Maria uses her macro lens to close in on our Fava Beans, which are covered in black aphids. Instead of reporting a bad news story, she points out all the beneficial insects dining on the aphids and shows us a bucket of ripe beans that survived despite the pest attack. Later she turned the harvested beans into a delicious Fava Bean humous.

More on Fava Beans here.

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.

“The Earth and I are friends now”

Last year I never thought of the earth except as something to walk on. But in the spring I turned up the sod and planted seed. Summer – grubbing for weeds and watching things grow – I got friendly with the land.

Well, it’s autumn now. The crop wasn’t big – but fair enough. And something good has happened to our family! We’ve weeded and watered and hoped together. And said our table blessing over our own harvest.

It seems to me that my family has come back to some important things. Come back to one another – and to our good soil. Come back to being neighbors with the family whose garden row begins where ours leaves off.

We’re all closer now. Closer to the men whose prayers – so much more than ours – are tied to earth and sun and the early frost. We know now what’s in a farmer’s mind when his fields are are sick with blight. We know how he feels when his eyes look up for rain.

Yes, now we know something about the earth. Respect it. And respect the people who tend it. And we know that the fruits of the earth which we used to take for granted – bread and milk and green things – are hard-earned and hard-won.

This is our land. As it was so many years back – when the harvest of the land alone sustained our people.

Our land – our harvest.

In appreciation of the big job being done by our partners, the professional farmers of America – and by the new millions of amateur farmers, this message is presented.

Dedicated to the wider use and better understanding of dairy products as human food – as a base for the development of new products and materials – as a source of health and enduring progress on the farms and in towns and cities of America.

Larger image here.

Larger text here.

My Handkerchief Garden, 1889
By Barnard, Charles, 1838-1920
New York, Garden Publishing
62 pages

Excerpts below:

At last it was found ; a six-room house with a mere handkerchief of a garden, measuring about one-thirtieth of an acre, or about as big as a city back yard. The soil was a wet, heavy clay, full of stones, and shaded by a number of tall trees growing on the next lot. In March, 1887, we moved to the place, and on the twenty-first we paid twenty-five cents for one ounce of Tennis Ball Lettuce seed. So it was the scrap of a garden began, and thereon does hang the more or less learned remarks that make this book.

A seed is potential wealth — bran new wealth that does not
exist, but waits the partnership of nature and the
gardener. Seeds are about the cheapest thing in the
world. At wholesale a cent will buy a hundred seeds
of lettuce. An acre of ground, if managed by a
man who knows his trade, will produce in one season
40,000 heads of lettuce. New York will calmly
eat every head at three cents each and cry for more.
You would probably pay at the store five cents a
head or $2,000 for the lot.

…

A garden is a good place to bury headaches. That settled the matter, and I decided to use all the available land for a flower and kitchen garden. There were two other reasons, beside the sanitary advantage, for having a garden. In suburban towns and villages the rent is for the house, and the lot of land on which it stands is practically thrown in free. It costs no more to have the house without the land than with it, for as soon as the land becomes too valuable, the houses cover all the land as in a city. If the land is used for a garden it will make a solid financial return, while a lawn pays nothing beyond the doubtful value
of looking pretty from the road.

…

Our table was supplied with vegetables for over four months, so
that no purchases (except one quart of onions) were
made at the stores for this time. Besides this, notwithstanding
a rather poor season, the vegetables were of a far better quality than could be purchased anywhere. As an illustration of this I may confess without a blush that I ate nine cucumbers a day for several weeks in entire safety and complete satisfaction. To buy so many for one person would demand considerable moral courage, not alone for the price,
but from the doubtful character of cucumbers two days old. Mine often reached the breakfast table in less time that it took to make the coffee — hence their beautiful innocence.

…

Suppose your garden is the usual city back yard, 25 feet wide and 60 feet long. Out of this bit of ground you must wring in one season all it is capable of producing. The ground must be stuffed with plants – not a foot, not an inch being wasted.

Such an arrangement of a city yard would give
three borders, one 6×25, and two, each 4×48 = 534
square feet. If the wash “is sent out,” more space
could be gained by making the two side borders each
two feet wider. It would not be well to make them
wider than this, as six feet is about as far as you can
conveniently reach with a hoe or rake while standing
on the grass. Many city yards that I have seen in
New York are arranged in this way, except that there
is a stone-covered walk eighteen inches wide around
the grass plot, and leaving a very narrow border,
often only a foot and a half wide, next the fence or
three sides. Such a walk is a waste of room, for the
grass plot can be used for a walk at a wonderful gain
in comfort. No man has yet invented a carpet equal
to grass for feet weary of city side-walks.

…

Did the home lot pay? Was the return sufficient
for the labor? It was, and the garden did pay, because
the time spent on it was odd time not available
for other work. Besides this, the work was a pleasure
and a sanitary measure, paying a big dividend in red
blood, sound sleep, a good appetite and a cheerful
spirit. If you have ever been sick and paid doctor’s
bills you will know just what these things are worth
in hard cash. The cost in money was $14.64 and
about thirty days’ labor between March and November.
The entire return, including new stock valued
at $15, was $69.79. Taking cash spent from this leaves
$55.15, or about $1.80 for each day’s labor spent in
the garden. Of course if the labor had all been hired
at the regular rate here of $2 the garden would have
been carried on at a loss.

…

If you consider health, fresh and superior vegetable food
worth anything, then a home lot will pay you, as it
did me, big dividends. For the great majority of
families, particularly where there are young people
who can help out-of-doors, a home lot will make just
the difference between profit and loss, between money
in the savings bank and unpaid bills at the stores.
The home lot is the one reliable asset in your little
property that will neither fail, fly away to Canada
nor pass its dividends—the one partnership in which
you will always hold a controlling interest.

The complete book can be read on-line here.

World War One Food Garden Parade. circa 1914.

Produce from village war gardens on display. Opens with parade. Man leading horse pulling a wagon of produce and Union Jack stuck on front. Boy Scouts walk behind the wagon carrying gardening tools and flags. Then a local marching band. This procession comes marching into town square; as other people watch. Lots of lettuces; other vegetables piled high on truck; pan to men standing beside truck; and another truck loaded up with marrows and potatoes and things — less leafy than the other one;

Continue pan to more people and another truck – this one is sort of decorated with vegetables and flowers hanging on it! Shot of rally/ meeting with crowd gathered in front of a building – line of priests stand on platform in front of building’s long porch and a long balcony overhead is also packed with people. More of people bringing produce – a small donkey hitched to wagon; little Boy Scouts sit on curb; more horses; wagons and food.

From the Fortress of Louisbourg by SchoolNet

Founded in 1713 for its cod fishery, Louisbourg enjoyed three peaceful decades as a French colonial seaport. New Englanders captured the town in 1745, but watched its return to France three years later. The peace was shortlived and in 1758, the British captured the town a second time. In 1760, Louisbourg’s fortifications were destroyed and the small British garrison left the fortress eight years later.

Food Gardens

When the French first arrived in Louisbourg, they found the soil to be of below average quality for their gardening. The poor soil combined with the harsh climate inhibited the residents from growing the vegetables and herbs in the quantity or quality of which they were accustomed to in France. Consequently townspeople would often bring soil from other parts of the island and mix it with the original soil in their gardens. The resulting gardens, known as potagers, had an assortment of vegetables and herbs which were used as dyes as well as for cooking and medicinal purposes. Typical vegetables grown were: cabbages, turnip, carrots, beans, and peas. Common herbs were: mint, parsley, sage and thyme.

There were more than 100 gardens in Louisbourg in the 18th century and they were an indication of the social status of the property owner. It was uncommon to see decorative flowers grown in pratical gardens as it was so hard to grow even the basic necessities. The gardens of the richer inhabitants had a symmetrical arrangement of beds, a sundial or urn to give the garden a central focus and they were often arranged in complementing color coordinations. If there were flowers grown they would likely be found in the formal gardens of the well-to-do.

There were specifications followed when planning a garden so that the contents would grow in Louisbourg’s climate. The garden was lower than the ground level of the house. Good soil, about 3 feet deep, would have been dark, rich, not too humid and not too dry. The soil was tested for bad odour or taste as fruits and vegetables would pick up these qualities. Testing was done by taking soil from various sections of the garden, placing it into separate containers with water and letting it stand for about eight hours. Finally, the water was filtered through a cloth and tasted for bad qualities.

Gardens usually faced northward, which had its advantages. This was was good for summer and autumn fruits. It also helped preserve vegetables during long periods of heat. Fences were built around the gardens, averaging of 9 feet high, protecting the garden from passers by, theives, animals, and from winds and cold temperatures. Fences also reflected heat onto the plants and helped to maintain the shape of the garden.

An excellent example of a practical garden was that of Michel de Gannes. It had soil raised about 3 inches from ground level and was held in place by wooden boards around the edges. There was no wasted space in this garden. Narrow walkways provided just enough room to manoeuvre between each section. It contained all the basic herbs and vegetables.

Fortress of Louisbourg by SchoolNet website.

Link to Gardens at the Louisbourg Site at the The Official Research Site for the Fortress of Louisbourg.

Link to Gardens in Louisbourg – Photo Gallery.

More photos of buildings and gardens at Louisbourg here and on neighboring pages.

And as he hopes to have it this year. Potatoes, Parsnips, Turnips.

By W.K. Haselden
Daily Mirror, Great Britain
19 Jan. 1917

Lawns are being dug up all over the east side of Vancouver by birds and animals looking for the fat grubs of the European Chafer Beetle. Maria goes out to look at a boulevard where crows are having breakfast on someone’s no-longer-perfect lawn. She makes some suggestions for homeowners – they can use nematodes to help control the pest, or find an alternative to grass. How about vegetables?

Chafer Information:

City of Burnaby link.

City of New Westminster link.

UBC Botanical Garden Forum link.

Chafer Beetle: Defending your turf
Article by Steve Whysall, 2006-03 link.

With the sound of cicadas in the background, Esme shows us how she composts at home in Singapore and avoids attracting venomous snake such as King Cobras and vipers, and non-venomous pythons (adults grow to a maximum of more than 32 feet).

And for more about nature in Singapore, read the following article:

Wildlife’s revenge – Even in urban Singapore, it can sometimes be a jungle

Two to three times a week, Singapore police receive a call from a resident reporting a visit by one of Singapore’s many snakes.

Black spitting cobras (naja naja sputatrix) are endemic to Singapore, though fortunately rare. Much more common is the reticulated python.

While most animals that tour Singapore’s human settlements do so via the island’s extensive tree cover, the pythons have turned the island’s vast sewer system, which is vital for preventing torrential tropical storms from flooding the city, into their own subway network. When they tire of the usual forest fare of monkeys and birds, they venture downtown in search of rats, cats and dogs.

See the complete Herald Tribune article here.

By Godfrey Hampwaye, Etienne Nel, Christian M Rogerson
Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 2007,
Volume 25, pages 553 – 572
May 2007

Abstract

The topic of urban agriculture has, for a significant period of time, been recognized as a key facet of urban survival in the cities in the South. While it normally forms part of multilivelihood strategies and its overall significance is the subject of some debate, it nonetheless is an important feature of both urban landscapes and urban survival. This paper examines the current status quo of urban agriculture in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.

Structural adjustment and downscaling of the key copper mining sector seems to have forced more people into various informal survival strategies, including urban agriculture. Despite the apparent growing significance of urban agriculture, as illustrated by significant recent vegetation clearances around the city, official policy remains ambivalent and it has not been adequately supported or catered for in urban planning. While it remains officially illegal, controls are seldom enforced and urban farmers persist with what is a key household survival strategy under trying circumstances.

See the complete paper here. Click on Full-text PDF.

Perhaps the weirdest Victory Garden video ever.
1943 Dig For Victory Leaflet No 1

Dialogue from the video.

“In spring this gardener sowed away
He meant to eat well every day.”

Gardener: Waiter,

Father Time: Yes Sir, coming Sir.
Your summer course Sir.
Pardon Sir, will you order your winter course now?
I say will you order your winter course now?

Gardener: Winter? Never heard of it.

Father Time: You’ll be sorry sir.

“In the winter, table bare,
He couldn’t eat what wasn’t there.

Winter Scene.

Gardener: Waiter? Father time?
Give me some food.

Sign: No Winter Greens today – Father Time

Gardener: Can’t eat frozen earth

Dead Gardener – Father Time with Scythe

“The dreadful fate of this poor man
Was due to lack of garden plan.
You cannot eat lilies.
But you can make sure of gree…… “(video cut off here)

The video warns gardeners of what might happen if they do not plan their garden and plant enough vegetables for winter storage. In Vancouver, Sharon works out what seeds to plant in which month so that we will have crops for winter picking; in the garden soil (e.g. kale, Swiss chard), in the cold frame (variety of hardy salad greens) and in the ground for spring harvest (Purple sprouting broccoli).

2nd July 1937: Children in the allotments of the London Children’s Gardens Fund at Clerkenwell take a break from gardening with their weekly bout of boxing. Larger image here.

By Meeru Dhalwala
The Vancouver Sun, 26 Nov 2008

I certainly didn’t have an idyllic childhood, but I did gain some idyllic principles from my mom and dad. It used to drive me crazy when either one would yell at me for getting even a “ B” on a test or for not finishing my lunch, even if the bread was stale.

“ In India . . .” was how they always started the guilt trip. As I became older, I yelled back that they were the ones who had brought me to the U. S. and that I wasn’t going to feel guilty about all the poor people in India.

At some point, my parents told me that guilt was never their intention. They wanted me to do my best with the opportunities I had, in honour of the poor people we had left behind in India. The way they saw it, it was a waste if even the lucky Indian was going to give in to laziness — my not finishing lunch was considered to be a form of will- power laziness.

Last week, I read an article about a father named Edward in the Congo who has become a walking refugee with his family of five. Their village was taken over by a rebel group and in his words, “ It is very difficult to live when you have nowhere to plant.” His family made a move to find safety and a place to grow food.

While reading about Edward, I remembered that my father was also a refugee at the age of 10 during the War of Partition, and had to run to catch cold chapattis being thrown from government jeeps. Often, he had to beat up other boys who were vying for the same chapattis. The Partition made sure that my dad would never become will- power lazy.

Whether it is Edward’s family in the Congo or a family in India or Canada, there is one universal and idyllic principle that until the recent past has been handed down from generation to generation. I wrote about it in my previous column: the principle of growing at least some of your own food.

I received more than 80 e-mails in response to my offer of starting a Vancouverwide vegetable garden club. Sixtyone of us met last Saturday morning at my restaurant, Vij’s, to form this club and get an action plan going. Officially, we now have about 65 members. I started this club so early, before the growing season, because I know that in order to take on a massive new activity, we sometimes need to prepare ourselves psychologically and gather encouragement from others before the big day of action.

Some of us are new to gardening, and some of us are lazy, but wanting to garden. Others are seasoned vegetable growers. We range from Don, who is just about to become a Master Gardener ( if he’s not already) and who has the most incredible garden full of vegetables, to Jasmine, who has a small Yaletown balcony.

There’s also Susan, who grew up in East Vancouver in a neighbourhood where many things were bartered. Her mom, a nurse, traded her skills with the neighbours in exchange for backyard vegetables and fruits. Susan has just moved into a small condo and has offered to exchange her hand- made soaps for vegetables that she can’t grow on her balcony.

Our vegetable garden club, which may need a better, more personal name, has been divided into regional subgroups: West of Burrard, which includes downtown; East of Burrard; North Shore, which includes the islands and West Vancouver; and the Suburban group, which incorporates Delta, Surrey, Richmond. Each group has a coordinator and a gardening expert.

There is no profit- making or networking among us; all is done for barter or just plain goodwill. Our goal is to grow as many herbs and vegetables as possible and celebrate in a late summer harvest party. Colleen wants us to consider sharing some of this collective harvest with a community kitchen. Like many others, she wants our club to consider the wellness of our community at large.

In a way, it’s crazy that in Vancouver we’re forming a club to encourage growing our own food while Edward and his family are starving refugees because they can’t find a safe plot of land on which to grow enough food.

But I’m not going to feel guilty about it. Instead, I’m going to honour the plight of Edward and his family by doing the best I can with our new club.

What follows is Meeru’s original newspaper article, which drew people to the founding meeting of the vegetable growers’ club.

Who wants to grow vegetables with me in 2009?

Let’s get off our butts and do something positive for the environment.

Meeru Dhalwala,
The Vancouver Sun, October 29, 2008

Imagine that you have a decent-sized vegetable garden in your backyard or on the rooftop of your apartment building. Given that many of us are recent transplants to Vancouver, i magine further that you inherited this garden from your mother or father and are carrying on this family tradition.

You share your vegetables with your neighbours and family. Some of the children in your building or neighbourhood love to come and help. You’ve become so good at it that you keep your personalized mini-farm going all year round. You’ve even managed to figure out how to grow everything organically. Finally, imagine looking out your kitchen window every morning at your garden. This is your view. You created it.

Probably the most awkward thing I’ve ever said to Vancouverites is that the view of the mountains and ocean bores me to tears. It’s an immediate conversation damper and some people even take it as a personal insult. The prize damper was when I responded to a person’s shock by saying that at least I wasn’t driving my huge SUV and polluting what I supposedly loved so much.

It wasn’t a nice thing to say, but my unclear point was that we all play a role in what goes on in our hometown even if we don’t do it on purpose. Maybe we humans in general aren’t hardwired to live for the greater good and tend to focus on our immediate, personal lives. Only when something affects us personally do we get involved.

There are two things that I spend an abnormal amount of time thinking about: What if there is a God when I die and God tells me I missed the point? and what the hell is going to happen to our environment by the time my girls are older?

Without writing a full journal entry here, I figured out how to deal with these two preoccupations. I’m going to grow my own vegetable garden starting this coming spring, and I’m going to try to get as many Vancouverites as possible to join me in growing even a small wad of green beans.

For reasons of convenience and laziness, we’re losing our connection to where and how our food is grown. Without this connection, how can we really care enough to get off our butts and do something positive for the environment? Driving and eating are two main activities that we can control — what we drive and eat, and how often.

I’m not an expert on driving, so I have no right to preach about that. But I’m in the food business and, having done lots of reading and research, feel confident to make suggestions on that topic. Farming has much to do with pollution and world hunger.

I don’t want to be a solitary gardener. I want to use gardening as an excuse to meet more people in my community and give and receive for free what we grow.

My only problem is that I know nothing about gardening. I couldn’t even figure out how to compost this past summer, even though everyone told me how simple it was. As if I needed further demoralizing, Akiko, our Rangoli restaurant manager, told me that composting was so easy that her family automatically grew the most beautiful potatoes from rotting potatoes in their compost. Akiko loves my gardening idea and has decided to grow potatoes in sacks hanging from the window of her bachelor suite. (Apparently, this is a Jamie Oliver idea that you can view on YouTube.)

If there are any first-time or seasoned vegetable gardeners who want to be a part of my vegetable garden club, let me know at
contact@vijs.ca.

Brussels sprouts, carrots, garlic, green beans and tomatoes are on my list for 2009. I’m not sure I’ll manage to grow anything the first year, but I’ll consider just getting on my knees, digging in the dirt and sharing lemonade or beer one step closer to achieving my goal.

Meeru Dhalwala cooks up her version of eggs with an Indian kick in the kitchen at Vij’s. Photograph by : Jenelle Schneider

Link to Vij’s Restaurant here.

Maria planted lots of Jerusalem artichokes last April and now we are harvesting buckets of these tasty tubers.

Jerusalem artichokes or Sunchokes are a perennial sunflower with tasty potato-like tubers. 6-8 ft tall with daisy-like flowers, sunchokes are very hardy and can become weedy, so plant them in a bed that is permanent. Harvest from August through late Fall. Nutty tasting tubers become sweeter after frost when left in the ground!

Sunny Scallop Potatoes

In a greased casserole dish with lid,
repeat layers of each of the following:

Sliced Potatoes
Sliced Sunchokes
Sliced Onion
A few thin Butter slices
Sprinkle of Flour
Grated Cheese
Salt, Pepper and sprinkle Cumin

Repeat layering two or three times depending on height of dish
Fill dish 1/3 with milk

Cook at 375°F for 45 min with lid on
Remove lid and let brown up for another 15 min
Cooked when pierced with fork easily and not hard.

Burma-Shave was an American brand of brushless shaving cream, famous for its advertising gimmick of posting humorous rhyming poems on small, consecutive highway billboard signs.

From Wikipedia

Burma-Shave was introduced in 1925 by the Burma-Vita company, owned by Clinton Odell. The company’s original product was a liniment made of ingredients described as coming “from the Malay Peninsula and Burma.”

Demand was sparse for the liniment, and the company sought to expand the product’s sales by introducing a product with wider appeal.

To increase sales, the owners developed the famous Burma-Shave advertising sign program, and sales took off. At its peak, Burma-Shave was the second-highest selling brushless shaving cream in the United States. However, sales declined in the 1950s, and in 1963 the company was sold to Phillip Morris. The signs were removed at that time. The brand decreased in visibility and eventually became the property of the American Safety Razor Company.

In 1997, the American Safety Razor Company reintroduced the Burma-Shave brand, including a nostalgic shaving soap and brush kit. In fact, the original Burma-Shave was a brushless shaving cream, and Burma-Shave’s own roadside signs frequently ridiculed “Grandpa’s old-fashioned shaving brush.”

See wikipedia here.

REUTERS – Oct 28, 2008
Reuters video in Spanish, linked. The video doesn’t seem to have been picked up by a news outlet and there is no news commentary in the footage. A raw script, which accompanies the video, and translation of the comments by the Cubans who were interviewed, is attached below this article.

Cubans hope urban gardens will solve food shortages caused by hurricane damage.

In the face of its greatest food shortage since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has fallen back on urban agriculture, which helped provide relief in the 1990′s during the Caribbean island’s “special period”.

The destruction of roughly 30 percent of the communist island’s food after devastating hurricanes has put the spotlight back on a practice borne out of necessity during communist Cuba’s most desperate hour.

Nearly two months on from the last of Hurricane Ike’s downpours, basic staples like lettuce are still hard to come by, save for select spots like a decade-old nursery in the eastern Havana suburb of Alamar.

The urban farm at Alamar operates on short cycles, and utilizes an organoponic model that combines organic – defined here by a lack of fertilizer or other additives – and water-submersion hydroponics techniques. An artificial irrigation system provides the foundation of the system.

The harvest is distributed through an adjoining cooperative distribution network.

“As of now, we sold in the previous month’s time, a critical month, roughly 50 kgs of lettuce, more than two tons, and lettuce production has practically been stabilized, and chard production will be stabilized, there are tomato plants, plenty of radish has been sold, the sale of other aromatic plants has remained steady and is not even satisfying the demand because of the large effect [from the hurricanes], but the recovery began immediately,” Miguel Salcines, the administrator of the organoponic farm at Alamar, said.

The urban farms, which appear in as unlikely spots as parking lots and roof terraces as well as more ordinary venues like personal gardens, now provide for 50 percent of the vegetable produce consumed by the nearly 11 million Cubans.

“In the end, the policy of urban agriculture is bringing results. You can see that we have vegetables in this organoponic garden and in these selling units,” a shopper at Alamar, oncologist Jesus Perez Alvarez, said.

The success of the model, that has flourished at other Havana farms like that of Bahia, has drawn the official seal approval of the Cuban government, despite the implicit autonomy it entails.

Grocery shoppers at the Bahia urban farm credit the model with helping Cuba overcome the devastation caused by the hurricanes.

“The situation really is getting better, now for example there’s lettuce, chard, some vegetables here and in other places, but it’s undeniable that the country hasn’t yet recovered,” Cuban retiree, Silvia Valladares, said.

And unlike the state-run grocery markets, the urban farms aren’t as exposed to the highs and lows of the Cuban economy at large, directly moving their produce to their communities.

The model’s record of consistently offering a full range of food items is among its chief selling points.

“I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s market everyday, and there are times when a product comes in, and there are times when not, and there are plenty of shortages. And here, you can plant something, and at least that helps,” Cuban retiree Angel Romay Ortis said as he began work on his own urban farm.

Havana froze prices in September in the wake of the hurricanes, but urban producers still offer fruits and vegetables at lower prices than the state markets – also offering a wider range of produce.

What began with a cooperative of four farmers in 1997 has developed into a sector that counts 160 producers working on 11 hectares of land – the equivalent of 13 soccer fields – to produce 240 tons of produce each year. And the urban farmers’ output of 50 percent of the island’s produce is accomplished on just 20 percent of the island’s arable land.

As one way of increasing production, Cuba announced on Monday (October 27) it would allow most farms to purchase basic supplies at stores for the first time since the 1960s, when the US-embargo came into effect.

Since officially taking the helm of the Cuban state on February 24, 2008, Raul Castro has expressed his desire to apply such a productive model throughout the whole of Cuba’s socialist economy, emphasizing benefits of entrepreneurship.

For his work at Alamar, an urban farmer earns 950 Cuban pesos (USD 42.75) a month, nearly double the average Cuban’s salary.

Script for the Video Shot in Cuba

Link to video from Cuba in Spanish here.

1. VARIOUS OF SPRINKLERS AND ARTIFICIAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM AT EAST HAVANA ALAMAR ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION FARM

2. MEN WORKING VEGETABLE FIELDS AND ORGANOPONIC GARDEN

3. FIELD SEEDED WITH VEGETABLES USING SHORT ORGANOPONIC CYCLES

4. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ADMINISTRATOR OF EAST HAVANA ORGANOPONIC ALAMAR
FARM, MIGUEL SALCINES, SAYING:

“As of now, we sold in the pervious month’s time, a critical month, roughly 50 kgs of lettuce, more than two tons, and lettuce production has practically been stabilized, and chard production will be stabilized, there are tomato plants, plenty of radish has been sold, the sale of other aromatic plants has remained steady and is not even satisfying the demand because of the large effect [from the hurricanes], but the recovery began immediately.”

5. PEOPLE ARRIVE FOR SHOPPING AT ALAMAR ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOPERATIVE

6. VARIOUS OF MEN TAKING LETTUCE HEADS FROM A WHEELBARROW FOR PURCHASE

7. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN ONCOLOGIST, JESUS PEREZ ALVAREZ, SAYING:

“In the end, the policy of urban agriculture is bringing results. You can see that we have vegetables in this organoponic garden and in these selling units.”

8. WOMEN ARRIVING TO CHECKOUT LINE AT EAST HAVANA BAHIA ORGANOPONIC COOP

9. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE BUYING VEGETABLES AT CHECKOUT COUNTER OF EAST HAVANA BAHIA ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOP

10. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN RETIREE, SILVIA VALLADARES, SAYING:

“The situation really is getting better, now for example there’s lettuce, chard, some vegetables here and in other places, but it’s undeniable that the country hasn’t yet recovered.”

11. VARIOUS OF MAN PREPARING A PIECE OF HIS PROPERTY INTO URBAN FARM TO GROW VEGETABLES

12. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN RETIREE, ANGEL ROMAY ORTIS, SAYING:

“I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s market everyday, and there are times when a product comes in, and there are times when not, and there are plenty of shortages. And here, you can plant something, and at least that helps.”

13. WOMEN WALKING TOWARDS STATE AGRO-MARKET AT VEGETABLES STAND THAT HAS EMPTY SHELVES

14. VEGETABLE STAND WITH TABLE READING:
“GARLIC, $2.50 EACH,”AND “YUCCA $1.50 EACH,” (“AJO, C/U $2.50″ AND “CHOPO, C/U $1.50″)

15. EMPTY SHELVES AT FARMER’S AGRO-MARKET VEGETABLE STANDS

16. VARIOUS OF MEN SEEDING VEGETABLES USING SHORT CYCLES AT EAST HAVANA ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOPERATIVE

1940 ‘Gardening’ an instructional sound film. (10 minutes)
Produced by Erpi Classroom Films Inc.
In collaboration with Ellen Eddy Shaw, MA
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Encyclopedia Britannica Films – ‘Bring the world to the Classroom”

The Child’s Food Garden – ‘with a few suggestions for flower culture’
School Garden Series.
By Van Evrie Kilpatrick, 1918
Principal of the Carlisle School, New York City and assigned to supervision of School and Home Gardens. President of the School Garden Association of America
65 pages. Includes many photos and illustrations

Preface:

Every boy and every girl who has a garden at home, or who is given a plot in a school garden, ought to learn to do the work successfully. Yet, as the author has found, children, especially those who live in cities and towns, know little or nothing about producing anything from the soil, and since the teacher cannot always be present to direct the work, there is a danger that discouraging mistakes will be made.

The importance of encouraging our children in outdoor work with living plants is now recognized. It benefits the health, broadens the education, and gives a valuable training in industry and thrift. The great garden movement is sweeping over all America, and our present problem is to direct it and make it most profitable to the children in our schools and homes.

Link to Flip Book of the book here.

Link to PDF of the book here.

Surrey may be home to region’s first vertical greenhouse

By Kelly Sinoski, The Vancouver Sun
21 Oct 2008

Rooftop gardens and vertical greenhouses could be a sign of the times in Metro Vancouver as the region wrestles with ways to tackle a global food crisis and the effects of climate change.

And Surrey could lead the trend, with at least one developer considering building a so-called vertical farm in Whalley, which is slated to become the region’s second downtown.

Vertical farms could potentially be as high as 30 storeys, with glass walls, solar panels and an irrigation system to grow beds of produce inside.

“We’re trying to look at the future and the future is going to be some form of urban agriculture,” Surrey Coun. Marvin Hunt said. “I’d like to see it right in the city centre.”

See complete article in the ‘Vancouver Sun’ here.

See ‘Scientific American’ – Earth 3.0 Special Issue – October 2008 here.
“Growing Vertical’ – Cultivating crops in downtown skyscrapers might save bushels of energy and provide city dwellers with distinctively fresh food.

See ‘The Future of Food – How Science Will Solve the Next Global Crises.
Wired Magazine: November 2008 here.

See the Vertical Farms web site here.

Entrepreneurs set out to farm unused residential yards – and make money to boot

By Moira Dann
The Globe and Mail
October 20, 2008

VICTORIA — It all started in June for Deb Heighway with a call from her brother, Craig, proving that good ideas grow roots and flourish quickly. He had declared himself CPO – “chief pitchfork operator” – of an urban farming venture in Vancouver, and he urged her to give the concept a try.

“The timing was right, as I had just finished a contract,” said Ms. Heighway, who works helping people who have suffered brain injury. “And I said: ‘Why not?’ ”

Ms. Heighway, who is originally from London, Ont., started off by purchasing a set of manuals online about small-plot intensive – or SPIN – farming: “It was $85, approximately.” The guide was part of a series produced by the pioneers behind the SPIN farming movement in Saskatchewan, Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen.

“So I started knocking on doors, just on my street,” said Ms. Heighway, with flyers offering to “turn your yard into a productive vegetable garden. We’ll do all the work and you get healthy, fresh and FREE vegetables.”

And so Donald Street Farms came into being.

SPIN farming is an urban agriculture phenomenon that is growing across Canada and the United States. It offers more productive land use in the city as well as food sustainability closer to end-users.

Read the complete Globe and Mail article here.

Visit Donald Street Farms here.

Visit SPIN Farming here.