Urban gardening: The real green revolution

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Urban gardening, the gardening in the towns and suburbs, is highly political. Anyone who belittles this movement blocks his own view of this societal change.

If one would want to measure the success of a movement on the number of those that claim that it cannot possible be any good then the Urban Gardening Movement has during the few years that it has been in existence come a long way already.

Unfortunately there are some writers in newspapers and other media who belittle this to the extent that the state that those who long for the countryside and for gardening and farming should move to the countryside because towns and cities have been sealed, poisoned, and so on. They find it laughable that people are planting Marigolds in front of their doors or tomatoes on their balconies.

But many of those writers have actually no idea, it would seem, what this urban gardening and urban farming is all about. It is not about just growing food for oneself but to actually grow food for the people in the city, and in some cases those urban gardens are created in such a way that everyone can have the food for free (or almost for free) and the movement is growing regardless.

Urban gardening does not mean annexing of ground for private use but free access for all to grow food. It is a fact that the almost 500 urban community garden in Germany, for example, are some of the few places in the gentrified towns where people from different social strata meet in the public realm and interact by creating such gardens and working them.

Those urban community gardens are an innovative contribution to the restructuring of the living together in towns and cities where there is an increasing delineation between the different classes (and I do use the word class/classes here deliberately) which produces a great many risks for our living together in those spaces.

While growing produce for use by all, in community gardens “managed” and worked by all, by people from different strata and classes in the city, is one part of it such gardens also and especially aim to overcome the borders that have been created between people of different groups in society, in our increasingly gentrified towns and especially cities.

Through gardening together in reclaimed public spaces collective forms are created that can be seen as part of an ever strengthening commons movement even and especially in our towns and cities. Those forms could be the basis for new political framework to change society and all for the better.

Though not everyone may be realizing the potential that the urban gardening movement has to change the political structure and through it society as a whole. The powers-that-be, however, are well aware of its potential and thus use the media to belittle those that participate in this, whether in the form of community urban gardens or simply by trying to be somewhat more autark by turning their front and back yards and their balconies, etc., into spaces in which to grow at least some of their food.

People who are independent – to some extent – from the markets and people who join in community of whatever kind are perceived as a threat by the powers-that-be and thus every attempt possible is being made to discredit them in they eyes of the majority not as yet involved.

© 2017

3 Things Getting In The Way Of Your Urban Farm—And What You Can Do About It

Growing food in the city isn’t without its challenges, but there are things you can do to start living out your farming dream right where you are.

The homesteading life—a productive yard, some chickens, a canner bubbling on the stove, perhaps a little extra cash coming in from farmers market sales—has never been a more popular dream. As a hedge against the fragility of corporate employment, as a psychological antidote to the intensity of modern life, as a solution to questionable and uncertain food production, there are more and more people wanting to find a way to bring their food production "on site” to their urban or suburban yard.

But obstacles can make it difficult to take the leap—or even to feel like it is possible to get started. Here are some ideas that might help you get started working around those challenges and headed towards a better life.

Read more here.

New York’s JFK airport has an urban farm. Wait, what?

The potatoes in your bag of complimentary airline chips could someday come from a farm at — surprise! — New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Outside JetBlue Airways’ Terminal 5, a few thousand black plastic crates form raised beds for an urban garden. USA Today reports:

Designed to promote New York agriculture and add a bit more green space to the airport, the 24,000-square-foot T5 farm is growing produce, herbs, and the same blue potatoes used to make the Terra Blues potato chips JetBlue offers year-round as complimentary snacks to passengers during flights.

“In today’s world of genetically modified and franken-foods, it is very important to know where your food comes from,” said Brian Holtman, JetBlue’s manager of concession programs, at a farm “reveal” on Thursday. “By creating a farm at T5, we can show crew members and customers exactly where their food is coming from.”

This fledging farm-to-airplane-tray movement has a long way to go. It takes between one and three potatoes to produce each bag of JetBlue chips, according to CBS, and JetBlue hands out 5.8 million bags each year. The potatoes grown in the airport’s garden (smaller than half a football field) would meet less than 1 percent of that demand, CBS points out. That’s not the plan for right now anyway: The farm will provide produce for the terminal’s restaurants.

Read more here.

LA County Gets Rolling on Turning Ugly Vacant Lots Into Useful Urban Farms

LA has been pushing for tax breaks for owners of vacant urban lots who lease out the neglected land to people who want to farm on it, and now the LA County Board of Supervisors (which would have to approve the tax breaks before they could be implemented) is doing their part to make it happen. County Supes voted today to start hammering out the details of the eventual program that would allow for property owners to get at least a five-year property tax break on lots under three acres that are leased to people who want to grow food on them,says the City News Service.

The tax break would only apply for privately-owned lots in certain, to-be-determined areas of the county, and cities that fall within the boundaries would be able to choose whether they want to be part of the program or not, but some members of the LA City Council have already expressed their support for having LA opt in.

Read more here.

Interested in urban agriculture?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

If you are interested in urban agriculture, and in the promotion of it, then check out the report of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance's Nick Rose who recently journeyed to study innovative models in the American Midwest, Toronto and five provinces of Argentina.

'The focus of the study was to explore models of urban agriculture that could generate livelihood opportunities, especially for young people; and/or enhance food security for vulnerable and low-income groups. The study involved visits to over 80 organizations and institutions across the regions visited, and interviews with more than 150 people.'

The entire report can be downloaded at: http://www.nick-rose.com/churchill-fellowship-report/ and those of us who are interested in the subject and/or want to promote it in our own locales can get some valuable information from it.

(C) 2015

Land, Co-ops, Compost: A Local Food Economy Emerges in Boston's Poorest Neighborhoods

From kitchens that buy and sell locally grown food, to a waste co-op that will return compost to the land, new enterprises are building an integrated food network. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land at home.

When Glynn Lloyd couldn’t source enough locally grown produce, he decided to grow his own.

Since 1994, Lloyd has run City Fresh Foods, a catering company based in Roxbury—one of Boston's lowest-income neighborhoods. He wanted his business to use locally produced food, but at that time it was hard to come by. So in 2009 Lloyd helped found City Growers, one of Boston's first for-profit farming ventures.

Today, City Growers is part of an emerging network of urban food enterprises in Roxbury and neighboring Dorchester. From a community land trust that preserves land for growing, to kitchens and retailers who buy and sell locally grown food, to a new waste management co-op that will return compost to the land, a crop of new businesses and nonprofits are building an integrated food economy. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land and labor in the community.

“We don’t need big corporations like Walmart to come in and save us," Lloyd said. "We have homegrown solutions right here.”

Read more: http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/boston-s-emerging-food-economy

How To Turn Your Front Lawn into an Edible Forest Garden | Action in Boise, ID

On Thursday, October 16th the Permaculture Action Tour landed in the front lawn of “the homestead,” a collective house in Boise, Idaho.   Unseen from the street, the backyard hosts an amazing food garden full of kale and delicious red chard, egg-laying chickens, and sheep.

On this day, we brought volunteers to spread the permaculture vision to the entire property surrounding the house, which could be seen from one of Boise’s busiest roadways.

The co-housing community where the Action Day was held is on State Street, a road that sees 40,000 cars pass by a day.  Most drive by without a clue to the beauty and productivity of the backyard gardens that hide behind the normal looking house.  That all changed after the Polish Ambassador came to town!  Over fifty people from the show the night before at the The Bouquet came out to participate in Boise’s Action Day, transforming the front and surrounding lawn of the homestead into a regenerative, food-producing forest garden.

Read more: http://www.permacultureaction.org/how-to-edible-garden/

Photo essay: What’s growing in West Virginia’s urban ruins?

WHEELING, W.Va. — When Danny Swan first broke ground on his West Virginia farm in June 2008, his rototiller hit a baby doll. Then some porcelain plates. Then a pair of pantyhose.

It didn’t take him long to discover that pieces of an entire urban neighborhood were buried beneath the soil — “bricks and rocks and everything else contained in houses that used to be here,” he said.

Perhaps just as surprising was Swan’s desire to build a farm in that spot in the first place. “Farm 18”, as it’s become known, is not only situated on 18th Street in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Wheeling, it also sits directly adjacent to the viaduct, or bridge, of a four-lane highway.

Local farmers warned Swan that it would all add up to spectacular failure — that if the neighborhood vandals didn’t kill the plants, the debris-strewn soil would. “And the first couple of years were a little scraggly and rough,” Swan said.

But then the opposite happened. Crop yields grew by the year, along with community participation in the farm. By the end of the season, it’s expected that $20,000 worth of produce will have been pulled from the vines of Farm 18’s one-acre plot. And since 2008, roughly two dozen copycat gardens have popped up throughout this city in West Virginia’s northern panhandle. There’s a new weekly farm stand to sell the produce, and plans are in the works for an organic inner-city teaching farm and orchard.

Eventually, people stopped rolling their eyes about the urban farm plot in East Wheeling and began talking about it as the start of a larger economic movement — one that might help reverse the fortunes of their long-suffering hometown and the health of its residents.

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/farm-urban-ruins/

The Rise of Urban Farms

To most readers of Grit Magazine, a farm is not a strange or unusual sight. Many readers live on farms. But to most city dwellers, a farm is as mysterious and distant as a tropical rainforest is to us. Many city kids have never seen how food is grown; they know only that it comes from a supermarket wrapped in plastic. Some cities have started busing school kids out on field trips (literally) to nearby farms so they can get a look at what a field of produce looks like. Many cities have parks, and maybe a horticultural garden, but not farm land. I bet the last place you’d think to look for farm land would be inside a major industrial city, such as… oh, say… Detroit. The Motor City. And you’d be wrong!

The city of Detroit has for years been the poster child for urban blight: having lost 25 percent of its population over the last decade and with roughly 40 of the city’s 139 square miles vacant, according to The Detroit Free Press. But the actions of some residents and organizations may be about to change all that.

In the wake of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Detroit is rebranding itself as the D.I.Y. City, with projects such as urban farms, encouraging small businesses selling locally made products, and residents pitching in to handle municipal upkeep.

Bands of citizen volunteers have been swarming into vacant properties, abandoned and neglected by their owners, to cut grass, clear brush and pick up litter and debris. Many of the derelict homes are being razed by the city, but some feel there is a better way to go.

Read more: http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/do-it-yourself/the-rise-of-urban-farms.aspx

A Believer in Vacant Lots Urban Farming’s Grande Dame: Karen Washington

Karen Washington, a community activist who has been called “urban farming’s de facto godmother,” found her bliss when she moved to the Bronx nearly 30 years ago and began growing vegetables in her backyard. Gardening was not part of her heritage.

“My parents and grandparents were not farmers,” said Ms. Washington, who recently retired after 37 years from her day job as a physical therapist. “I took out books from the library and learned what to do.”

Savoring the memory of her initial harvest, which included eggplant, peppers and collard greens, she said it was the tomatoes that were life-changing. “When I bit into the first tomato I ever grew, it turned me around,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is what a tomato is supposed to taste like.’ I was hooked.”

As she walked under her grape arbor and past the strawberry plants, she pointed to the bee hive in the rear of her long, narrow yard. “You know, I got the bees for pollination,” said Ms. Washington, who has blond dreadlocks and a perennial smile. “I need to provide them with a home. If I don’t get honey, I couldn’t care less, but I got 24 quarts this spring.”

“Let me give you some candy,” she continued as she handed a visitor a just-picked yellow cherry tomato. “Candy, right?”

Read more: http://permaculturefreepress.com/?p=579

Urban gardens are key in times of crisis

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Allotment gardens have often been sources of local resilience during periods of crisis. During World War I the number of allotment gardens surged from 600,000 to 1,500,000 in Britain, supplying city people with food and other ecosystem services.

The gardens were planted in parks and sports fields, and even Buckingham Palace turned up the earth to grow vegetables. After declining abruptly in the 1920s and 1930s, World War II saw a new explosion in the numbers of allotment gardens in cities of Britain and other parts of Europe.

In Germany, and several other European countries, allotment gardens have always played a great role for the people and in giving them a small measure of self-sufficiency in food though some do manage to grow more than enough for themselves and their families as far as vegetables are concerned.

In Britain the law, theoretically, states that councils have a duty to provide land for allotment gardens if a certain number of people demand them. This appears to be (1) a little known fact and (2) something councils often do not follow either, even if the demand is there.

In other European countries the allotment garden movement is far more active than it is in Britain and also much better organized and there are allotment colonies all over the place. Cities, towns and even villages have them and they are well used, it would seem.

However, we need more urban and suburban community gardens where people can grow their own food and there is enough derelict land around in most places so that this can be possible, also in the UK, and in the middle of the cities. Where the soil may be contaminated it is quite feasible, though it means bringing in healthy soil, to do the growing beds in large containers such as reused builder bags which nowadays, to 90%, are not reused by the companies and cannot even be returned. This is, basically, killing two birds with one stone namely having a place in which to grow food and also keeping such bags, made predominately from woven polypropylene, out of landfill.

Using this approach could turn many empty urban lots in any town or city into productive community gardens without needing to dig the ground, which might be covered in concrete or tarmacadam and thus cannot be easily dug or ground that is possibly contaminated. Yes, it would require bringing it good soil to fill the bags with and then grow the food therein but that still is better than not having such gardens at all.

Allotments must be made available also to all that want to work such plots and not just in urban areas but in them and suburban areas especially as there less land at home is available for the growing of food and people must be encouraged to grow at least some of their own food at home or at allotments and similar gardens.

Our food security depends on this for our individual regions as much as for the country as a whole and there was a time when all cities had market gardens and small farms surrounding them and even almost in their hearts, as did Paris before World War One and we must bring this back to make local foods available to all.

Allotment garden, known as Schrebergaerten or Kleingaerten in German, have in that country been in use for about a century or so and they are, as previously stated, well received and they are much like that Dachas in Russia, and in some cases, just like on their Dachas in Russia, people spend their entire summers, growing plants, both flowers and vegetables, living in little cabins.

During the Second World War the roads and streets of Germany, including those in towns and cities, were lined with fruit trees to provide fresh fruit, especially apples, pears and plums, for the population during the war time and many of those trees were still about in the 1980s though rarely anyone made use of the fruit provided by the trees.

There were also, once upon a time, so-called common trees of various fruits that lined the country lanes of Britain but most of those trees have been grubbed out by now as they were deemed a danger to motorists. The car has to come first, obviously. But, actions of guerrilla gardeners grafting fruit tree branches to that of city trees and the reception of this by the people proves that it would be popular to have fruit trees lining the streets and being found in our parks and open spaces. Many, the majority, in fact, of our common woods in the countryside were a mix of timber trees with fruit trees (the latter in the end also will provide valuable timber) to a ratio of 2:1. Proof that it is all possible and that food security can be created for every area, including our urban and suburban areas. Time we got going.

© 2013

Living the good life in town and city

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Growing your own food and living the good life of a homesteader is, all too often, associated in the minds of most people with living in the country, the sticks, the boonies. This is a fallacy, however, for it is a mindset rather than being dependent on location.

True, it is easier, to some degree, to do it in the boonies, especially if you have a home with a little – or more than just a little – land. That does not mean, however, that living in town has to prevent you from living it; at least to some degree.

“Living the good life” of a homesteader, as said, is dependent on your mindset much more than it is on your location and it also does not just and only mean growing your own food.

Growing your own food, or at least part of it, while being the main stay, so to speak, of living the good life, is only part of living the life of a homesteader, whether in the boonies or the city. Self-reliance in everything, as fas as this is possible and feasible, is the name of the game, and I say deliberately self-reliance and not self-sufficiency as the latter is impossible to achieve, ever, on your own.

There is more, much more, to living the life of a homesteader, whether in the country or town, than just growing your own food.

Making do with what you have got and making things you want and need as much as possible yourself is, and always has been, a very large part of it, as was and is reusing, repurposing and upcycling things that others regard as waste, be that tin cans, glass jars, bits of paper, string, rubber bands, card or pallet lumber, to name but a few. Much more than that can be reused, repurposed and upcycled and our parents and grandparents, and not just in the country, did just that. Everyone, in fact, bar the very rich, was doing it.

It is very much a mindset and one that we must redevelop for the good of the Planet and for our very survival on this Planet. Like then it also can and will save money but it will do more than just that. It will allow us to live a much more fulfilled life and it will save vital resources on a global scale. The good life is about that too.

All too often the other aspects of what makes up homesteading are forgotten and not only when being considered for an urban or suburban environment. Too many eco-warriors are still in a consumer mindset rather than one of producer.

We have to learn once more to make and produce things for ourselves, with the resources to hand, rather than popping to the stores for everything, even if the things we look at buying are ethically produced, are “green”, etc.

An old friend of mine, now sadly deceased, was a great example of a homesteader in an urban setting. He lived in an apartment but canned all manner of things for his pantry and made much for himself, including clothes, and much more besides.

While I know that he would have much rather have preferred to live in a shack in the mountains the fact that he did not did not let it stop him from pursuing his dream of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, as far as possible, in town and that very successfully.

It can be done and do it we must.

© 2013

Does a homestead have to be in the country?

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Everywhere, almost, where we look when the word homestead and homesteading is mentioned it is done so in the same breath with country and countryside.

Now does this mean that you can only homestead in the boonies, on some property in the sticks? Can you only live the “good life” in the country?

To all intents and purposes a homestead can be anywhere, really. It depends on how one defines “homesteading” and “homestead” and the good life can be lived in suburbia as much as in the boonies, only it is on different scales.

Depending on where you live, which country and state, you may owner-build your home and thus can create a homestead even in the suburbs and even in town. As said, it is all a question of scale and perception.

It obviously depends on the local ordinances and rules as to what you can do and those you need to consider before acquiring a flock of hens for the backyard for instance or digging up the front garden to grown food.

Some local ordinances, we all know, are stupid in the extreme, such as where it is a felony to do rainwater harvesting for use in the garden and elsewhere. How come that someone, apparently, owns the rights to the water coming from your roof? The problem is, however, that if you break such laws you can be called to account for it. Therefore do check first as to what you can and cannot do.

In Britain, even though central government decreed, basically, that it is supposed to, now, be a right to be able to install PV panels or small wind turbines, the local authorities still insist that you go through the planning process and more often than not will refuse permission, despite of the fact they should grant it.

There are ways that you can “homestead” anywhere and much of it is a case of what you perceive as homesteading and homestead, as I have said already. A home with some garden space for growing food can be a urban or suburban homestead, no problem. And if your backyard (and front lawn) is not enough for your food growing requirements see whether you can get an allotment plot.

Anyone can can, and the double can is intended. Home canning, in jars; making preserves and jams; drying herbs and fungi; etc. is all homesteading, wherever this may happen.

Reducing your food miles, and otherwise your impact in the Planet too is homesteading.

When you put your mind to reusing and repurposing and even upcycling items of waste into usable and even saleable things then you are also homesteading, at least as far as I, and many others, are concerned.

When you go wild food foraging in countryside and urban parks then you are also homesteading, as far as I am concerned.

Homesteading is not just for the countryside and the boonies; homesteading is possible (almost) anywhere and everywhere.

© 2011

Urban Farming holds out the promise of renewal for Detroit

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

A Michigan-based financial group has announced ambitious plans to turn large swathes of crime-ridden Detroit into urban farmland.

When one mentions Detroit most people will immediately think about the auto industry or music. Not many, if any, would think urban farmland. But that is exactly what Hantz Group, a Michigan-based financial group, is thinking.

The group has been putting together a most ambitious and creative plan to turn large acres of underused, derelict and vacant inner city land into farmland featuring a mixture of cash crops, ornamental gardens and riding trails.

The Hantz Group, with their Hantz Farms subsidiary, hopes to begin with a 70-acre purchase on the city’s east side, an area that was selected due to its low population density of between zero and nine residents per acre.

Ultimately, the Hantz Group is looking at turning up to 10,000 acres of inner city Detroit - almost a 10th of the city's 143-square-mile area - into urban farmland. In a city riddled with real estate dereliction and economic woes, large scale urban gardens may be just the thing to help get Detroit back in the fast lane.

Under the proposals, the land will be sourced from privately held parcels, along with foreclosed land currently owned by the city, state and county. In addition to buying some land outright the company is also looking to enter into partnerships with local communities to help develop other parcels of land.

Hantz will be working with researchers from Michigan State University to select the types of crop that can be grown on the land, Allen explained. Where possible, edible crops will be grown, but where soil will not support them - if, for example, it has been degraded by industrial use - it will be used for non-edible crops.

"We hope to put in several hundred acres of Christmas tree farms, and also wood veneering projects or long-term sustainable growing operations where we can harvest wood and non-edibles," Allen explained.

The purchase price for the initial land is roughly $3,000 per acre, he added. The group hopes to purchase 5,000 acres over the next five years.

Sandra Pederson, founder of the urban farming community Urban Land Army, argued that the proximity to residential areas meant that organic farming methods should be used on the new development, although press reports indicate that due to time constraints the company will not be taking this approach.

"Since it is such a large area in an urban centre, for environmental and human health reasons, it would be really important to start off organic from the beginning. The potential for water, air, and soil contamination from using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides on a large scale is significant - and the negative impacts on residents' health would follow", said Pederson.

If given the go-ahead, the proposals would represent a drastic change in tack for administrators who have seen a city that grew on the back of the now-troubled automobile industry enter into a steady decline that has seen many areas succumb to chronic social problems. Large swathes of Detroit have been abandoned in a classic example of the "doughnut effect", in which poverty-stricken downtown areas are eviscerated as the middle classes take to the suburbs.

Matt Allen, senior vice present for Hantz subsidiary Hantz Farms, who lives close to the proposed "phase one farm," and area of initially 70 acres, said that the land has been targeted for its low density, and currently supports between zero and nine residents per acre.

"We are past the tipping point, so there is no point in discussing it any more," argued Allen, who said that as a resident, he had an interest in seeing the area flourish. "It's been getting worse. Unless we make some radical changes, we will only continue to fool ourselves. What was Einstein's definition of insanity? To do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result."

In addition to that, I would suggest, that if the soil does not support, due to contamination, the growing of edible crops, one uses the methods that have been employed in some “urban farms” in Britain, for instance, in that the produce is grown in those large builder bags in good soil. I do my food growing like that and it works well and it does so too where it is being done on a larger scale, say, in London.

http://www.hantzgroup.com/

© 2009
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