Posts from — August 2011

McDonald’s Rooftop Gardens. Graphic by Demian Repucci on OpenIDEO.

Grow Local and Eat Local, City Council Says

By Sydney Ember
New York Times
July 29, 2011

Excerpt:

In an effort to ramp up support for the consumption and production of local food, the City Council passed a package of bills on Thursday to facilitate the building of rooftop greenhouses and free up land for urban gardens.

Under the legislation, a building’s rooftop greenhouse would not be considered an additional story by the Department of Buildings, and would be exempt from height limits, if it occupies less than one-third of the rooftop. The city would also begin compiling a database of property that it owns or leases so that it can better identify unused spaces to be turned into urban gardens.

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Photo by Nicole Dextras. Nicole Dextras is an environmental artist whose artworks follow the seasons, working with ice in the winter and plant materials in the summer.

Weedrobes: The Mobile Garden Dress

By Nicole Dextras
Soiled and Seeded
August 2011, Issue 4

Excerpt:

On her head Madame Jardin wears a coif of edible plants made from roses, carnations, alums, rosemary, thyme, lime leaves, pea, eggplants and chrysanthemums. The bustier is decorated with orange dried aji amarillo peppers, red hot chili peppers, corn husks, sprigs of thyme and fresh parsley. The hoop skirt is constructed from raw flax canvas, willow branches, seagrass rope, basketry reed and wood. The plants include vegetables such as lettuce, beans and brussels sprouts and the herbs range from sweet basil to rue and sage.

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