Category — How to

Tasha talks to Mike about natural lawn care at City Farmer. A push mower makes no noise, uses no gasoline and does not pollute the atmosphere. See what else you can do to become a green ‘Lawnranger’.

Visitors learn about alternatives to lawns at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. How about a waterwise native plant garden or replacing your lawn with a variety of classy ground covers?

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Photo from ‘Cowfiles African Gardens’.

From: ‘Ideas that will catch on here.’
July 12, 2008, BBC

“Another fantastic idea I picked up – which could make its way onto my allotment before long – is the keyhole veg bed. This is a raised bed with bells on: it’s about 1m (3’6″) high, and the outer bed, where the vegetables are growing, slopes down from a central hollow column. There’s an access path to the column (giving the bed a “keyhole” shape viewed from above) and inside it is what amounts to a compost bin, held in with hessian: you fill it with kitchen waste, stable manure, grass clippings – whatever you’d put on your compost heap.

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As the rain makes a pitter-patter sound on my umbrella, Maria ‘tugs’ up some of her garlic at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. She braids the soft-necked variety into something quite beautiful, which she will hang in her kitchen.

What do you do on a rainy Vancouver summer day? You turn to crafts in the garden. Maria picks some lavender and makes it into something useful.

Image from “Old Macdonald Had An Apartment House” by Judi Barrett (Author), Ron Barrett (Illustrator).

Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, also known as ‘Bicyclemark’, has made four podcasts about urban farming.

Vertical Farming and the New Agricultural Revolution

There is more to urban farming than just growing crops on empty lots in cities. In fact, there is a type of urban farming that involves growing a lot more food in tall buildings, making use of the latest innovations of crop growing and energy usage. My guest, Professor Dickson Despommier of Columbia Universty explains what vertical farming is and why it is so important for the future of human existance.

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Sheryl shows us how we can put all that mint growing in our Demonstration Garden to good use. This traditional Cuban highball should probably be made after work, not at ten in the morning when we put it together.

Excerpt from “Hello Magazine”
June 2008

“The family bought a farmhouse near his old stomping ground, fixed it up and started spending weekends there unwinding. After coming across some seeds from Italy, he planted them and was utterly amazed when they bore plump, delicious tomatoes.

“Jamie had a professional gardener come and show him the ropes, and from there he was hooked. The produce that came out of his backyard was so sumptuous, it drove him back to the kitchen. Suddenly he was cooking some of the most inspired meals of his life for his loved ones.

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Book by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen
April 2008

“The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities.

“If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house. It is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.”

Link to book on Amazon here.

Link to the authors’ web site: Homegrown Evolution.

Major Canadian newspaper starts a weekly how-to series about city farming.
Nicholas Read, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Photo by Bill Keay

“I’m 51 years old and I can’t grow a carrot. That is a shameful thing. Growing food is the most vital skill anyone can have, and here I am, well past mid life, and I don’t have it. In many cultures, survival in the face of such appalling ignorance would be a miracle.

“But not this one. Thanks to the miracle of western civilization, I have been afforded the constant luxury of having food delivered to me on a platter. Whether in a grocery store or a restaurant, it’s always been there. And as long I’ve had the wherewithal to pay for it, I have seldom given it a thought. Until now.

Read author’s story here.

And the author’s Blog.

Canadians Wally Satzewich and wife Gail Vandersteen teach city farmers how to earn money from gardening small lots.

For aspiring and practicing urban, home-based, backyard and front lawn farmers.

“Had I known about the feasibility of sub-acre farming when I started my farming career 20 years ago, I would never have bought large acreage in the country, and would have instead fulfilled my farming aspirations more easily and with less expense in the city.” – Wally Satzewich

“SPIN is the first commercial organic-based farming system for land bases under an acre in size, and it takes the challenges posed by urbanization and turns them to a farmer’s advantage by capitalizing on limited space and resources.”

Workshop Program, May 19, 20, 2008 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

SPIN Farming web site.

May 10th, 2008 “SPIN-Gardening” Workshop in Portland, Oregon information here.

Rooftop Garden Project, Montreal, Canada

“After five seasons of gardening and experimenting, the Rooftop Garden project team is happy to share the fruits of its labor with you. The Guide to Setting up Your Own Edible Rooftop Garden comes from our wish to see new gardens and partners take root in the fertile soil of Montreal but also in other parts of the world.

“The guide is divided into six chapters that cover the main factors to consider when developing a rooftop garden project: project definition, choice of site, setting up the garden, coordination of gardening activity, health choices and a detailed technical guide on rooftop container gardening.

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By Paris Marshall Smith and Arzeena Hamir
Richmond Fruit Tree Project, BC, Canada, 2007

“Imagine growing greens in the dead of winter and sharing the bounty with a group of eager students. Once harvested, the food from the garden becomes a resource for the kitchen, the next stop in the seed to table cycle. Students have the opportunity to further their garden experience by learning about their taste palates, culturally diverse food preparation techniques, historical methods of food processing (fermentation, canning, pickling), nutrition and food combining and, of course, the pleasure of eating and working together.”

Toolkit is available on-line. Be aware it is a large download (30MB PDF).

Another comix style “how to” flyer from the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. This one shows you how to worm compost in an apartment. City Farmer teaches hundreds of people every year in Wormshops subsidized by the City of Vancouver.

See the full-sized document here.

City Farmer has produced a 2 page flyer on how to make compost in a backyard bin. This comix style edition is based on our popular web site photo slide show. City Farmer runs Vancouver’s Compost Demonstration Garden.

See the full-sized document here.