Jenn Nelkin, center, the greenhouse director of Gotham Greens in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with its founders, Viraj Puri, left, and Eric Haley. Photo by Chang W. Lee/The New York Times.

Want Fresher Produce? Leave Dirt Behind

By Glenn Collins
New York times
August 2, 2011

Excerpt:

Without question, modern hydroponic outfits display a growing degree of technological sophistication. While 25 employees at Gotham Greens propagate, hand-pick and hand-pack the produce at its 15,000-square-foot space, a rooftop weather station monitors wind, rain, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and light intensity. This data bonanza serves to regulate irrigation pumps, greenhouse vents, exhaust fans, gable shutters and shade curtains.

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Will Allen, “Farming is one of the most humbling things you can do.”

By Al Lewis
FOXBusiness
August 03, 2011

Excerpt;

What begins with worms employs more than 100 people, some of whom started volunteering when they were 8 years old. Allen says he pays “a living wage,” which in Milwaukee averages in the range of $35,000 a year. And he’s helped many of his workers land college scholarships.

Allen hopes to add 150 more employees, and he foresees thousands more employed in similar operations as the urban-farming trend he’s helped inspire keeps growing.

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By John Jackson
JJ Books
3rd Revised edition edition (May 23, 2011)
236 pages

A Little Piece of England, tells the tale of how the author’s family, living in a sliver of countryside in London’s commuter belt, came, over some ten years, to make itself, in its ‘spare time’, self-sufficient in its requirements of milk, meat, eggs, vegetables and some fruit.

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