Time to collect your leaves for the coming 12 months

The number one secret to making good compost in a backyard bin is leaves. Every time food scraps go in, add a handful of leaves to the mix. At Vancouver’s Compost Garden, we collect enough leaves in the Fall to last the whole year.

Today Maria and I went down to Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver to collect bags of leaves and just happened to meet ‘Captain’ Kirk who was driving a tractor pulling a leaf vacuum sweeper for the Park Board. He shared with us where the leaves go and how they fertilize the City’s parks.

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‘Vision Vancouver’ – Community gardens and food security

By VoteVision, Press Release
Vision is a Vancouver, BC, political party
Oct 25, 2011

Take a walk through the expanded Cottonwood Community Gardens on Raymur Avenue or the newly formed Mount Pleasant Gardens on Ontario and West 16th and you’ll see the potential for growing food in an urban setting. Tomatoes, bok choi and apple trees abound! Vision Vancouver sees the potential too – we even built a community garden at City Hall.

In 2010, Vision Vancouver established 450 new community garden plots in the city. It’s just one of the ways Vision Vancouver is support urban agriculture and food security. Vancouver now has approximately 3260 community garden plots.

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Clepsydra is a a vertical farm linked through a bridge to host buildings with a scale applicable to new housing developments, existing urban blocks, diverse type of buildings (hospitals, dorms, hotels, supermarkets)

Project by Bruno Viganò – Florencia Costa
via Agritecture
2011-10-31

Excerpt:

“The autonomy of the stories facilitates the creation of the appropriate environment for each crop allowing year round production. The 1500 sq ft footprint urban lot prototype produces the equivalent to 6 acres of farmland for certain crops or 40 tons of tomatoes a year. The prefab structural frame is built with mechanically assembled steel rods needing no welding, enable fast mounting, disassembling and maintenance operations. The enclosure is made of a transparent, resistant structural plastic membrane (ETFE). Clepsydra can be composed into multiple kits creating sustainable neighborhoods and cities.”

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