markets and community organizations with similar aims of improving neighbourhood food security.

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Maize Field is a public art project by the artist Christina Kelly. Website here.

Utopia: An ideal place or state.

Katherine Gressel and Derek Denckla, curators

Exhibition Dates: September 16-December 12, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 16, 2010 6-8pm
Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 11am-4pm Or By Appointment

Excerpt:

Artists are increasingly incorporating farming, landscaping, and ecology into their practice. The predominance of environmentally concerned exhibitions at contemporary art institutions is one mark of the shift of environmentalism from a marginalized grassroots and activist effort to a more institutionalized and popularized subject that infiltrates every sector of society.

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City of Seattle Urban agriculture PARK site plan (partial view). See the full view image here.

Parking space urban ag

By Emily Knudsen
Urban Farm Hub
September 8th, 2010

Excerpt:

Seattle’s Department of Transportation (SDOT) plans to put an urban ag spin on their parking spaces. To coincide with the declared “Year of Urban Agriculture,” three parking spaces designated for the city will be transformed into mini-urban farms (complete with edible plants and a Kippen House chicken coop!), and people will be dispensing tips on gardening in planting strips.

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L’Hôtel Vieux-Québec, rue Saint-Jean, a décidé de transformer le toit stérile de l’édifice en un immense potager où les employés peuvent aller cueillir des concombres, des fines herbes, des laitues et quantité d’autres produits frais du jour. Photo by Erick Labbé, Le Soleil.

Why not a garden instead of grass?

(Québec) Bientôt, ils seront des milliers à planter des fruits, des légumes et des fines herbes dans tous les espaces inutilisés de Québec, à commencer par les toits plats de la basse-ville, qui se prêtent à merveille à l’agriculture urbaine

Lise Fournier
Le Soleil
11 septembre 2010

Excerpt: Translation service on Google here.

C’est du moins ce que souhaite Francis Denault, qui rêve de voir se multiplier les potagers dans la cité. Et pour que le message passe, le jeune homme a fondé avec d’autres l’organisme à but non lucratif Les Urbainculteurs, dont l’objectif est d’inculquer aux gens le réflexe de planter quelque chose d’utile et de comestible dans les espaces inutilisés de la ville, que ce soit les toits, les stationnements, les arrière-cours, les balcons et même les bords de fenêtres. «Arrêtez de mettre des cèdres et du gazon, dit-il, plantez plutôt des produits que vous pourrez déguster.»

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Fresh vegetables were collected from gardens all around the coast for the men serving in minesweepers and small naval crafts.

Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out

“Another Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) activity was centred on our shores. Men in minesweepers and small naval craft were often unable to spend long enough on shore to get fresh vegetables. In East Anglia, WVS members approached people who have been evacuated from their homes for permission to collect the vegetables from their gardens and take them to the docks. All around the coast and in Northern Ireland the scheme caught on. Thousands upon thousands of vegetables were given out. In winter cakes and mince pies were added to the hampers.”

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Kay Grimm and Sue Spicer of Fruit Loop Acres in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Queer Farmer Film Project is creating a full-length documentary film which explores the dynamic relationships between gender, sexuality, and agriculture, with a particular focus on the hearts and hard work of America’s queer farmers.

Excerpt from the Queer Film Project website.

Fruit Loop Acres is a 3/4 acre permaculture fruit farm in the heart of the city. Like many post-industrial midwestern cities, much of this urban center is fledgling, depressed, boarded up and faced with significant challenges to accessing good fresh food.

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Urban Green: USF Garden, Pt 2 from Madhouse Muse on Vimeo. Urban Green tours USF’s campus garden and meets David Silver, Associate Professor, USF Media Studies, one of the innovative educators behind USF Garden Project.

The Garden Project
Videos by Madhouse Muse

The Garden Project is an innovative learning community for first-year students and rising juniors and seniors of any major. This community experience offers a rare opportunity for students to engage in community design and gardening by cultivating the 1/4- acre organic garden on campus. Through active involvement, students learn about climate change, water rights, food security, and social and economic justice as related to food production. Facilitated by faculty and staff, students take coursework together and live in designated space in the residence halls (1st year students only).

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LA tomato grower, Cameron Slocum

From his blog – open letter to Michelle Obama

Dear Michelle
July 22, 2010

I am the most famous Urban Farmer in America and am on the verge of losing my farm because my bank will not negotiate with me in regards to my mortgage.

I am writing you for help! I provide food for the restaurant that you and your girls just ate at several weeks ago in Los Angeles, as well as many of the top restaurants in town. I have been near foreclosure three seperate times in the last three years and the stress is killing me! I have applied for the HAMP program twice now, but have been rejected twice because my bank doesn’t seem to understand the seasonality of my business.

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In 2010, Levi Strauss and Co. began a collaboration in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a broken town struggling to reinvent itself. As part of this collaboration, Levi Strauss and Co. invested in Braddock’s community center, public library, and urban farm. The result is a campaign that tells the story of the people of Braddock.

A vacant lot, an opportunity – We Are All Workers: Episode 7 Urban Farm

As an urban farmer, Marshall envisions Braddock’s empty lots as opportunities to create a stronger, healthier community. Amidst the closed steel mills and abandoned homes, the Urban Farm brings affordable, organic produce that’s “as local as you can get” to the dinner tables of Braddock’s homes. Brought to you by Levi’s in partnership with IFC and Sundance Channel.

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“Farms in the City” workshop in Jersey City

By Jon Whiten
The Jersey City Independent
Aug 19th, 2010

Excerpts:

After four hours of brainstorming this weekend, a coalition of advocates and officials hopes to put Jersey City on a greener path towards implementing an urban agriculture and food security program. The “Farms in the City” workshop, part of an innovative nationwide urban-planning program, is yet another step being taken here towards increasing the availability of affordable, fresh and healthy food.

“The key words here are community-supported,” Thomas says. “If we want to make this happen we have to meet the city half way and help with the planning, financial support and maintenance. The main thing we need from government is empowerment. Everyone deserves access to fresh local fruits and vegetables — not to mention, eggs, and honey.”

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A skyscraper behind a field of corn in Detroit. Photo by Baliad.

Benefits, Problems And Proposals for a Regulatory Framework for Successful Land Use Integration

Professor John E. Mogk
Assisted By Sarah Kwiakowski, J.D. and Mary Jo Weindorf
Wayne State University Law School
August 1, 2010
60 page paper

Excerpt:

VIII. Conclusion

The city of Detroit can no longer afford to maintain the vast amounts of vacant land that it owns. The maintenance of this land is sapping the city of valuable financial resources. At the same time, Detroit is faced with a void of nutrition combined with high rates of crime and vandalism spurred on by thousands of vacant lots and buildings. Urban agriculture is not a panacea of all of Detroit’s problems, but addresses many of the city’s problems through a single comprehensive program that can easily be incorporated into the city’s master plan and zoning ordinances.

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Photo by Laura Fries.

growBot Garden Discuss, Explore, & Make Workshops

The growBot Garden (2010) project is a series of public and participatory workshops that explore the use of emerging technologies in support of local small-scale agriculture. In the spirit of “Build Your Own World” the growBot Garden project provides a design, hacking and creative discussion space for local small-scale farmers and food producers, engineers, artists and designers to come together to imagine and prototype alternative futures that better serve the goals of sustainability, and in the process, create new networks for discourse and action. The speculative designs produced through the growBot Garden project work to reveal issues in the current use of technologies in agriculture, and suggest new trajectories and scenarios — in effect, to use design and art to model the claim that “another world is possible.”

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From Farmscape. See larger image here.

The Good Food for All Agenda – Creating a New Regional Food System for Los Angeles – July 2010

Currently, over 70 community gardens, at least 100 (throughout LAUSD) and as many as 500 school gardens, and 90 commercial food producing farms exist in Los Angeles County. Sources: LA Community Garden Council and County Agricultural Commissioner

Priority Action Area 5 – Grow good food in our neighborhoods

Los Angeles has a long history of urban food production. Urban agriculture should thrive in Los Angeles given the region’s nearly perfect growing climate and the City and County’s commitment to greening the region. Urban food production offers many benefits to individuals, communities, and the environment. These include community revitalization, citizen education on the benefits of local food, and job creation and small business opportunities, notably for at-risk youth or for those unable to work in the formal economy. Gardening provides people with exercise for the body, mind, and soul; particularly in under-served neighborhoods where safe and beautiful open spaces are scarce.

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2011 classes at University of British Columbia Farm

The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm – “Sowing Seeds for the Future,” a hands-on, season-long practicum in sustainable agriculture.

Established in 2008, this eight month, part-time (520 hour) practicum offers instruction and work experience in small-scale sustainable agriculture. In a hands-on learning approach, participants work alongside staff in the fields and at the market. Participants attend complementary lectures and participate in a variety of supplementary educational activities. The practicum is intended as a beginning point for aspiring growers, agricultural professionals and educators.

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Speaker – Majora Carter

Speaker, Majora Carter on urban agriculture

American Society of Landscape Architects features urban agriculture at conference Sept 10-13, 2010, Washington
(Wish I’d seen this earlier. Mike)

From the First Lady to the hottest chefs in the country, everyone is talking about urban agriculture. Consumers are demanding locally produced food, communities are organizing gardens and farmer’s markets, and schools are developing entire curriculums around vegetable gardens planted and maintained by students. Clearly, this topic has captured the public’s imagination, but what does this mean for land use policy? And how is the
landscape architecture profession positioned to drive these changes?

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