Havana harvest: Organic agriculture in Cuba’s capital

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Havana harvest: Organic agriculture in Cuba's capital

The 44th Street and Fifth Avenue Organoponico in Havana. They always grow lettuce, both acelga espanol and acelga bok choy, spinach, radishes, green onions, garlic chives (which they call ajo montana), arugula, chicory, green beans, carrots, watercress, apio (celery), parsley, broccoli and an Argentine green bean that looks like a snap pea on steroids. They also raise medicinals – aloe vera, manzanilla (camomile), tilo, mejorana, cana mexicana, yerba buena, and another kind of mint. A sign explains the health benefits of chicory. – Photo: Scott Braley

Havana Harvest

by Mickey Ellinger and Scott Braley

San Francisco Bay View

February 26, 2010

Excerpt:

"Del cantero a la mesa: from the garden bed to the table," says the banner outside the urban garden at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue in Havana's Playa district. People are lined up at the counter to buy today's harvest: lettuce, spinach, bok choy, garlic chives.

Havana has almost 10,000 gardens, ranging from back yards to truck farms like Alamar. The 44th Street organoponico (the official term for the organic gardens in raised beds), founded in 1992, takes up half a city block on what used to be a dumping place. Its 48 raised concrete beds are filled with a planting mixture made of soil brought in from farther out in the country, mixed with worm compost from a bigger garden near them. They start the plants in three shade houses, harvest a bed all at once and set out new plants the same day.

They grow sorghum around the edges of the whole garden as a trap plant; the bugs like sorghum and munch on it instead of the leaf vegetables. Garden director Roberto Perez Sanchez says that the sorghum "keeps the insects entertained." Basil and marigold bloom at the foot of every bed to ward off more insects; and onions or garlic planted close together as a border inside each bed is a third line of defense.

This planting method gets results: They harvest half a dozen crops a year on average. Some plants like spinach go from garden to table in as little as 15 days. And the leaf crops are organically grown – beautiful, succulent, unblemished.

They also raise medicinal herbs – aloe vera, chamomile, lime, marjoram, two kinds of mint, and chicory. A sign at the counter from the macrobiotic researchers at Havana's world-famous Finlay Institute explains the health benefits of chicory: "a friend of the liver."

The garden co-operative has eight members: three in production, three in sales, a biological specialist that makes trichoderma (a biological control for nematodes) and director Perez, who is the agronomist and administrator. They contract part of the crop to the government to redistribute to schools, hospitals and workplaces to supplement what these institutions grow on site. The...

Mapping Food trucks

mpeers: Real-time map of food trucks comes to L.A. http://bit.ly/bz6RQR
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Urban Food Growing in Havana, Cuba from BBC’s “Around the World in 80 Gardens” (2008)

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Urban Food Growing in Havana, Cuba from BBC's "Around the World in 80 Gardens" (2008)

[YouTube Video]

Garden number 5. Cuba – Alberto's Huerto, Havana. An urban vegetable garden in the space left by a collapsed building.

Around the World in 80 Gardens – BBC

Around the World in 80 Gardens was a television series of 10 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visited 80 of the world's most celebrated gardens. The series was filmed over a period of 18 months and was first broadcast on BBC Two from 27 January to 30 March 2008. A book and DVD based on the series were also published.

These food gardens were featured the series:

Garden number 32. USA – Liz Christy Garden, Manhattan, New York. The first community garden in New York City, founded in 1973 by local resident Liz Christy on a vacant lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston Street.

Garden number 49. Italy – Elio's vineyard, Tivoli. A private fruit and vegetable garden.

Garden number 51. Morocco – The Aguedal, Marrakech. Royal vegetable gardens dating to the 12th century, irrigated with water from the Ourika valley, with water stored in large central cisterns.

Garden number 58. South Africa – The Company Garden, Cape Town. Originally created to provide fresh food to passing ships, using water from natural springs; now a city park.

Garden number 77. Singapore – Wilson Wong's Community Garden. An urban vegetable garden created as a community project.

List of all 80 gardens from the show here.

A DVD of the series and a book are available at the TV Show website here.

From online Farmville to offline urban farms – shared commons

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From online Farmville to offline urban farms – shared commons

Let's Come Back Offline

from Learning from Farmville

by Stephanie Smith

Jan 29, 2010

Excerpt

Let's come back offline and bring our new social networking toolkit with us. Why don't we create an urban farm that integrates everything we're learning about community-based sharing from both the physical and the virtual realms? This farm would be an online/offline mash-up of social and community infrastructures that could act as a model for how our 21st century 'commons' will work. Sounds to me like the kind of utopia Stewart Brand and "the hippies who built the internet" first imagined, and that can finally be realized today.

Our most robust communities can now be found online. Social media is a powerful communal infrastructure on which millions of people efficiently and effectively share their lives. And while we're gathering online, our offline 'commons' languishes. The town square, the mall, main street, the movie cinema all feel dormant in comparison. Social networks have become the new urban architecture, the 'commons' for our time.

See the rest of this story here.

What FarmVille can teach Columbia about local food

By Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti

Columbia Spectator

Jan 28, 2010

Excerpt

Simply put, the game is a lesson in the necessity of agricultural community, a fact that applies to contemporary farms as much as it did a little more than 100 years ago. The 20th century model of engorged super-farms has proven itself unwieldy, dangerous, and irresponsible. The environmental impact of large shipments of produce is an outpouring of carbon into the atmosphere, creating a layer impermeable to solar rays, which in turn increases the global temperature. Beyond that, the practice of creating monocultures poses the risk that, should a pathogen or bacteria attack the produce, the entire crop could be decimated. These facts are pertinent to the choices that we, both at Columbia and in our daily lives, make. But we can also look to FarmVille to teach another lesson: local farms require the aid of their neighbors. Support of local agriculture is important because it breeds more local agriculture. There is no restart button on real-world farms.

See the rest of this story here.

Photo by by Anita Jamal

City folk are among the biggest 'FarmVille' fans

January 29, 2010

As...

San Diego’s urban farmers

 

 

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San Diego’s urban farmers

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/24/10

Photo by Don Kohlbauer. See complete series of beautiful photos – and audio here.

Meet the pioneers planting crops in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers

By Erin Glass,
San Diego News Network
March 18, 2009

About a year ago, Karon Klipple, a mathematics professor at San Diego City College, took a long, hard look at the campus lawn.

With all the talk about global warming, the benefits of eating local and organic food, not to mention San Diego's drought worries, it seemed the land and resources might be put to better use. So Klipple, who is chair of City College's Environmental Stewardship Committee, founded Seeds at City, a thriving sub-acre farm smack dab on the downtown campus.

"Industrial agriculture isn't going to support us indefinitely because it's unsustainable," she said while walking in between rows of oak leaf lettuce and Chioggia beets on a cool Tuesday morning. "There's no way we can continue to use more resources to create fewer."

Once championed as the end of famine, industrial agriculture is now taking heat for its monolithic waste production and energy consumption. Others criticize the negative dietary habits it encourages or enforces, citing obesity and diabetes as a social effect of corn subsidies. One has to be a conscious consumer to avoid food with the nearly ubiquitous ingredient high fructose corn syrup. The sugary liquid substance makes an appearance not just in obvious junk food, but in products with a healthy image such as yogurt, tomato sauce and whole grain bread.

It seems the age of superabundance has a lesson for our appetites: More is not necessarily more satisfying. Especially when paid for by the health of both the eater and the environment.

Klipple is just one of the many local individuals and groups that are experimenting with producing their own fruits, vegetables, eggs, poultry and fish within city limits or in their backyard. This breed of urban farmers enjoys not only an increased amount of control on the quality of food they eat, but also over the environmental effects of the production of that food.

The idea is that farming doesn't require a field. And in some cases, not even dirt.

"My goal is to teach people they can grow food in really alternative spots," Paul Maschka said.

Maschka and Julia Dashe are the two urban farmers directing shovels at Seeds at City. Maschka spent 17 years as lead organic horticulturist at the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, where he helped them turn their practices organic. Now at Seeds at City, he's got his eye on a second site next to an entrance of the 163.

As a member of San Diego Food Not Lawns, a grassroots organization that promotes change regarding food and land issues, he knows just how many locals are reconsidering their yard use.

"We're bombarded with calls by people interested in edible landscaping," he said. "There is an interest- oh my gosh -like crazy."

Still, while it's one thing to splurge on a dozen seed packages during a weekend bout of enthusiasm, it's quite another to see the fruits through harvest. Recent imagination has run wild with the possibilities. There are flourishing rice paddies in Tokyo's underground bank vaults. Worldwide, architectural firms are dreaming up "farmscrapers," sky-rise buildings meant to grow a city's food in its very center. But is it really the future of eating? Could San Diego really be an edible town?

See the rest of this article here.

Seed at City urban farm website here.

 

 

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Growing Vine Street

 

 

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Growing Vine Street

via Sustainable Cities Collective by Lisa Town on 2/24/10

Growing Vine Street is an inspirational concept developed back in the '90's by a group of Belltown neighborhood residents in downtown Seattle that revolves around expanding the Belltown P-Patch an...

 

 

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Emailing tweet from: new_urbanism (New Urbanism)

new_urbanism: Ah we love green roofs (proof: http://cot.ag/9q0ikE)
Rooftop Gardens provide food & decreased energy cost http://ow.ly/
16EeVv /via @GOODfeed
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Emailing tweet from: jasminmoore (Jasmin Moore)

jasminmoore: What's a "food desert"? And what can be done about them?
The First Lady explains in a quick video http://bit.ly/a2kzvW
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Geothermal Gardens and the Hot Zones of the City

 

 

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Geothermal Gardens and the Hot Zones of the City

via BLDGBLOG by Geoff Manaugh on 2/23/10

[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].

In a fantastic issue of AD, edited by Sean Lally and themed around the idea of "Energies," a long list of projects appeared that are of direct relevance to the Glacier/Island/Storm studio thread developing this week. I want to mention just two of those projects here.

[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].

For their "Reykjavik Botanical Garden," Rice University architecture students Andrew Corrigan and John Carr proposed tapping that city's geothermal energy to create "microclimates for varied plant growth."

"Heat is taken directly from the ground," they write, "and piped up across the landscape into a system of [pipes and] towers."

Zones of heat radiate out from the pipes, creating a new climate layer with variable conditions based on their number and proximity to each other. These exterior plantings are mostly native to Iceland, but the amplified environment allows a wider range of growth than would normally be possible, informing the role and opportunity of this particular botanical garden. Visitors experience growth never before possible in Iceland, and travel through new climates throughout the site.

Amidst "hydroponic growing trays and research laboratories," and sprouting in the climatic shadow of complicated "air-intake systems," a new landscape grows, absorbing its heat from below.

[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].

The climate of the city is altered, in other words, literally from the ground up; using the functional equivalent of terrestrially powered ovens, otherwise botanically impossible species can healthily take root.

This domestication of geothermal energy, and the use of it for purposes other than electricity-generation, raises the fascinating possibility that heat itself, if carefully and specifically redirected, can utterly transform urban space.

[Image: Produced for the "Vatnsmyri Urban Planning Competition" by Sean Lally, Andrew Corrigan, and Paul Kweton of WEATHERS].

A variant on this forms the basic idea behind Sean Lally's own project, produced with Andrew Corrigan and Paul Kweton, for the Vatnsmyri Urban Planning Competition (a competition previously discussed on BLDGBLOG here).

Their design also proposes using geothermal heat in Reykjavik "to affect the local climatic conditions on land, including air temperature and soil temperature for vegetative growth." But their goal is to generate a "climatic 'wash'"—that is, an amorphous zone of heat that lies just slightly outside of direct regulation. This slow leaking of heat into the city could then effect a linked series of hot zones—or variable microclimates, as the architects write—that would punctuate the city with thermal oases.

Like a winterized inversion of the air-conditioned cold fronts we feel rolling out from the open doors of buildings all summer long, this would be pure heat—and its attendant humidity—roiling upward from the Earth itself. The result would be to generate a new architecture not of walls and buildings but of temperature thresholds and bodily sensation.

Indeed, as David Gissen suggests in his excellent book Subnature, this project could very well imply "a new form of urban planning," one in which sculpted zones of thermal energy take precedence over architecturally designated public spaces.

Of course, whether this simply means that under-designed urban dead zones—like the otherwise sorely needed pedestrian parks now scattered up and down Broadway—will be left as is, provided they are heated from below by a subway grate, remains, for the time being, undetermined.

This is all just part of a much larger question: how we "renegotiate the relationship between architecture and weather," as Jürgen Mayer H. and Neeraj Bhatia, editors of the recent book -arium: Weather + Architecture, describe it. The Glacier/Island/Storm studio will continue to explore these and other abstract questions of climate and architectural design throughout the spring.

 

 

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Urban Plots – Chicago

 

 

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Urban Plots – Chicago

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/23/10

Farm interns share stories of dirt, bugs, and trips to Starbucks.

By Carrie Golus
Photography by Dan Dry
The Core, College Magazine of the University of Chicago
Winter 2010

To her family in North Carolina, "a farm in a city doesn't make any sense," says third-year Emily Howe. "Even my friends here don't understand. They think I work indoors or on a rooftop."

"I've worked on a big pumpkin farm before," says fourth-year Elspeth McGarvey, who grew up in Arcola, Illinois, population 2,700. "The weirdest part for me isn't the dirt, or the grossness. It's being right next to Western Avenue."

As interns for geology professor Pamela Martin's Feeding the City project, Howe, McGarvey, and ten other undergraduates spent the summer collecting data on the sustainability of small farms. Howe commuted to her job at City Farm, 1204 North Clybourn Avenue, on the 55 bus and the Red Line (sometimes stopping to get coffee at Starbucks along the way). Howe worked at several different sites, including West Side Technical Institute, 2800 South Western Avenue, where raised beds and paved walks gave the farm the appearance of a formal garden.

Is urban farming sustainable? Maybe. This summer was just a pilot study. Is it dirty, sticky, exhausting, unglamorous, and fun? Definitely.

See the story here.

 

 

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Just One SIP!

 

 

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Just One SIP!

via Inside Urban Green by Greenscaper on 2/23/10

Meet Max and Grant Buster. They are teenage brothers in Colorado who started Global Buckets. They don't have degrees in agriculture or horticulture but they have something just as good and that is open minds, knowledge and enthusiasm from their own personal experience.

We could use ten thousand more just like them to help Michelle Obama fight obesity, and eliminate so-called food deserts in the city. They are "movers" and I hope they continue in the field of urban agriculture. The country needs them.

They quote Mother Teresa at the end of the video. If you can't feed a hundred people, just feed one. The quote is a perfect way to say what I have struggled to communicate.

Sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) are unitized and personal. Anyone with sun availability can grow at least some food, even if it's in only one SIP to start.

What if everyone in every city in America had access to just one SIP? Think of the fresh produce we would have. It would cost very little in money. What is needed is education, which at this time is scarcer than money because our institutions are mute.

I suggest starting with yourself as the "one", even if it's just one SIP. This way you will learn about SIPs, how productive and easy they are to use. Then teach your child, grandchild, niece, nephew or neighbors kid. You get the idea.  

We need to find a way to recruit, motivate and lead more young people like Max and Buster. Tweet them my friends. They deserve both trumpets and tweets.

 

 

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Out of the Scientist’s Garden

 

 

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Out of the Scientist’s Garden

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/22/10

Out of the Scientist's Garden – A Story of Water and Food

By Richard Stirzaker
CSIRO Publishing
January 2010

Out of the Scientist's Garden is written for anyone who wants to understand food and water a little better – for those growing vegetables in a garden, food in a subsistence plot or crops on vast irrigated plains. It is also for anyone who has never grown anything before but has wondered how we will feed a growing population in a world of shrinking resources.

Although a practising scientist in the field of water and agriculture, the author has written, in story form accessible to a wide audience, about the drama of how the world feeds itself. The book starts in his own fruit and vegetable garden, exploring the 'how and why' questions about the way things grow, before moving on to stories about soil, rivers, aquifers and irrigation. The book closes with a brief history of agriculture, how the world feeds itself today and how to think through some of the big conundrums of modern food production.

Watering the world from a Canberra backyard

Richard's garden takes up about every inch of soil on his block, and none of it is wasted either in producing crops or for providing data for his experiments. See the excellent audio slide show on this garden here.

By Jim Trail
666ABC Canberra
10 February, 2010

Excerpt:

Richard Stirzaker is a man obsessed with water, and turning it into food.

He's been involved with it ever since growing up in South Africa, surrounded by vegetables – a habit he's carried around the southern hemisphere and that has flourished on his quarter-acre block in Canberra's northern suburbs.

There are very few centimetres of soil on his O'Connor block that aren't working hard to turn water into food, be they grapes, peaches, pumpkins, or even eggs as processed by the resident chickens. But where Richard's garden differs to most back yard vege patches is in the cabling.

Richard's garden is fully wired, moisture detectors here, a solar panel above, more equipment over there – and he can check the lot from the internet.

Richard is a CSIRO scientist, who has taken the old adage, "Do something you love, and you'll never work a day in your life", to new levels. One of the very handy tools he's developed to assist gardening is the Full Stop Wetting Front Detector.

Developed at the CSIRO, it's a device that indicates when water has reached the bottom of the root zone and is hence enough water to provide adequate irrigation for growing without waste.

The garden around Richard's house would put many a commercial market garden to shame, the produce is fresh, full and beautiful so it's no surprise to find that, in a former life, Richard's spent time working on market gardens where, in terms of sales, the visual value of a crop is at least as important as the nutritional value.

See the rest of the article here.

See the web site for Out of the Scientist's Garden here.

 

 

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Sustainable Urban Farming Through Aquaponics

 

 

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Sustainable Urban Farming Through Aquaponics

via Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network by Nate Berg on 2/22/10

Aquaponics offer urbanites a new way to farm sustainably in space- and resource-poor areas.

read more

 

 

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Urban farming on the rise in Bloomington, Indiana

 

 

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Urban farming on the rise in Bloomington, Indiana

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/22/10

Photos by Jami Scholl

Urban farming on the rise

By Carrol Krause
Herald-Times Homes
February 13, 2010

Excerpt:

Jami Scholl is a local garden designer who uses permaculture principles to create beautiful, edible landscapes that taste as good as they look. Jami is now taking her passion for "foodscaping" one step further; she has begun working with city government council members and planners in order to clarify the elements of urban agriculture that will be acceptable throughout Bloomington.

But what is urban agriculture?

According to Jami, it refers to growing one's own food within city limits. This includes vegetable gardens but can also include urban chickens, bee-keeping, small animals such as rabbits or goats, and aquaculture (rearing fish for protein). Urban agriculture is practiced in many of the world's largest cities (Mumbai, Beijing, Bangkok, and Cairo, for starters) where it produces a significant amount of the local food supply. Havana, Cuba, is famous for producing up to 90% of its own food within the city limits, and a large chunk of nineteenth-century Paris was made up of gardens enriched by the manure of city horses. Impressively, intensive small-scale farming can be significantly more productive than conventional factory-farming and is perfect for city lots.

"The old city ordinances did not adequately spell out what people could and could not do," Jami pointed out. "My personal goal is to create opportunities for responsible agriculture to flourish in an urban environment." (This of course is no different from what millions of Americans did with their Victory Gardens during both of the World Wars.)

"But wait," a number of readers will object at this point, "I don't want my shiftless neighbors to import a bunch of smelly goats and chickens!"

"Education is a key component to all of these concerns," Jami answered. "None of us want smells, or flies. Unsanitary smells are indicators of bad design or lack of attention to the system: the compost not composting properly, the chicken coop not being cleaned regularly." Jami proposes that before acquiring animals or poultry, it would be a good option to take a workshop and connect with a mentor who could answer ongoing questions that might arise later.

Bear in mind that the vast majority of would-be urban agriculturalists will find it far simpler to raise vegetables than keep poultry or goats. Those few who do want to build rabbit hutches or chicken coops are in general extremely motivated in their desire to succeed, and will receive the education to do these things correctly.

Factors that have led to increased interest in urban agriculture in America include the economic downturn, increased alarm about the lack of wholesomeness of industrial foods, and concerns about the carbon footprint (the average supermarket item travels between 1200 – 2000 miles before reaching the shelf). The City of Bloomington's Peak Oil Task Force Report recommends urban agriculture as a way to ensure food for residents while minimizing the use of petroleum products.

"Though considerable potential for urban food production exists, at present this potential is barely realized in Bloomington," the report noted. "….One critical way to mitigate the effects of ever-increasing food costs is to grow more food locally. In addition to farmland available in the rural areas surrounding the city, there are many spaces to grow food within the city itself. Some of these spaces are held by local government, some by IU, and some by private entities. Much productive land is available right in our own backyards. Maximizing the amount of food we produce just within the city has the distinct advantage of reducing the amount of energy it takes to get the food to the people and the people to the food."

John Jeavons, author of How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, claims that sufficient food can be grown on 4000 square feet to support one adult for one year without compromising nutritional requirements. Using his formula, the city task report concluded, "…arable land available within the City of Bloomington alone (as much as 8,000 acres, or upwards of 5,000 square feet per resident) is potentially sufficient to meet most of the vegetable, fruit, egg, and some poultry requirements of city residents were it to be cultivated to the maximum extent possible using the most productive and intensive garden?scale methods."

Jami hopes to make urban agriculture not only doable but beautiful as well. She has traveled abroad to document what other cities are doing to make urban agriculture aesthetically pleasing, and has used her camera to record neat French composting bins designed with modernist elegance, and brightly colored beanpoles planted near Chicago's Loop.

See the rest of the article here.

See Jami's website, My Edible Eden, here.

 

 

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Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

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Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

TED Talk

February 2010

Transcript:

Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat.

My name's Jamie Oliver. I'm 34 years old. I'm from Essex in England and for the last seven years I've worked fairly tirelessly to save lives in my own way. I'm not a doctor. I'm a chef; I don't have expensive equipment or medicine. I use information, education.

I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life. We have an awful, awful reality right now. America, you're at the top of your game. This is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world.

Can I please just see a raise of hands for how many of you have children in this room today? Please put your hands up. Aunties, uncles, you can continue … Put your hands up. Aunties and uncles as well. Most of you. OK. We, the adults of the last four generations, have blessed our children with the destiny of a shorter lifespan than their own parents. Your child will live a life ten years younger than you because of the landscape of food that we've built around them. Two thirds of this room, today, in America, are statistically overweight or obese. You lot, you're all right, but we'll get you eventually, don't worry.

(Laughter)

Right? The statistics of bad health are clear, very clear. We spend our lives being paranoid about death, murder, homicide, you name it. It's on the front page of every paper, CNN. Look at homicide at the bottom, for God's sake. Right?

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Every single one of those in the red is a diet-related disease. Any doctor, any specialist will tell you that. Fact. Diet-related disease is the biggest killer in the United States, right now, here today. This is a global problem. It's a catastrophe. It's sweeping the world. England is right behind you, as usual.

(Laughter)

I know they were close, but not that close. We need a revolution. Mexico, Australia, Germany, India, China, all have massive problems of obesity and bad health. Think about smoking. It costs way less than obesity now. Obesity costs you Americans 10 percent of your health care bills. 150 billion dollars a year. In 10 years, it's set to double. 300 billion dollars a year. And let's be honest, guys, you ain't got that cash.

(Laughter)

I came here to start a food revolution that I so profoundly believe in. We need it. The time is now. We're in a tipping-point moment. I've been doing this for seven years. I've been trying in America for seven years. Now is the time when it's ripe — ripe for the picking. I went to the eye of the storm. I went to West Virginia, the most unh...

Lush Lots: Everyday Urban Agriculture

 

 

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Lush Lots: Everyday Urban Agriculture

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/19/10

Strawberry Mansion Community Garden, North Philadelphia, 2008. All photos courtesy of The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society

From Community Gardening To Community Food Security

by Michael Nairn and Domenic Vitiello
Harvard Design Magazine 31,
Fall/Winter 2009/10

Excerpt:

Tomatoes always seem to taste better when you are acquainted with the person who grew them, especially when that person is you. Many Americans have never tasted a "real" tomato, vine ripened no more than a day or two before being eaten. Corn tastes best when you get the water boiling minutes before you pick it. The joys of fresh produce, along with those of saving money and building community, help explain the recent growth of farmers' markets and of the fascination with urban agriculture.

Growing food in cities promises the delight of being acquainted with what we eat and its origins more intimately, and of feeling less guilty for our (usually) smaller ecological footprint, since it is typically organic and cuts down on waste. It is something many city dwellers already experience through community gardens and new entrepreneurial urban farms. As cities face the environmental, economic, and social challenges of the 21st century, including hunger, diabetes, and dependence
on global industrial food systems based on fossil fuels, local food production will be more and more important for building food security. How do we achieve this? What do the hundreds of community gardens and farms we recently studied in Philadelphia tell us about the sustainability of urban agriculture and urban life?

In Philadelphia, neighbors breathe in scents of the butterfly bushes and basil of community gardens where once were trash-strewn lots; they pride themselves on reviving and beautifying their blocks. At the farmers' market at City Hall, adults delight in buying spinach and squash from teenagers who farm a former corner of their high-school soccer field and who actually eat sorrel. At a pig roast, children dancing to bomba drums and eating pigeon peas with rice make grandmothers feel gratified that their garden is preserving their Puerto Rican culture. On the urban farm, apprentices watch honeybees returning to the city to pollinate our food and future.

See the rest of the magazine article here.

 

 

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Emailing tweet from: urbanbydesign (Deena Parham)

urbanbydesign: Mrs. Obama delights shoppers while visiting the North
Philadelphia Fresh Grocer, as part of "Let's Move" campaign.
http://bit.ly/dqzUOG
Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/urbanbydesign/status/9346120162

Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

A German Vertical Garden System

 

 

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A German Vertical Garden System

via Sustainable Cities Collective by Gavin Walsh on 2/18/10

Green wall planter Here's a vertical garden design from Germany. You can see that there are five planters in each module. Their website indicates you can keep the planters straight or angle them ...

 

 

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Aquaponics: A Viable Urban Food Production Option

 

 

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Aquaponics: A Viable Urban Food Production Option

via Inside Urban Green by Greenscaper on 2/19/10

Finally, the NY Times gave some space to a writer living in the current digital age instead of a prior century. The usual tiptoe through the tulips articles from their garden writers serve a very limited social purpose. This article by Michael Tortorello of Minneapolis is well worth reading. He is evidently a new contributor to the Times.

Watch the video by Rob Torcellini (quoted in the article) as an introduction.

Rob makes a very professional presentation of his aquaculture system (fish and food). While probably not practical for most apartment dwelling urbanites this type of system has a place in the city. It definitely belongs in the mix of modern local food production systems like sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) and hydroponics.

via www.nytimes.com

Mr. Torcellini's greenhouse wouldn't look out of place on a wayward space station where pioneers have gone to escape the cannibal gangs back on Earth. But then, in a literal sense, Mr. Torcellini, a 41-year-old I.T. director for an industrial manufacturer, has left earth — that is, dirt — behind.

What feeds his winter crop of lettuce is recirculating water from the 150-gallon fish tank and the waste generated by his 20 jumbo goldfish. Wastewater is what fertilizes the 27 strawberry plants from last summer, too. They occupy little cubbies in a seven-foot-tall PVC pipe. When the temperature begins to climb in the spring, he will plant the rest of the gravel containers with beans, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers — all the things many other gardeners grow outside.

In here, though, the yields are otherworldly. "We actually kept a tally of how many cherry tomatoes we grew," Mr. Torcellini said of last summer's crop. "And from one plant, it was 347." A trio of cucumber plants threw off 175 cukes.

 

 

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Urban Agriculture in San Diego

 

 

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Urban Agriculture in San Diego

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/17/10

From Muslimness
Feb 17, 2010

Excerpts:

Earlier this year I interviewed sister Asiila Rasool an Eco-Muslim from SE San Diego, about the community garden she and her locals successfully grew from scratch. Check out why Asiila was inspired to grow organic, how she roped her community in, and why home-grown produce is worth all that effort.

Whose idea was it to start a community garden?

Our community garden idea began as a jam'ah (congregational) effort of mostly mine and my two nieces during a homeschool project meeting.

With so many organic markets available and grocery stores providing fresh produce why did you want to grow your own?

We live in SE San Diego; with the lack of major grocery stores the people have limited options in buying from from small food marts. Ergo, the push to bring Farmer Markets and start community gardens throughout this area. We began the garden mostly because we read the writing on the wall: "inflation, shoddy produce, recession, less produce". With all the benefits of locally grown food we thought what could be more environmentally friendly than our own garden?

How many of you are involved in the community garden project?

The crew includes Musa, Jamila, Muhammad, Basheer, Najla, Karemah, also Faheem and moi. We home school our children so what better way for them to get closer to the earth and become more self-sufficient?

Finally sister Asiila, what do you think the future holds for like minded eco-aware Muslims?

The future? It's coming, and we best get prepared for it. A key issue for us will be finding enough water in this area (and in the rest of the world so I hear). Catching rain is an option, as well as using new techniques like double digging and square foot gardening, which we did with this garden. I believe Muslims will reclaim their knowledge and love of agricultural work;working with the land and with their hands. In fact, all the immigrants I know keep at least a herb garden on the tiniest strip of land, if that's all they have. They also grow vegetables.

We muslims still have a way to go on learning to give up the plastics and bottled water/sodas and watching what we eat vis a vis our snacks and drinks, but I believe the future will pretty much force Muslims to get back to the old ways. Working in the earth, growing your own food, dealing with Allah's handiwork hands on is so incredibly grounding and spiritual. I believe Muslims will very much become part of the 'green revolution' if we're not already.

Read the rest of the article and see more photos here.

 

 

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Urban Agriculture projects at Global Giving

 

 

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Urban Agriculture projects at Global Giving

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/18/10

GlobalGiving is an online marketplace that connects you to the causes and countries you care about. You select the projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates – so you can see your impact.

Organic Urban Agriculture in Quito, Ecuador

If we can plant orchards, build greenhouses and wormeries, buy seedlings, and train people though workshops, we can enable people to provide for and feed themselves and their children.

26% of Ecuador's children under 5 suffer from malnourishment. Since 2000, the cost of food in Ecuador increased dramatically. It's cheaper to buy a Peruvian potato than to produce it.

The result: Thousands of peasants leaving their lands to find jobs in cities.This project activates the local government, private sector, and communities horizontally. Based on the microfinance principle of solidarity groups, communitarian organic orchards activate a "clan" organization inherent to their culture.

See the project details here.

Capacity Building: Urban Farming And Gardening – South Africa

Activities include urban agriculture and horticulture training, resource distribution, implementation of gardens, follow-up training and support. The schools program includes teacher training, on-ground implementation and materials development.

The project targets individuals (mostly unemployed women) living in South Africa's poverty-stricken Cape Flats townships. The project also works with teachers at township schools. People living in the densely populated Cape Flats experience high unemployment (50-90%), hunger, environmental degradation, lack of education and skills, a high HIV/AIDS infection rate and limited resources. Teachers in impoverished schools lack relevant teaching resources, and desperately require further training.

See the project details here.

Help Families Grow Food In Urban Farms, Mexico

They work in 5 large settlements in the southern area of Mexico City where poverty is predominant. People are earning less than the minimum wage. Poverty has increased as a result of NAFTA free trade. Since last year the price of food and fuel has been increased daily and people are finding it hard to have affordable and reliable sources of food. This project will provide fresh food to approximately 644 people.

El Molino will work with 5 groups on organic farms in shared spaces, rooftops, balconies and gardens. They will build plant-beds, irrigation systems and compost units to grow food.

See the project details here.

Provide Agriculture Training For Bolivian Children

The project will build an animal farm at the Santiago community high school in Arampampa, Bolivia. Agricultural certification will improve nutrition, food security, job skills and local development.

The project will empower students and community members to manage small animal farming, produce meat, eggs and milk, and transform products like milk into cheese. The products are needed to improve malnourishment in the school children (about 50% are severely malnourished). The technical training will improve local economic development in an area where agriculture is the primary economic output by enhancing output and employability while ensuring increased food security at the family level.

See the project details here.

 

 

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‘Grow your own’ fever has gripped the Pennines community, which is aiming for self-sufficiency – Britain

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'Grow your own' fever has gripped the Pennines community, which is aiming for self-sufficiency – Britain

Incredible Edible Todmorden: Introducing Britain's greenest town

By Joanna Moorhead

The Independent

29 November 2009

It's an ordinary small town in England, but its residents claim they've discovered the secret that could save the planet. And with world leaders preparing to gather in Copenhagen in just over a week's time to debate how to do just that, the people of Todmorden in the Pennines this week issued an invitation: come to our town and see what we've done.

In under two years, Todmorden has transformed the way it produces its food and the way residents think about the environment. Compared with 18 months ago, a third more townspeople now grow their own veg; almost seven in 10 now buy local produce regularly, and 15 times as many people are keeping chickens.

The town centre is dotted with "help yourself" vegetable gardens; the market groans with local meat and vegetables, and at all eight of the town's schools the pupils eat locally produced meat and vegetables every lunchtime.

"It's a complete turnaround," said Pam Warhurst, a former leader of Calderdale Council, board member of Natural England and the person who masterminded the project – called Incredible Edible – and motivated her friends and neighbours to join in. "Our aim is to make our town entirely self-sufficient in food production by 2018 – and if we can carry on at the same rate as we've done over the past 18 months since we had our first meeting and set this initiative up, we're going to make it."

And the scheme's leaders are now hoping to export their idea: two weeks ago the town held a conference on how to make Incredible Edible-style initiatives work elsewhere, and more than 200 people from across Britain attended.

They heard the story of Todmorden's transformation, starting with what Ms Warhurst calls the "propaganda planting" of vegetables around the town centre 18 months ago. Nick Green, who runs a converted mill that provides workspace for local artists, took on the job of doing the planting. He said he chose the first venue – a disused health centre – because it was in the middle of the town and would attract plenty of attention. "We wanted everyone to see what we were doing, so they could ask questions and ultimately join in," he said. "The old health centre has plenty of land in front, so it was ideal. I didn't ask anyone's permission: I just went there with my spade and my seeds and I planted cabbages and rhubarb."

Incredible Edible was originally funded out of the participants' own pockets. "We were very clear that we didn't want to look at what grants were available and mould our project...

Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to food security, employment and income in Malawi

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Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to food security, employment and income in Malawi

By David D. Mkwambisi , Evan D. G. Fraser , Andy J. Dougill

Journal of International Development

Published Online: 17 Feb 2010

Abstract

Support of urban agriculture can be used as a route to reducing urban poverty across Sub-Saharan Africa. However policy makers require more precise information on how it contributes to alleviating food insecurity and poverty problems. This study in Malawi's two main cities (Lilongwe and Blantyre) revealed two predominant types of urban farmers: (i) low-income, less educated, often female-headed households, who use urban agriculture as an insurance against income losses and who can employ skilled workers to support their livestock activities; and (ii) middle- and high-income, often male-headed households, that undertake urban agriculture for personal consumption and hire significant numbers of unskilled workers.

Within the low-income group, there are some female headed-households who are now receiving significant income from livestock programmes having been provided with initial external support from a non-governmental organisation. Our findings suggest a need for a two-pronged policy approach to try and improve the overall effectiveness of urban agriculture support, namely to (1) target poor women with extension and development project support; and (2) support wealthier farmers to increase the employment opportunities associated with urban agriculture.

See Journal website. Must pay for Journal article.

See a free article by the authors here. "Urban agriculture and poverty reduction: Evaluating how food production in cities contributes to livelihood entitlements in Malawi"

SIP: An Indoor Coffee Tree Plantation

 

 

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SIP: An Indoor Coffee Tree Plantation

via Inside Urban Green by Greenscaper on 2/17/10

A nursery flat and juice bottle form the soil platform and soil wicks. A water bottle creates the fill tube (lower right).

The Coffee trees are planted and the capillary action in this easy to make sub-irrigated planter (SIP) is obviously working (note darker soil pattern). The internal wicking, soil platform and fill tube are all made from repurposed plastics. This is the same design as shown here and here.

The only question now is whether there is enough light from the window and overhead fluorescent shop light to produce flowers and fruit. 

It will be easy to monitor the soil moisture and root system development through the translucent walls of the planter box. I will also use a soil probe to directly test soil moisture. It's as simple as that.

This same planter can be used to grow vegetables. All it needs for outdoor use is an overflow drain hole at the level of the soil platform formed by the nursery flat and juice bottle. Use the same method to sub-irrigate a sheet plastic lined raised bed.

This is the simplest method of making a SIP that I know of on the web. All you need is a hot tool to poke holes in the juice bottle and nursery flat and a hot knife to cut a slot in the bottom side of the bottle(s) to allow free flow of water.

There is no need for power tools, PVC tubing and complicated fabrication. This design will work for any watertight container. It is a truly universal method for creating highly productive and water conserving SIPs. You can grow fresh food on any paved surface, balcony or rooftop in the heart of the city. All you need is enough sunlight. There is no need for finding scarce tillable land that may well be contaminated in urban locations.

 

 

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Toledo, Ohio – Enriching communities through gardens

 

 

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Toledo, Ohio – Enriching communities through gardens

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/16/10

Tiffany Tarpley
FOX Toledo News weekend anchor
Updated: Tuesday, 16 Feb 2010

TOLEDO, Ohio (WUPW) — Urban agriculture is growing across the area.

In fact when Toledo Grows began 12 years ago there were about a handful of the small community gardens. Now there are more than 80 and the goal is to create at least 100 by next year.

The urban gardens are a way to turn empty fields into beautiful additions to neighborhoods.

"It's often times done in unusual places," said Toledo Grows Manager Michael Szuberla. "Its not a big farm field its just two vacant lots in the city and what you could do with some inspiration and the right resources is pretty amazing."

The program is part of the Toledo Botanical Garden. People are given the resources and education to plant all sorts of herbs, produce and flowers.

Not only does it provide access to healthy foods for people who might not otherwise be able to obtain them, it's also a great way to save.

"Given the state of the economy people are looking to save money any way they can," said Szuberla. "If you can go out and do a positive activity with your grandchildren and children and at the same time reduce your budget it's a double victory for everyone."

See the article here.

See Toledo Grows website here.

 

 

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Farm bus brings healthy food to US

 

 

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Farm bus brings healthy food to US

via City Farmer News by Michael Levenston on 2/16/10

Access to fresh produce such as that sold on this mobile farmers' market is limited in some urban areas. See the video here.

The healthy approach to meals on wheels

By Philippa Thomas
9 February 2010
BBC News, Richmond, Virginia

America's First Lady, Michelle Obama, has launched a campaign to improve the way families eat, encouraging Americans to face the fact that one in three children is overweight or obese.

As part of her initiative, she stressed the need to make healthy food more accessible. I met one couple who are trying to do just that, by running a mobile farmers' market in Virginia.

It is a sight that makes people stop and stare.

As Mark Lilly's big white bus heads along rundown city streets, the slogans painted on its side are as colourful as its owner: "Feeding the community one stop at a time. Support local farmers. Get local produce. Get on the bus, Gus!"

Virginia businessman Mark Lilly bought his 23-year-old bus on the internet. The day I joined him for the ride, he and his wife Suzi began at home, packing the aisles with organic produce they had sourced from local farms.
Baskets of colourful apples and squashes sat next to fistfuls of greens: kale, spinach, cabbage. And there was home-made apple pie.
The specialised farmers' market is becoming a colourful staple of American city life.

Mrs Obama presided over the opening of Washington's latest market in September, just a stone's throw from the White House.

What makes this venture different is Mr Lilly's determination to focus on "food deserts", those blighted urban neighbourhoods where fast food is the rule, and fresh produce very much the exception.

Urban blight

Much of the city of Richmond, Virginia, is historic and impressive. But as we drive into the district of Church Hills, the couple talk about the damage done by crack use.

We pass liquor stores and check-cashing outlets and row after row of boarded up windows.

We stop in the empty parking lot of an abandoned supermarket, over the road from a huddle of drunks, and wait for customers to come.

Mark Lilly is a man on a mission.

Cowboy hat jammed firmly on his head, he bursts with enthusiasm as he woos folks off the street: "This is spaghetti squash. You can make it go for a family of six. They're the freshest eggs, got them this morning. Here, take these packets of seeds, get the kids to start a garden."

See the rest of the article here.

See the video here.

 

 

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