The Next Small Thing

Cure for a cold, gloomy, and wet fall day: Gotham Greens! Check...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:03:00 -0400

Cure for a cold, gloomy, and wet fall day: Gotham Greens! Check out their high-tech rooftop hydroponic farm located above a Brooklyn bowling alley. Locally grown, pesticide free herbs and vegetables produced using clean energy sources, and I can’t believe how much I want some of that lettuce right now!

(all photos: Gotham Greens)

This blog is mostly about community gardens and sometimes about...

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:32:08 -0400

This blog is mostly about community gardens and sometimes about bicycles, but I, the blogger, am primarily an artist, and only a gardener with effort and a cyclist with great effort. It is hard, figuring out how to apply my artistic strengths (theater, film, writing) in support of what I care about (community gardening and urban agrictulture). This entry is a reminder and an indulgence. Please: Indulge along with me.

In fact! By Peter Drew of Adelaide, Australia, via Ken and...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:36:00 -0400

In fact!

By Peter Drew of Adelaide, Australia, via Ken and Danny through the feed.

Pre-Irene Supper of Fried Green(ish) Tomatoes!

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:37:00 -0400

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 had chosen the “opt-out” feature. Who wants to hurtle through 80-110 mile wind gusts? I get it. Why not just drop gently to the earth and avoid the drama?

So there they were, a bunch of tubby and rebellious green and green-white-pink tomatoes scattered along the garden path. What to do?

Cook them, of course!

These are non-traditional fried green(ish) tomatoes: sliced, dipped in egg, and dredged through a mix of cornmeal, smoked Spanish paprika, sea salt & pepper, and then pan fried in olive oil. The Spanish paprika is fantastic & the cornmeal makes them gluten-free…

Happy Hurricane and be safe!

OH, BICYCLE DREAMS! Have you seen this? You’ve probably...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 18:15:00 -0400

OH, BICYCLE DREAMS!

Have you seen this?

You’ve probably seen this.

But watch it again — it will break your heart in the best way possible.

Industrial Revolutions - a film about Scottish stunt riding star, Danny MacAskill. This excerpt was broadcast in a UK documentary project, Concrete Circus.

I am embarrassed to admit that sometimes I’m too afraid to ride my bike in the city. White-knuckled, squeaky fear.

This makes me dream of riding my bike. And leaves me breathless.

When Marjolein Noyce posted this on Ikea Hackers, I sprinted...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:14:30 -0400

When Marjolein Noyce posted this on Ikea Hackers, I sprinted (figuratively) to the Conceptual Devices website to check out their “Malthus: A Meal a Day or How I Learned To Stop Worrying about the Food and Love the (Population) Bomb”

Yep, it’s a smarty-pants in-home aquaponics unit based on an Ikea Broder hack.

Fantastic!

Although, if I kept fish in my apartment, I’d get way too attached to cook them…

SHARING BACKYARDS (Oh, Canada! Part III) This is so,...

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 23:42:00 -0400

SHARING 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 get a plot in a secret garden once you discovered its magic location, it turns out I’m number 29 on the waiting list and will continue to be so for years.

Clearly, the city could use more than one secret community garden. For perspective, the two adjacent cities have 12 and 15 community gardens each.

My city (my city!) has absorbed “community gardens “ into its “urban space plan,” a project so steeped in bureaucracy that it pits playgrounds for children and community gardens against one another in terms of priority of funding.

But then.

Enter “Sharing Backyards,” a project created by Vancouver-based City Farmer.

Sharing Backyards is a program that connects private land-owners (homeowners with yard space) to people who are looking for garden plots.

Abracadabra.

Bureaucracy-free community gardens.

I’m meeting with some garden-activists tomorrow, and we’ll take a look at the Sharing Backyards model. Truth be told, what works above the 49^th parallel does not always (does not usually) work in the States, but it’s worth a try. Community gardens don’t need to be a “city” project, and frankly, many of the most successful, longstanding community gardens in NYC, Boston, and other U.S. cities are the products of grassroots, community, and guerrilla efforts; the official city stamp came much, much later.

If you’re curious, here’s the link to the sharing backyards website:

http://www.sharingbackyards.com/welcome

And if you haven’t checked out City Farmer: http://www.cityfarmer.info/about/

Musings on Lamb’s Quarters, Chenopodium Album

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:49:00 -0400

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!)

"Not Your Grandma's Strawberries," or, Where the Nutrients Are (Not)

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:15:00 -0400

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 beets (aka wild amaranth and sometimes callaloo in the farmer’s market) and wild spinach (also goose foot or lamb’s quarters) are delicious and have a ton more nutritional value than the garden varieties, AND the fruit of the autumn olive (an invasive species) has 18 times the lycopene of a tomato. And, as I’ve mentioned in the previous foraging post, you can make CANDY from the fruit of the autumn olive.

So heirloom vegetable varieties are best for growing, but mix some local weeds into your salad for healthy eating!

This foraging trip was at the lovely Allandale Farm, a very old, thriving, and wonderful farm in Brookline:

http://www.allandalefarm.com/

And Russ leads several more trips in the late summer and fall in New England, New York and Canada — check out his schedule:

http://users.rcn.com/eatwild/sched.htm

Oh, and those are elderberries up top…no autumn olives until September…

GARDEN ART AND ACTIVISM (OH, CANADA! PART II) Yeah, I have an...

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:31:28 -0400

GARDEN ART AND ACTIVISM (OH, CANADA! PART II)

Yeah, I have an embarrassing crush on Canadian gardens — can you blame me?

The Vancouver International Children’s Festival commissioned The Mobile Garden Dress from environmental artist Nicole Dextras. The dress is “a self-sustaining garden and portable shelter for the new urban nomad, complete with pots of edible plants and a hoop skirt that converts into a tent at night. This garment is 100% compostable and recyclable.”

You can read about Nicole in the full article here, published by the really fabulous (and Ontario-based) guerrilla gardening journal, Soiled and Seeded!

http://www.soiledandseeded.com/magazine/issue04/weedrobes_the_mobile_garden_dress.php

(Photo credit: Nicole Dextras)

Local Summer Micro-brews from Roof-Top Hops Gardens! Oh, Canada!

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:58:35 -0400

“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, National Post, Postmedia News

Let Them Grow by Stanley Thomas Clough, 1938, for the Federal...

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:34:52 -0400

Let Them Grow by Stanley Thomas Clough, 1938, for the Federal Art Project/Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Another Reason to Love Garden Writers (if you needed one!)

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:30:00 -0400

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 communities to help fight hunger by sharing locally grown produce.

You can find more information on the Garden Writers Association below, and you probably have a local PAR program in your area!

http://www.gardenwriters.org/gwa.php?p=par/index.html

Guerrilla Gardening circa 1908

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:56:52 -0400

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 beautifying one portion of the roadway that you use daily. You can become a member of the Roadside Gardening Club if you move one native tree to the roadside, or three bushes or six vines or two dozen perennials of one kind, or sow one ounce of seeds in such a way as to form a permanent, self-supporting colony.”

McAdam was way ahead of the sustainability curve.

“If you will write me…I will send you without charge any interesting news or help I get; tell you the Latin names of any of the plants mentioned below and where you can see pictures of them; explain how you can get seeds of native plants cheaply by the ounce or pound; and show you how you can get plants in quantity of any desirable variety that has been exterminated from your neighborhood.

In return I ask two favors: first, that you send me a stamped, self-addressed envelope for reply; second, that you send me for publication any photographs that will help the cause, preferably a picture showing “a colony established by yourself.”

In the early 20th century, folks in the U.S. were (already) panicking about nature, vanquished and vanished from their lives. And McAdam was (already) seeking a solution with “no bulky committees and no red tape.”

Enter, Guerrilla Gardeners.

Thomas McAdam. “Join the Roadside Gardening Club Now – a new fraternity that has neither dues nor officers and only one aim, viz., to make every foot of your daily walk or drive delightful the year round without expense.” The Garden Magazine. Vol 7. No. 6. July 1908. 322-323

MUNROE STREET: SOIL. MEMORY. COMMUNITY. GARDEN. Helen’s grape...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:54:00 -0400

MUNROE STREET: SOIL. MEMORY. COMMUNITY. GARDEN.

Helen’s grape arbor is quiet and cool on this sultry July day. I’m visiting Helen, Lenni, and Eric (and Helen’s dog, Henry!) at their Munroe Street garden, and we revel in the shade as we talk about my new favorite model of urban gardening: The Communal Garden.

Helen bought the Somerville hill-top house in 1995 from an Italian American family who’d lived there many years, growing abundant crops of tomatoes, basil, oregano, and grapes. Helen fell in love with the large, sloping garden that offered a quiet oasis from city life, even when she first saw it in snow-covered winter repose.

But then spring arrived and Helen and her former partner realized they now owned an enormous urban garden – far larger than two people with full-time jobs could manage. On a visit to the local growing center, Helen discovered that the neighborhood community garden had a 60-person waiting list.

And the proverbial light bulb went off.

Helen loves gardens, and she loves community.

Match!

She spread the word that she was looking for gardeners, and pretty soon, “people started showing up.” Friends, friends-of-friends, acquaintances, fellow dog-walkers, new neighbors, and happenstance encounters grew into a community of ardent gardeners – friends, philosophers, activists, community.

“Over at the community garden it’s like, ‘Here’s my plot, that’s your plot.’ This is cooperative.”

In the garden, there are no borders, no boundaries, no “mine” and “yours.” An early-spring pot-luck calls the gardeners together for the year’s planning meeting where everyone puts forth his or her “wish-list” for the season’s crops and informally shares gardening knowledge gained from previous years. Seeds are purchased and in March, Helen’s basement, a dedicated area for potting tables, becomes the activity center.

Once the plants go into the ground, at least seven of the gardeners share daily watering duties, and because the garden is communally cared-for, it’s dotted with hand-written signs that identify the plants in each section and provide helpful notes about care. The crops include fruit (currants, peaches, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, apples, pears), vegetables (lettuce, chard, onions, collards, kale, tomatoes, squash, garlic, peppers) and herbs, and with such diversity of both crops and gardeners, notes are helpful!

Helen is the gracious steward of the garden, ensuring that the knowledge gathered over 16 years remains available to the gardeners. Along with detailed notebooks and beautiful maps dating back to 1997, there is a collective oral history and an oral culture of knowledge about the garden and the people who helped it grow. As we explore the garden, Helen, Lenni, and Eric point out the different sections and fill the lush afternoon air with the names of the gardeners and friends who’ve left their mark.

Todd instituted the drip irrigation system.

Taylor made jam from the currents and shaped much of the garden design and philosophy.

The hops are remnants of Tim’s beer experiment.

Dave-the-worm-guy was passionate about the compost produced by worms.

Jessa must have drawn the maps.

While some information is physically recorded and archived, much of the knowledge is practical and must be passed down by working side-by-side with someone who has done it before – informal community apprenticeships happen at Helen’s urging, so that while gardeners come and go, knowledge and memory remain part of the garden.

I sample raspberries and currants, poke around the potting shed, and take a lot of photos. Before I leave, Lenni hands me a gift-bag of greens: red and green lettuce, kale, and collards! I’ve just come for a visit, but I already feel rooted in this community.

Eric paraphrases the writer, Wendell Berry, who identifies local culture as having two projects: “One of those is to build soil. And the other one is to build memory. That’s what community is all about, to build soil and memory. I think that’s one thing that we’re doing here.”

Yes, Indeed.

Nice work, gardeners!

“It’s very exciting to imagine Manhattan when there were hills...

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:56:41 -0400

“It’s very exciting to imagine Manhattan when there were hills and pine forests and marshes,” Ms. Majorelle said. “That’s what’s cool about this project: it feels like a river.”

(NYTimes covers the Columbia University rain garden)

thegreenurbanist:

nybg:

Beautiful story (and even better pictures) from the New York Times about the new rain garden at Columbia University.

From the article - “As Ms. Majorelle said, “A lot of people are talking about their carbon footprint, but I say, ‘What about your concrete footprint?’ Because that really is one of the essential problems with the urban environment, which is 80 percent concrete.”’

What if She Grows a Cornfield! Or, It's Not Over Yet! -- When Community and Gardener Disagree Part II: Following up on Julie Bass

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:21:00 -0400

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 and petition campaigns helped to put some pressure on the city.

However.

It’s important to note that the charges have not been “dropped” as many media outlets are reporting; the charges have been “dismissed without prejudice,” which allows for re-filing the case in the future.

The apparent reason for the dismissal without prejudice is City Prosecutor Eugene Lumberg’s desire for more time to consider the circumstances.

“I want to look at it, I want to see the facts, I want to see where this vegetable garden is going and make a determination of whether or not to prosecute under the existing ordinance, write a new ordinance and (examine) the public welfare…She may decide to grow a cornfield. If she plows up a compost heap, what are (we) going to do?” (Eugene Lumberg quoted in The Detroit News 7/15)

We can only hope that Lumberg will also use some of this extra time to get a little general education on gardening!

The bad news is that even as the City dismissed the garden charges, they simultaneously reinstated charges against Bass for her (formerly) unlicensed dogs. Back in June, as city officials were investigating the garden, they also ticketed Bass for the dogs (although the city ordinance states that owners of unlicensed dogs receive a warning prior to a ticket). The Bass family paid their fines and licensed the dogs, but she still has a hearing – now for TWO misdemeanors (one for each dog) on the original garden hearing date of July 26^th.

Eh?

There’s some speculation that the city is attempting to paint Julie as a habitual petty offender (you KNOW what an unlicensed dog does to your reputation) and waiting for the media blitz to die down before re-filing the case against the garden.

But no worries; we won’t forget about you Julie!

If you’re in Oak Park, there’s a City Council meeting tonight: Oak Park City Hall, 3600 Oak Park Boulevard, Oak Park, MI 48237-2090

You can also check out “Oak Park Hates Veggies” on Facebook, Julie’s blog: http://oakparkhatesveggies.wordpress.com/ .

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110715/METRO02/107150397/Charges-dropped-against-Oak-Park-woman-over-veggie-garden#ixzz1SSZiFfTT

GARDEN MAPS AND MEMORY I’m a little bit in love with the...

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:28:00 -0400

GARDEN MAPS AND MEMORY

I’m a little bit in love with the thoughtfully drawn and preserved maps and notebooks that document the history of this most amazing community and communal garden. We stood around the table, sighing as we leafed through the pages.

Paper, pencil, and dreams of what could be grown.

But if you think the maps are astonishing, wait until you meet these most generous gardeners! More on my visit coming soon!

Pretty fantastic project! Converting an abandoned swimming pool...

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:11:03 -0400

Pretty fantastic project! Converting an abandoned swimming pool into a sustainable greenhouse garden - using solar power, aquaculture, hydroponic gardening, organic horticulture, aquaponics, and biofiltration. In Mesa, Arizona! Great video and tons more info on their website http://gardenpool.org/.

johnzilla87:

GardenPool

These guys converted a run-down swimming pool in Arizona into self-sufficient garden incorporating a ton of different techniques and systems even including chickens! Seriously awesome.

Locally grown and almost forgotten - Boston Harbor Clamming

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:42:00 -0400

Locally grown and almost forgotten - Boston Harbor Clamming:

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 by Massport and Swissport. This is a great exposé by Phoenix writer Chris Faraone “Are Logan Airport polution and Massport indifference killing Boston’s proud clam-digging tradition? (Shucking Fits).”