October 2011
1 post
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September 2011
2 posts
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August 2011
7 posts
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Pre-Irene Supper of Fried Green(ish) Tomatoes!
I don’t usually post food photos, but these are delicious!
I can’t believe it took a hurricane threat to get me to try them!
I went to the garden to say a pre-Irene goodbye to the tomatoes (and to pick any that might be willing to ripen on a windowsill).
I’d planned to leave the full-on green ones to weather the storm, but some of them had already gotten wind of Irene and...
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WatchSHARING BACKYARDS (Oh, Canada! Part III)
This is so, so interesting to me. And not just because it’s Canadian.
I confess; my current city does not have its urban agriculture act together.
It has one (1) community garden, inconveniently located on the outskirts of the city. It took a fair amount of research for me to discover its whereabouts. And while you might think it’d be easy to...
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Musings on Lamb’s Quarters, Chenopodium Album →
One of the “5 most nutritious plants in the U.S” is a tasty weed! Oh, delicious Lamb’s Quarters!
(from those amazing folks at the Permaculture Project!)
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"Not Your Grandma's Strawberries," or, Where the...
SERENDIPITY!
Two things happened:
I read this article:
http://www.grist.org/food/2011-08-02-not-your-grandmas-strawberries
by Natalie Jones at grist.org about the dwindling nutritional value of our selectively bred and cultivated (for quantity) produce,
AND,
I went foraging with Russ Cohen again and learned that the “weed” versions of our cultivated plants — wild...
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July 2011
16 posts
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Local Summer Micro-brews from Roof-Top Hops...
“TORONTO BREWERS TRADE BEER FOR ROOFTOP GARDEN SPACE: City Hops program utilizes donated area to grow hops for ultra-local beer
By Tristin Hopper, Postmedia News
WHAT A GREAT STORY!
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Toronto+brewers+trade+beer+rooftop+garden+space/5177989/story.html
Look at those rooftop hops! Mark Clark and Luke Pesti of Bellwoods Brewery, Toronto.
Photo:Tim Fraser,...
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Another Reason to Love Garden Writers (if you...
I didn’t know this.
Did you know this?
The Garden Writer’s Association started Plant a Row for the Hungry in 1995 and since then, American gardeners have donated over 14 million pounds of herbs and vegetables to feed the hungry (about a million pounds a year), just by planting one extra row in their gardens.
PAR is a way for garden writers to use their position in the local media to rally...
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Guerrilla Gardening circa 1908
He’s not quite advocating seed bombs, but in this 1908 gardening magazine article, Thomas McAdam urges readers to join “The Roadside Gardening Club” (a fraternity without officers or dues) to help restore some of the disappearing local plant-life. Here’s an excerpt:
“All we ask is that in your leisure time this year, you spend the equivalent of one day’s time in...
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What if She Grows a Cornfield! Or, It's Not Over...
Remember Julie Bass, the Oak Park woman who was cited by city authorities for having an illegal front yard vegetable garden? (July 8th)
Well the good news is that Julie and her garden suddenly got some breathing space from the city, and the hearing and potential 93 day jail sentence are on the back burner. Julie’s case went viral and it seems like the 30,000-plus Facebook supporters plus email...
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Locally grown and almost forgotten - Boston Harbor... →
As it turns out, quite a few people in the Boston area didn’t know that a lot of those famously delicious steamers and chowder clams are dug out of the Boston Harbor by third-generation clammers…while clamming hasn’t made much noise in the local food movement, it’s actually a pretty big deal and in a pretty perilous situation thanks to a noncommittal response to fuel spills...
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When Community and Gardener Disagree
Hard on the heels of all that community and government love behind the Hunger Free North Dakota project comes Oak Park, Michigan, with a decidely different relationship to gardening.
You may have heard about Julie Bass, a resident of Oak Park who constructed raised beds and planted vegetables in her front yard after the yard was torn up for sewer pipe installation. Despite the garden’s...
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Fearless, Fenceless Gardens
In honor of Independence Day, here’s to the gardens-without-fences, opening themselves up to the street and spilling out onto the sidewalk with a mad generosity of spirit – Happy 4th!
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June 2011
12 posts
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Delicious Fire Escapes
I trotted down to Union Square this morning to visit Andrea’s gloriously tiny, fire-escape garden. On the small (8’x4’ maybe) iron platform, she’s found space for basil, foxglove, thai chilis, rosemary, a blueberry bush, avocado and orange trees, strawberries, tomatoes…and even two small kitchen stools for sitting and chatting!
And yes, it’s still a fully...
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The Neuroscience of Urban Gardens?
Don’t get me wrong; I love neuroscience. LOVE. It has played a significant role in past research projects and now I sometimes describe myself as a sort of “fan” of neuroscience.
Can neuroscience explain our interest in the paranormal? Tell me all about it!
Are there neural foundations for the shoplifting impulse? A virtual page-turner!
Candy and the brain? Delighted!
I eat this stuff up...
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If Everything Changes, Will It All Stay the Same?
Yes.
Really?
At least Edward L. Glaeser, Harvard Professor of Economics, thinks so.
In his recent Op-Ed for The Boston Globe, “The Locavore’s Dilemma: Urban Farms Do More Harm than Good,” he envisions urban centers dotted with large swathes of farmland, but cannot wrap his imagination around the possibility that the people (we, the people) who live within these hypothetical...
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Making Peace with "War Gardens" (Part II)
I’ve been reading The War Garden Victorious (1919) and not only is it making sense, it dovetails nicely with Justin Gillis’s recent NY Times essay on the future of the food supply:
The WWI community gardens weren’t really “War” Gardens after all!
They were “Response to Agricultural and Economic Conditions Created by War” Gardens.
Or, “Fight the Food Deficit Created by War” Gardens.
(Maybe that...
"A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself"... →
This is a great essay on the destabilization of the global food supply and the impending food deficit.
"The War Garden Victorious" by Charles Lathrop... →
This is the ebook version of a 1919 publication by the National War Garden Commission, subtitled “Its War Time Need and Its Economic Value in Peace.”
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Trying to make peace with "War Gardens"
We’ve had a couple of cold and gloomy days, and I’ve spent them digging around in the history of urban agriculture and community gardens. ”War” or “Victory” gardens were not the first community gardening efforts, but certainly the food shortages of WWI and WWII inspired a rapid and widespread growth of community and urban gardening. An estimated 20 million...
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What is the Community Garden Project?
The Community Garden Project is a documentary film about urban gardens. And community. It is about our desire for a little plot of land, and our need to grow something of our own. It is about sustainability, how we eat, and how we care for one another. Or not. Are you an urban gardener? Please get in touch! We’d love to hear your story!
Community Garden
I’ve started talking about my new project on community gardens, or more specifically, the relationship of community gardens to “community.”
It starts on a cool, May afternoon in my “own” community garden, all of us hard at work on our little plots of land, our little pieces of agri-order in the jungle of the city, when suddenly, one of my “neighbors”...
