Category — Video

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We grow lots of garlic at the Vancouver Compost Garden. But not many people know about scapes, the flowering stems that appear in June about three weeks before the bulbs are harvested.

Maria picked some of our scapes and prepared a quick and easy recipe for delicious pesto sauce.

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Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackcurrant, Gooseberry, Tayberry, Saskatoon berry

Maria takes us on a tasting tour at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. It’s the end of June and we love sampling what we grow.

A film by Mark Lewis (2000)

“Through interviews and reenactments, The Natural History of the Chicken investigates the role of the chicken in American life and tells several remarkable stories. A Maine farmer says she found a chicken frozen stiff, but was able to resuscitate it. Colorado natives tell a story of the chicken who lost its head– and went on living.

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Mayor Robertson and Councilors announce City Hall community gardens. Vancouver has always prided itself on being a green city - and now it seems city hall might have the greenest thumb. Thirty new plots have been opened to the public as part of a new community garden in Vancouver. June 20, 2009

Vancouverites dig into city hall plots

By Jon Woodward
CTV British Columbia
Saturday June 20, 2009

Eager gardeners were given the green light to dig into a number of plots in a community garden on city hall land on Saturday.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said the decision to convert part of the park north of city hall into fertile ground would stand as a symbol for Vancouverites to grow their own food.

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Be sure to watch this video in High Definition. Click on the YouTube icon and then on the HD icon beneath the video.

Once you’ve had your worm bin for a few months and the worms have turned your food scraps into soil, you need to separate the worms from the compost so you can use the worms again in fresh bedding — and put the finished compost to work in your garden.

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Richard Lewis, Actor/Comedian, giving a speech at the Urban Farming Food Chain launch.

The Urban Farming Food Chain

“Urban Farming has established the Urban Farming Food Chain™, a vertical farming project. The Food Chain consists of “edible” food-producing wall panels mounted on walls of buildings, growing fresh organic produce. The wall systems of the Food Chain concept are as “links” connecting to each location by intention and design, as well as presenting a new definition for the familiar term, ‘food chain’. Los Angeles is the pilot city for the Urban Farming Food Chain, a project we will replicate in other cities.

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For the Greener Good: Vertical Farming from National Building Museum on Vimeo.

Presenter(s): Dickson Despommier, Robin Elmslie Osler, Carolyn Steel, and J. William Thompson
Date Recorded: April 29, 2009
Duration: 01:29:59
Sponsored by: The Home Depot Foundation

Learn about the future of urban food production with Robin Osler, Elmslie Osler Architects; Dickson Despommier, Professor of Public Health, Columbia University; Carolyn Steel, Author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives; and J. William Thompson, FASLA , editor, Landscape Architecture magazine.

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Help Goodness Grow

“At Campbell, we believe quality ingredients are grown from the ground up – and make truly delicious soup. That’s why, for over 70 years we’ve painstakingly cultivated seeds for tomatoes that go into our delicious soup.

“Now you can get seeds we use for growing tomatoes. Your request will help Campbell donate seeds to plants gardens in communities and schools across America. This is all part of our commitment to the National FFA Organization, which is dedicated to developing our future leaders through agricultural education.

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See this video in High Definition. Click here.

We talk ‘worms’ every day of the week at City Farmer at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden - “Where can I buys worms?” “How can I get rid of fruit flies?” “Where can I get a worm bin?” “How much food waste can I add to my worm bin?” and so on.

Lauren answers some of those question in the above six minute video, shot in high definition at the Garden. All the basics are outlined, so if you’ve ever considered composting with worms, watch this video.

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Here’s The Dirt - Guide To Composting - GVRD (Metro Vancouver) - 1990

City Farmer has been promoting home composting at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden for almost 20 years. This video was created in 1990 by Marianne Pengelly for the GVRD (our regional government) and shows how we spoke about composting then. Our City Farmer staff at the time included Gill Elcock, Lorenzo Mele and Susan Ray.

Some of our instructions have changed over the years. Current information is available from our Compost Hotline: 604.736.2250 in Vancouver.

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See larger image here. Photo by wbgo
See photo set here.
There are about 1,000 boxes sitting on a previously empty lot in this center city location and on a rooftop nearby.

Excerpt from:
Farm fresh, in the city
by Jennifer Weiss/The Star-Ledger
Wednesday October 08, 2008

“We put EarthBoxes up there, and I couldn’t believe how well the plants grew,” Haberthur said. “It was like I had a green thumb.”

Taylor found out about the 29-inch-long containers at a Whole Foods store. EarthBox says they can produce double yields, using less water and fertilizer than conventional gardening. Taylor bought 500 of them at a wholesale rate of $13 each, and he said EarthBox donated 500 more. Gibbons, the lead investor, contributed $20,000 and said about half that was spent on the containers and soil.

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Google Garden Plantingg
Executive Sous-Chef Jennifer Johnston leads a team of volunteers to plant a Growing Connection garden on Google’s campus.

The Google Garden consists of 100 EarthBoxes all planted with vegetables and herbs from different regions of the world.  The Garden was planned in cooperation with the Chefs at Google, and made possible with support from Google and the Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County and volunteers from Google, University of California - Cooperative Extension, EarthBox, and TGC. 

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October 22, 2008

Discovery Channel’s Matt Danzico investigates vertical farming, an agricultural concept aimed at growing food and raising animals in skyscrapers in city centers.

Part 1. See HD version here. (Click HQ icon when at YouTube site.)

(I believe these creative visions are funded by Absolut Vodka.)

In An Absolut World, Cities Farm. (Parts 1 and 2)

Lehua Chong sent this information about the videos.

Short videos by organic chef / eco-artist Jim Denevan.

“The video features footage and interviews from a dinner that Jim hosted to raise awareness about and show the potential of urban farming.  He hosted a dinner for about 120 eco-chic New Yorkers and prepared a five course menu composed entirely of ingredients from the five boroughs.  Some of the menu items included Rockaway Striped Bass with Bronx Collard Greens, Brooklyn Cranberry Beans, and even cocktails with muddled berries foraged from Central Park.

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April 22, 2009
By Lisa Johnson
CBC News

Several B.C. seed and plant retailers say business is blooming this year, and the recession, rising food prices and star power may be feeding British Columbians’ growing enthusiasm for gardening.

West Coast Seeds owner Jeanette McCall told CBC News she had expected a busy year at the Delta facility, shipping vegetable and flower seeds to customers, but not this busy.

Stocks of packaged seeds that were supposed to last all season were running out before March.

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(Wait a few seconds after starting this video. It will say ‘the current item is not currently available’ but it will soon play.)
The 100-mile diet? How about the 100-metre diet? The cheapest way to enjoy local food is to grow it! Share your backyard with others and learn how to grow your own food while developing a self-sustained lifestyle. Link to Food Network here.

Director/Editor: Maayan Cohen
Camera: Maayan Cohen, Galit Mastai

Sharing Backyards

City Farmer’s Vancouver Sharing Backyards web site is featured in this webisode for the new TV show “The 100 Mile Challenge” on the Food Network. Elizabeth Leboe of North Vancouver and Marjorie Carroll, the woman who shares her garden, are featured. Also featured is the man who started Sharing Backyards in Victoria, who built the City Farmer Vancouver Page, a visionary coder, Patrick Hayes. Christopher Hawkins is now coordinating an expansion of Sharing Backyards to many cities in North America.

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Photo by Larissa Mead-Wescott. See link to photo here.

CBC News
April 8, 2009

Two Halifax syrup harvesters want the municipality to allow the tapping of maple trees.

Janice Ashworth and Jason Dionne have been collecting liquid sugar from eight trees along Allan Street, in the city’s west end. Dionne learned how to tap trees and boil the sap into maple syrup at a cousin’s farm in New Brunswick.

Ashworth said the project makes them more self-sufficient.

“It’s kind of hard to grow a lot of your own food in the city or produce your own produce and stuff, so we thought this would be one way that we can do a little bit of that,” Ashworth told CBC News.

Ashworth and Dionne say they’ll take the taps out of the trees at the end of the season and fill the holes with beeswax to prevent infection.

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(At 3:11 of the video above: “Bringing vegetable gardens in - the compost from the cafeterias will be used to fertilize, to grow vegetables, that can then be sold back at a local farmer’s market.)

From the USDA Press Release
February 12, 2009

This garden will add 612 square feet of planted space to an existing garden traditionally planted to ornamentals, bringing the total size to more than 2,500 square feet.

“The People’s Garden” represents forward-thinking ideas and actions.

• We’ll grow a large assortment of fruits and vegetables, symbolizing USDA’s commitment to promote healthful diets and fight childhood obesity.

• We’ll demonstrate for landowners the kind of conservation practices our farmers use each and every day.

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By Urban Omnibus
The Architectural League of New York

Urban Agriculture: East New York is a documentary video in five chapters that explains how East New York’s urban agriculture movement evolved. Each chapter is dedicated to one piece of a complicated process: a portrait of a veteran local farmer in her garden; a trip to the East New York farmer’s market; a look at asset mapping analysis by the Pratt Center; land transfers from HPD to Green Thumb; and the investment in the neighborhood’s youth made by agricultural organizers and experts.

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Leslie, from City Slicker Farms, dropped by our Demo Garden and told us about her work in West Oakland.

City Slicker Farms helps low income West Oakland residents grow produce to feed their families. Staff help build organic vegetable gardens and provide the ongoing assistance, supplies and materials necessary for successful growing. For those who want to sell produce, they provide the markets necessary for sales and also work with growers to ensure quality.

City Slicker Farms website here.