Posts from — October 2011

Michelle Marcus proudly displays the seedlings for her Boulevard Veg! project. Photo by Vincent L. Chan.

Vancouver Foundation’s “Green Generation” Awards kick-start youth-run environmental projects

Wendy Szeto was a bit skeptical about the idea of planter boxes popping up on her boulevard in Vancouver’s leafy Dunbar neighbourhood.

“At first, we didn’t think we would participate in the project,” she says. “But we decided to give it a try. And we are so glad!”

Szeto lives on the same block as 14-year old Michelle Marcus. Marcus is shy and soft-spoken, but she’s also a keen environmentalist.

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Source by Loch Ness Water Gardens

Shannon sets up a couple of raised garden beds in front of the family mansion to grow some organic veggies for her husband to be. She’s afraid he will die before their wedding. (They’ve been living together for 28 years.) Her son Nick is sceptical. See the clip by going to 15:21 marker of the video. It last until 16:32 HERE.

From the TV Series – Gene Simmons Family Jewels

The episode follows Shannon as she tries to turn the family into ‘organic’ eaters.

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Calgary appears to be rediscovering its gardening roots. Three years ago there were only a dozen community gardens in the city. Now, driven by grassroots gardeners in the downtown core, the inner city, and even in the ‘burbs, residents are getting their “grow” on at more than 100 community gardens.

Tuscany’s first plot made into gathering place

By Tony Seskus
Calgary Herald
October 12, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s part of a blossoming trend. In 2008, there were 11 public and private community gardens in the city.

By last May, there were more than 100 – a surge driven by residents at the grassroots. Now, gardens can be found throughout Calgary, in the core, inner city or the ‘burbs.

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Poster:
Green Our Communities – 2009
$12, Signed by the Artist

Favianna Rodriguez is a celebrated printmaker and digital artist based in Oakland, California. Using high-contrast colors and vivid figures, her composites reflect literal and imaginative migration, global community, and interdependence. Whether her subjects are immigrant day laborers in the U.S., mothers of disappeared women in Juárez, Mexico, or her own abstract self portraits, Rodriguez brings new audiences into the art world by refocusing the cultural lens. Through her work we witness the changing U.S. metropolis and a new diaspora in the arts.

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Here, herbs growing at the edge of sidewalks, traffic noise and the looming skyline identify it as City Farm, a 1-acre farm on unused city property in downtown Chicago. Photo by Brett T. Roseman for USA TODAY.

The city’s new rules “put urban agriculture on the map,” says Andy Rozendaal

By Judy Keen
USA TODAY
9/20/2011

Excerpt:

In Salt Lake City, the City Council voted this spring to allow the sale of produce without a business license and eased rules for greenhouses and plastic-covered “hoop houses.”

“We have a great tradition of making the desert bloom here,” says Councilman Luke Garrott. Besides the nutritional advantages of locally grown food, he says, “there are also the community considerations. Social capital gets built.”

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“We really want to be debt free by the next three years.”

By Irma Widjojo
Times Herald
10/03/2011

Excerpt:

Just over a year ago, Vallejoans Rachel Hoff and Tom Ferguson, frustrated with the food industry, challenged themselves: For a full 365 days, that ended Saturday, they would not step into a grocery store.

“I couldn’t trust the food from the store anymore,” Hoff said. “There’s a lack of trust with the food system.”

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People’s Garden coordinator Vilma Aquino, right, gets down in the plants with Betty Frank Senior Lunch Program volunteer Cynthia Owens as the two harvest greens for the lunch program recently. Photo by Mike Jory/Times Herald.

By Irma Widjojo
Times Herald
10/02/2011

Excerpt:

With three Vallejo areas deemed food deserts, a child obesity rate of 32.8 percent, and an abundance of vacant lots, many Vallejoans agree that the city needs healthful food options.

A few residents have chosen community gardens to kill two birds with one stone: Use the vacant lots productively and produce healthier food for the community. However, the city of Vallejo has no ordinances for such ventures, a fact that has proven problematic.

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FoodPool is working to solve the “last mile problem.”

Excerpt:

Our backyards are home to a wealth of gardens and fruit trees, many of which bear more produce than the gardener can consume, or more at one time than is desired. Often people end up with piles of unwanted zucchini, plums falling off trees to rot on the ground, peas that grow old and hard before they can be picked and shelled, and other garden produce that goes to waste.

At FoodPool, we see the “problem” of excess garden abundance as an opportunity! It is an opportunity to help provide those in need with fresh, ripe, homegrown produce. The only obstacle lies in linking growers with their hungry neighbors. Our answer is FoodPooling.

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Joaquin Nuño-Whelan – Green Place Detroit

Excerpt:

We recently met with Joaquin early on a Saturday morning. The sun was still low in the sky as Joaquin, a handful of people from his team at GM, and his young daughter and son harvested potatoes, melons, parsley and more from their urban garden. He explained, “We were tired of the negativity around Detroit, and what people were saying about the city and the auto industry. And over lunch and after work over some drinks, we got together with the core group of guys that I work with and said ‘Let’s do something about it, let’s set an example.’ And we started a nonprofit called Green Place Detroit.”

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Khadija Musame, above right, with a customer from Somalia at the New Roots Farm stand in San Diego. Photo by Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times.

One can hear 15 different languages there, amid the neat rows of kale, rape and banana plants — but body language is the lingua franca.

By Patricia Leigh Brown
New York Times
October 9, 2011

Excerpt:

Among the regular customers at the New Roots farm stand are Congolese women in flowing dresses, Somali Muslims in headscarves, Latino men wearing broad-brimmed hats and Burundian mothers in brightly patterned textiles who walk home balancing boxes of produce on their heads.

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Children growing on church land amongst the tombstones. Photo by Arthur Edwards.

“By growing and sharing their own food, people are building independence from global supply chains and a degree of resilience, cushioning the impact of shortages or price rises.”

By Julian Dobson
Urban Pollinators
October 2011

Excerpt:

‘You have to act to hope.’ Todmorden shows how such action can become viral.

The town’s schools are just one example. Every local primary school was given a disused pleasure boat to use as a planter. One school got permission to grow vegetables in a graveyard. All of them have now clubbed together to plant their own orchard.

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Visions of Thanksgiving: Tilling a garden in inner-city Prince George this summer. Photo: Justin Foster.

Turning empty lots into inner-city veggie patches yields a harvest of goodwill in Prince George, British Columba

By Josh Massey
TheTyee.ca
Oct 10, 2011

Excerpt:

“We can grow lots right here in Prince George, while some species do better in other communities like Quesnel. I imagine a bartering system where we are exchanging produce between communities.”

One section of the Growing Community Gardens is dedicated to testing different strains of kale to see which fair best in the colder climate.

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Pee Wee returns with the 5th book in the series

By Larraine Roulston
2011

Pee Wee, the endearing little red wiggler, describes the joy of composting. ‘Pee Wee’s Magical Compost Tea’ illustrates the benefits of making and using compost tea. Each book contains resources and ideas for teachers.

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Esperanza Pallana, a leader in the Oakland urban farming movement, picks Brandywine tomatoes in her backyard, where she grows Fuji apples, figs, berries and other crops. Oakland now allows her to sell the produce, but Pallana also has animals she would like to slaughter for meat for herself. Photo by Manny Crisostomo/Mcrisostomo.

“It doesn’t matter what animal you own, whether it’s livestock or domesticated cats and dogs, you need to be a responsible neighbor and clean up after your animals.”

By Grace Rubenstein
Sacramento Bee
Oct. 9, 2011

Excerpt:

However, eco-friendly arguments don’t soothe residents like Ian Elwood, co-founder of a group called Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter. Well-meaning as urban farmers might be, he said, their ignorance and inexperience leads to animal suffering.

“People are learning through do-it-yourself,” he said. “But when you forget to water the chard, the chard dies and it’s not that painful for anyone.” With a chicken, Elwood said, such errors amount to abuse or neglect.

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By Eli M. Krispi
California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo
Thesis: Master of City and Regional Planning
June 2011

Abstract:

The objective of this project is to develop land use planning strategies that can be used to preserve and enhance the economic viability of agricultural operations surrounded by suburban development in Santa Barbara County’s Eastern Goleta Valley. This project focuses on two key techniques: buffers between agriculture and other land uses, and agritourism. In the case of buffers, academic literature is examined to determine how effective buffers are at various tasks (filtering runoff, mitigating dust and wind, providing habitat, etc.) and how to construct buffers to maximize their effectiveness.

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By Bettina Baumgartner and Hasan Belevi
EAWAG – Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science & Technology SANDEC – Dept. of Water & Sanitation in Developing Countries
Sept 2001
34 pages

Excerpt from Summary and Conclusions:

More scientific research is required on the following issues:

The actual and potential contribution of urban agriculture to food security and poverty alleviation has to be quantified.

Nutrient gaps, including the demand for fertilisers and organic waste as a function of different crops and geographic conditions have to be quantified.

The prevailing and potential organic material fluxes, including production, consumption, disposal, and urban agriculture in different regions have to be investigated to identify the role of urban agriculture as organic waste recipient and food supplier.

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Alfred Lincoln, a immigrant from Liberia, Africa, works on his plot at the Grassroots Community Farm, an urban farm for refugees and immigrants located near Lafayette Square Mall.(Photo/Jessica Williams-Gibson)

“I don’t want to give up on this project just because of the thefts,” Beltran-Figueroa said.

Indianapolis (WlS)
The Associated Press
10/7/11

Excerpt:

However, some larger community plots like Grassroots’ have seen their peppers purloined and are wondering how to stop it.

“Thefts and vandalism are huge,” declared Kay Crimm of Grow Me gardens. Last year, her group had a three-acre site near 46th Street and Arlington Avenue. It was plundered so badly that the gardeners left the site and moved to a plot at 46th Street and Post Road, she said, but it has “been ripped up, too.”

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Nancy Hall, left, and Iwana Wagner work in the community garden at the Mansfield Area Y. Photos by Jolee Hill.

By Anne Miller
Mansfield News Journal
Oct 4, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s part of a national effort to provide green space in urban areas allowing residents to grow their own food or donate what they have grown.

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“Chicago’s natural areas, whether they’re used for growing food or for recreation, are essential to neighborhood health and well being.” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.

News Release
City of Chicago
October 5, 2011

The City Council today approved plans that will enable the development of a North Side nature preserve, a South Side urban farm, and a West Side community garden.

“Chicago’s natural areas, whether they’re used for growing food or for recreation, are essential to neighborhood health and well being. These proposals will help reinforce the City’s commitment to improving and expanding these local assets,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.

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