Category — Urban Farm

Article in The Wall Street Journal.
By KELLY K. SPORS, April 22, 2008

“… Start-up costs for a one-eighth-acre farm run about $5,500, says Ms. Christensen of Spin-Farming. That includes a walk-in cooler to wash and store fresh produce, a rotary tiller and a farm-stand display. Annual operating expenses, including seeds and farmers-market stall fees, can add about $2,000. Such a farm can generate $10,000 to $20,000 in annual sales, she says. That’s “an entry point into farming to see if they have a talent for it,” Ms. Christensen says. “Those that do will eventually be able to expand and increase that income level quite substantially.”…”

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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.

“As a community centre, CERES is also about helping people break through cultural barriers. They offer international cooking classes, migrant training programmes and set up education villages from the likes of Indonesian, African or Aboriginal cultures. Volunteer workers try to ensure that multiculturalism in Australia is not lost, but respected.

“While CERES’s programme is unique in its range of programmes, the urban farm trend is catching on around Australia, with city farms sprouting up in almost every major city. There is the Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, established in 1994, where an education centre and a Sunday morning farmers market are a popular retreat.

Read the complete article in The Epoch Times, Mar 11, 2008

Link to CERES.
CERES farm demonstrates how an urban city farm can contribute to the local community by providing locally grown organic food, education in community food systems, a happening & ethical market place and employment for farmers, teachers and market workers.

By Robin Kortright, Master of Arts 2007, Department of Geography, University of Toronto (139 pages)

“Of the 125 people who were originally contacted, just over half (54%) grew food, meaning vegetables, fruit, nuts, or herbs. Of the people who grew food, almost three quarters grew herbs, nearly two thirds grew vegetables, and just over a quarter grew fruit. Almost everyone grew food only in their backyards, with just three people growing food in their front yard and two in a community garden.

“65 percent of Toronto households have a lawn or garden. Owning your home, gardening skills, and a sunny garden are important parts of being able to grow food in a back garden. There is far more land in home gardens than will likely be available for community gardens in the near future. Home food gardens are an important part of urban food systems. They would benefit from more support, such as information about and access to compost, mulch, rain gauges and soil testing resources.”

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Durgan has been blogging his backyard gardening efforts for a number of years and sharing his extensive knowledge of food gardening with readers. He has many interests and his excellent photographs are instructive. Subjects include: Making Juice from Fruit and Vegetables; Stiff Neck Snake Garlic; Japanese Beetle on Grape Vine; Preparing Horseradish condiment.

“The 0.4 acre garden is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada in Zone 5. This is my sixth year gardening on this property. It was covered in grass and the soil is heavy clay of fairly good quality, but poorly drained. The property was a wet mess after any heavy rain.The first year I put in drainage pipe across and down the yard for about 300 feet all by hand alone.

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“Amy Franceschini is trying to nurture the victory garden concept back to prominence – this time with a 21st-century agenda. Ms. Franceschini, 37, is the architect of a San Francisco pilot project to revive victory gardens here and beyond. She recently secured $60,000 in seed money from the San Francisco government to pay for 15 backyard plots, with the hope of expanding the effort dramatically after 2008.

“In the next two years, Ms. Franceschini and Mr. Randall will hand-pick 15 people to be the initial victory gardeners. In keeping with San Francisco’s commitment to diversity, the gardeners will mirror the city’s ethnic, geographic and economic spectrum.”

Link to article by Scott Lindlaw of The Associated Press in the Dallas Morning News February 29, 2008.

Link to “Victory Gardens 2007+ ” a concept currently being developed by Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment.

“The Providence Urban Agriculture Task Force envisions doubling the amount of food being grown in and around Providence in the next ten years. This will be achieved by increasing the number of home gardeners, community gardeners, community gardens, commercial community agriculture projects, and urban agriculture businesses.

“In Providence, 59 food gardens were counted in about 5 hours of walking in 4 neighborhoods. Fifty-nine food gardens is an undercount, and only a very small part of the City’s 25 neighborhoods was surveyed.

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Article from In These Times, August 24, 2007

“In cities across the country urban farmers are growing communities, greening the landscape and revolutionizing food politics.”

“In Brooklyn, Added Value has turned an old asphalt baseball diamond into a full-functioning farm. And in Philadelphia, Mill Creek Farm is using storm runoff to irrigate its urban farm. Indeed, community agriculture projects are sprouting up in cities across the country—in San Francisco (Alemany Farm), Buffalo (Massachusetts Avenue Project), Birmingham, Ala. (Jones Valley Urban Farm), and Houston (Urban Harvest).”

Read the whole article here.

February 11, 2008 issue. Special issue on ‘Cities’.

“Cities are taking over farmland. Could they someday take over the job of farming, too?”

“…One goal of Dongtan is to grow enough food to replace lost productivity as farmland is urbanized, says Peter Head, director of Arup, a design company leading the project. “The big question is whether it is economically viable,” he says. Head predicts that the lesson learned in China will propel a fundamental shift in the world’s approach to agriculture. “It isn’t a matter of whether we think it would be nice to do urban farming or not,” he says. “It’s a matter of whether we are going to survive.”…”

This short article is available for purchase from science.org here. Unfortunately it is expensive at $10.

Photo taken in the backyard of Eliza and Leonard Tillmann’s home in New Rochelle, Weschester, New York in summer. Circa 1903

See larger image here. (1.9MB)