New Stories From ‘Urban Agriculture Notes’

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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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.

Article about City Farmer by Leslie Gillett.

Vancouver’s City Farmer has been dishing up dirt for 30 years now, first through a newsletter and workshops, now through classes and its extensive website.

The dirt - as befits a society formed to encourage urban agriculture - is often about just that, things of the earth and compost and worms.

In fact some of long-time environmentalist and City Farmer executive director Michael Levenston’s favourite repeat questions are about composting with worms. “What do I do? I think my worms are escaping from my bin?” was a recent query - setting up wonderful mental images of dozens of red wigglers making a run for it with little flashlights and very small backpacks.

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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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A Symposium that will be held at Ryerson
University, Toronto, Canada. May 2-4, 2008

Some of the presentations:

• Planning the Edible Landscape: Challenges & Opportunities in Toronto
• On zoning and building regulations and urban agriculture – lessons from East Africa
• Ravine City / Farm City: gardening and density in Toronto
• Urban agriculture in the community design studio: The Detroit Studio example
• From international development to a more edible Montréal – urban agriculture and urban design at McGill
• From community garden to community food security: Grupo Motivos and Penn Planning
• Linking urban agriculture and built form to carbon cycles, energy use and nutrient flows
• Urban agriculture in the design charrette: The Black Creek Urban Farm example

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“Planting was completed in Spring 2002 and the garden is now well established. In an area of 200 m2, over 120 species of perennial plants from around the world thrive in soil only 30cm deep. The garden supports a range of layers, from roots, through small shrubs to our miniature version of a canopy layer. Most have multiple uses: food, medicine, fuel, fibre, construction, dye, scent.

“The garden demonstrates many ways we can all reduce our environmental footprint. Features include: composting of kitchen waste from the Global Cafe, irrigation using harvested rainwater pumped by renewable energy from a solar array and wind turbine, use of recovered soil and recycled newspaper, wood, stone and plastic in its construction.”

Link to roof garden here.

“Bringing the countryside to the city. Adapting the classic vegetable garden, a space dedicated to growing edible plants in an urban environment. With these basic ideas, expressed in his end of degree project thesis at the industrial design school ESDI, Marc Gispert Vidal developed a project called ‘City Vegetable Garden’.

“Leopoldos’ Garden is made from a tubular structure of anodised aluminium and growing trays of waterproof artificial raffia, flexible and very resistant, in black. Technological plastic knots and conical nuts enable the structure to be set up with an Allen key. It comes with wheels included and is suitable for both indoor and outdoor growing. It has a drainage system incorporated which prevents the harm that excess watering can do to plants.”

More about the product here.

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).

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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