The Rise of Urban Farming and Other Varieties of Sustainable Ag | Buildings
My newest buzzword for 2011 is CSA. I'd never heard the term until recently, but now it seems to be popping up all over, as is interest in sustainable agriculture and urban farming. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture -- the practice of signing up with a local farm for weekly produce and, in some cases, meat and dairy. Kimball's book is an engrossing depiction of the back-breaking work and edible rewards of CSA. Urban farming is also on the rise. Urban farming comes in a variety of models. A vision of urban and vertical farming. Next Page: More visions of urban farms.
Locavore-dom taken to the extreme—by bike
Photo: MetrofietsI stepped out onto my front porch one day this summer just in time to see my farmer pedaling down the street with a trailer full of tools. To an outsider, such a vision must seem like a sketch right out of Portlandia, the television show that spoofs my hometown’s supposedly eccentric ways. Here in real-world Portland, however, it’s a normal sight. The farm from which I get most of my vegetables, aptly named Sidewalk’s End, is one of several local examples of something called “dispersed urban agriculture.” Rather than farming all in one place, the two young farmers who run Sidewalk’s End, Holly Mills and Caitlin Arnold, cultivate five urban backyards around southeast Portland. I subscribed to their CSA (community-supported agriculture) program this summer because the pickup point is an easy one-mile bike ride from my house. It would be easy to take farming by bike as a sign that dear old Portland has jumped the (locavore) shark. Biking is no exception.
Urban Gardening: Indoor and Balcony Gardening Tips
Posted on Nov 19, 2010 in DIY Projects , Emergency Preparedness & Survival , Urban Gardening, Farming & Homesteading It’s quite feasible to grow your own food even if you live in an urban space and have no outdoor room to garden. If you have just a bit of space on a balcony, patio or rooftop, you can grow even more. Gardening inside presents unique challenges. Supplies: where to find, how to have them shipped Space: small apartments aren’t conducive to traditional fruit-tree growing techniques Light: light levels are drastically reduced on the inside Crops: which will produce in shadier conditions Pollination: certain fruit crops require pollination (generally done by insects) in order to produce There are ways to get around all of these issues. The Internet has made getting supplies much easier. There are lots of things you can grow that are healthy, nutritious, and require relatively little space. Sprouting is one way to grow a lot of food in a little bit of space. Lettuce Peas Bush beans Kale
The World’s First Vertical Forest: An
I’d like to introduce you to the world’s first Bosco Verticale (Italian for Vertical Forest), which is being built right now in Milan. According to Christopher Woodward, a writer for the Financial Times, it’s “the most exciting new tower in the world.” This vertical forest will span across two towers that have fabulous balconies designed to house these trees. This forest, designed by architect Stefano Boeri, will allow the greenery to get shade in the summer, sunlight in the winder and protection from the wind while it cleans the air, produces oxygen and cuts down on all the noise pollution in Milan. Via: [Amusing Planet] [Treehugger]
10 Most Useful Medicinal Plants For Your Garden
Would you like to create your very own backyard pharmacy by growing medicinal plants? There’s no better way to use whatever extra space you have at home than to create a garden space where you can grow medicinal plants. In fact, even if you live in an apartment setting, you can create a windowsill garden where you can grow medicinal plants. This is especially useful if you have little kids running around in the house who can acquire a burn, a shallow wound, a sore or strike up a fever. Basically, the medicinal plants to grow in your very own little garden space should be ones with the most number of medicinal values. Factors that You Need to Consider when Growing Medicinal Plants in a Garden Before giving out the top 10 medicinal plants that you can grow in your very own garden, here are a few tips to get you started. First, check on the area where you plan to grow the medicinal plants in. 1. If there’s one medicinal plant which has 101 uses, that is none other than aloe vera. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
How to Turn a Pallet into a Garden
Good news and bad news. I had planned to film a short video showing you how to make a pallet garden, but the weather didn’t cooperate. I was stapling the landscape fabric onto the pallet when it started drizzling and got really windy. That’s the bad news. But I know I promised a tutorial today, so I took photos and have kept my word to share how to make the pallet garden. I tried to be as detailed as possible. So keep reading my pallet loving friends, instructions on how to make your own pallet garden are just a few lines away… Find a Pallet The first thing you need to do is–obviously–find a pallet. Don’t just take the first pallet you find. Collect Your Supplies For this project, you’ll need the pallet you found, 2 large bags of potting soil, 16 six packs of annual flowers (one six pack per opening on the face of the pallet, and two six packs per opening on the top of the completed pallet garden), a small roll of landscape fabric, a staple gun, staples, and sand paper. Now for the sides.
Window Farms Lets Green Thumbs Grow Fresh Veggies Indoors Window Farms – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
It all started when Britta Riley decided to build a mini-garden in a Brooklyn window, creating a low-maintenance and self-sufficient alternative to consuming. We’ve been fans of Window Farm‘s edible gardens for long while, and just in time for the holiday season the team has evolved their fantastic gardening systems to create a brand new stand-up version of their original microfarms. These mini-gardens can hang in columns or stand on the sill, allowing you to grow fresh vegetables, herbs, and leafy treats in practically any space. Britta Riley‘s vertical hydroponic Window Farm systems are a boon for space-starved urban dwellers looking to start their own garden. In their latest form the gardens are made from environmentally-friendly plastic and wire. The Window Farm team is featuring special offers through their Kickstarter page, and they even offer a varied selection of seedlings (at an extra cost) which can be shipped to your door. + Window Farms
Is This the Future of Farming? - Sarah Rich - Technology
ATLANTA -- It's easy to miss the Podponics headquarters on Ponce de Leon Avenue. We breezed right by before company co-founder Dan Backhaus came out to the curb to wave us in. To look at their setup--six rust-colored, graffitied shipping containers tucked between a Cactus Car Wash franchise and a halfway house--you'd never suspect this was one of Atlanta's flourishing young startups. But behind the padlocked doors, an urban farming operation is in full swing. When Backhaus founded Podponics in 2010 with Matt Liotta, the pair had no previous experience with food or farming. Backhaus worked in sales and marketing, Liotta was a software engineer in the telecommunications industry. The six containers, or "pods," represent a trial-and-error process through which Podponics found their way to a cost-effective means of production. As urban farming outfits go, Podponics is exceptionally focused on business viability and growth. Alexis Madrigal Full Screen
