Category — Community Gardens

Video in Hebrew shows the community garden’s beginnings in 2005.

Bustan Brody today by Michael Green in
Green Prophet - Forecasts on Israel’s Environment April 17, 2008

“The centre-piece for the Bustan, which translates to ‘orchard’ in both Hebrew and Arabic, are its many fruit trees, which Zavidov says are the ‘backbone’ of the garden’s ecosystem. Priority is given to native species including pomegranate, fig, almond and arava (willow) which, along with the sights and smells of the vegetable patch and herb bushes, owe much of their fertility to the steaming heaps of compost in the far corner, which turn kitchen waste and garden clippings into soil (with the help of bacteria, heat and a few worms).

Link to “How Does Your (Community) Garden Grow?”

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Photo: Terrassa under the clouds by Paco CT.

“The empirical analysis was carried out in the municipality of Terrassa, one of the largest cities in the MRB, and also one with a higher number of vegetable gardens. We interviewed 132 plot users and obtained data about the legal status of gardens, their size and appearance, and crops grown, as well as the reasons for pursuing this activity. Our results show that, in general, this is an activity undertaken by people over 60 years old, often retired members of the working class that migrated to Catalonia from other Spanish regions in the 1960s and 1970s, and that use these spaces for a variety of reasons (personal goals, support to their families, and also as a bond to their rural past).”

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1996 Documentary, re-issued on DVD in 2005.

City Farmers takes a deep and startling look at the community gardening movement in New York where determined inner-city residents overcome the threat of drug wars, murder, and decay to create gardens that are compelling metaphors of survival.

The gardeners themselves narrate vivid and poignant stories of their experiences. They describe personal visions about the struggle for life that exists both in and out of the gardens.

“A horror, a war zone, you couldn’t walk on the sidewalk - all the furniture, the refrigerators, stoves, the meat, rotten meat, the vegetables - the stink, the bees, the flies, the worms - it was gross.” (Gladys Gonzales, East New York, Brooklyn)

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I visited with Shandelle and Peter in an empty lot in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where they plan to start a garden for the neighbourhood. Peter, who works at the Portland Hotel, part of the PHS Community Services Society, describes who lives in the buildings surrounding the garden. Shandelle is excited by the food growing potential of the lot and how it can help the people she works with.

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“São Paulo, the capital city of the state of São Paulo (Brazil) and its metropolitan region are home to the world’s third largest urban population, with 19,385,332 inhabitants, only trailing behind Tokyo and Mexico City.”

“The area where our project holds a regularized, 100,000-square-meter (10 sq. ha.) arable plot – technically fit for the production of vegetables, greens, grains, fruit and medicinal herbs – is delimited by the districts of Terceira Divisão, Bandeirantes, Jardim Laranjeiras, Recanto and Pernambuco, whose population is formed mostly of migrants from Brazil’s poorer northeastern states in search of job opportunity and better living conditions.”

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“It has really helped us because we bring home food to our families and we also have a source of income out of vegetables harvested,” said Mr. Flores. “For every harvest, the lowest net income per family is P500,” he said noting income depends on the yield and frequency of harvest of crops planted. He cited that eggplant has an estimated minimum harvest of 10 kilograms a week. “We sell eggplant at P18/kg,” said Mr. Flores. “In the market, eggplant sells at P20/kg.”

Article originally published January 9, 2008 in the Manila based newspaper BusinessWorld. Link to JPEG image of the article here.

Booklet produced by the European ‘Office International
du Coin de Terre et des Jardins Familiaux’

“If we look back at the years following the end of the war, we remember that in the cities there were many hidden places and open areas where children could have direct contact with an untouched nature. There was, as well, enough space where children could give free way to their fantasy and experience nature. These adventure grounds have disappeared due to the spreading of the communes, the density of the housing developments and the efforts to plan completely all the open country. The allotment and leisure gardens represent now for our children a compensation for this lost paradise. In the allotment gardens they can have direct contact with nature and discover the numerous mysteries of plants and animals. In this way they can watch the ripening of fruit and vegetables and see the miracles of nature.”

Link to this booklet (31 page PDF)

“Terry Walton has kept an allotment for over 50 years - man and boy - in the Rhondda valley in South Wales. He started when he was 4, helping on his dad’s plot on the side of the mountain, when he was sent to cut bracken and collect sheep manure by the bucketful to feed the rows of vegetables. By the time he was 11 he had his own plot - the youngest ever to do so - and while still in his teens established an allotment empire to grow the vegetables and flowers he sold to local customers. He lovingly documents the changes over the years, the characters he meets and his own hearfelt conversion to organic gardening methods.”

Link to Amazon in the UK, bookseller.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Mike Clark of Onni called me a couple of weeks ago looking for a group to manage a new community garden his company had built on their property in downtown Vancouver. Now, this is a one of a kind story — a developer makes available gardens on vacant land until such time as that land is ready for building construction to begin. How often have we seen empty lots sit vacant for years while nothing happens. A City Farmer video.

Link to City Farmer TV.

JTR_0280.JPG, originally uploaded by eamesd.

“In Basel, Switzerland, the metro area - this magic jewel of small farms and gardens — livestock even!”

Link to larger photo.