The urban farm in the Buckeye neighborhood of Cleveland is surrounded by homes and a busy road. Photo by David Joseph for The New York Times.

“Maybe there’s 40 to 50 acres under urban farming,” in Cleveland. “Maybe up to 100 acres.”

By Michael Tortorello
New York Times
August 3, 2011

Excerpt:

THIS city contains 20,000 vacant lots, more or less. Probably more. Every year, demolition crews knock down another 1,000 houses. And the housing market being what it is, few souls are returning.

A vacant lot may be a lot of things: an eyesore, a dump, a symbol of American industrial decline. But one thing it is not is vacant. When we leave a yard behind, the bulk of the biomass does not follow us in a U-Haul. Put another way, a dandelion is unmoved by foreclosure. It lingers where it pleases.

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A Richmond Villages resident tends a healthy crop of rhubarb.

Seniors Celebrate National Allotments Week 8 – 14 August 2011

Green-fingered residents at Richmond Northampton, the award winning retirement village built and operated by Richmond Villages in Grange Park, are keeping fit and enjoying each others’ company while growing their own food on their allotments. A bumper crop is expected this summer as they celebrate National Allotments Week.

National Allotments Week, run by the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners, is a great opportunity to demonstrate just how much fun allotments can be. For those who have sold their homes and gardens to retire to Richmond Northampton, time out tending plants is still possible thanks to some local allotments.

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Vincent Olsen (right) and volunteer construct a fence around the abandoned lot on Stockton Street. Photo by Lucy Butcher.

Guerrilla farm empire expands across Broadway

By Lucy Butcher
Bushwick BK
August 9, 2011

Excerpt:

A lot on the corner of Stockton Street and Lewis Avenue has been receiving lots of love from Bushwick City Farm and neighborhood volunteers over the last few months, and it’s quickly taking shape as a public park that will produce free food for the community.

The 9,000-square-foot lot had been abandoned for 30 years and was a place of illegal dumping, squatting, and violence, which came to a head with a homicide involving a rusty shovel last summer.

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