Category — Video

“I don’t allow my cups and saucers in the front garden.”
Video clip from the British TV Show The Good Life.

The real Good Life: An entire village turns against supermarkets and grows its own food
By LUKE SALKELD
The Daily Mail 14th April 2008

“The Hampshire village is now home to hundreds of real life versions of the characters played by Felicity Kendall and Richard Briers, who lived off the land in the 1970s BBC comedy. They work on a rota system and raise their own chickens and pigs and grow potatoes, garlic, onions, chillis and green vegetables on eight acres of rented land.

Of the 164 families who live in Martin, 101 have signed up as members of Future Farms for an annual £2 fee, although the produce can be sold to anyone who wants to buy it. The “community allotment” sells 45 types of vegetables and 100 chickens a week, and is run by a committee which includes a radiologist, a computer programmer and a former probation officer.”

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Preet is our Punjabi host.

Hong speaks Mandarin

And Patrick, Cantonese, in these scripted videos.

Many Vancouver residents want to compost but cannot speak English, so we’ve made three instructional videos, which are available on the Web.

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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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I just can’t get enough of the great Victory Garden material made over 60 years ago! This 1942 Barney Bear’s Cartoon was directed by Rudolf Ising. Barney unsuccessfully attempts to keep a mole out of his Victory Garden.

When we started City Farmer in 1978, our staff spent a good deal of time researching wartime gardens. The term “Victory Gardens” is making a comeback as you can see in this April 12th, San Francisco Chronicle article, Bring Back the WWII-era Victory Garden.

The US World War II film embedded above (20 minutes long), a favourite of ours, shows us how people were encouraged to grow food by their governments - - the US, Canada and Britain all promoted Victory Gardens.

“The Holder family in Maryland lays out a quarter acre Victory Garden during World War II. Most of the gardening work is done by Grandpa Holder and his teenage grandchildren Rick and Amy and from the looks of the film, it is backbreaking work. There is the garden of peppers, tomatoes, pole beans, potatoes, asparagus and sweet corn. Then, there is the late garden with beets, squash, late potatoes, late cabbage, kale, collard greens and three rows of turnips.

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This has to be the year of the chicken in the city. Move over dogs and cats. You are about to be outshone.

From the filmmakers’ blog:
“In the spring of 2004, Madison, Wisconsin passed a law reflecting a growing trend in municipalities across the country. Single-family homes within the city limits were now able to raise chickens in their backyards. A year later, we started filming.

“From the underground to about town, chickens take the city by storm. Backyard poultry owners came out of hiding, and with them the chicken supporters came out of the woodwork. These beautiful birds are celebrated in art, music, and an ever-expanding community.

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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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If you haven’t read this magazine, you can start right now because all issues are available on-line. It is the only scholarly magazine published on urban agriculture. Pictured above is the latest issue No. 19, dated December 2007. You are invited to contribute to the next issue No. 20 ‘Sustainable Use of Water in Urban Agriculture’ to be published July 2008.

All issues are on-line here.

“The RUAF (or in long form, Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security) has functioned since 1999 as a global network of 6 regional organisations that share a common vision on urban development and poverty reduction and together implement an international programme focussed on urban agriculture and food security.”

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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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Every year in March, City Farmer head gardener, Sharon Slack, teaches classes on ‘how to grow veggies at home’. Once again in 2008, our sign-up book is filling up with eager students who will get the unique experience of learning how to garden both in a warm classroom and also in our demonstration garden, ‘hands-on’.

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