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.
The Next Small Thing
Wanda Strukus is a writer/director/filmmaker who likes small things with large ramifications.
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.
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.
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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, 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 49th 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/
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!)
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:
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…
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