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)
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 26th.
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
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).”
FIELD TRIP – UMASS AMHERST PERMACULTURE GARDEN!
“The Chancellor said the word “permaculture” at commencement this year, to a crowd of 30,000 people…the Chancellor talked about permaculture.”
(Nathan Aldrich, Sustainability Specialist, UMass Amherst Franklin Permaculture Garden)
It’s a bright-and-shiny scorcher of a day and I’m strolling the Franklin Permaculture Garden with Nathan Aldrich, the garden’s sustainability specialist and one of the original members of the student team who proposed the garden as a class project back in 2009.
Driven by concern about the troubled U.S. food system and a desire to build something that would benefit their local community, a group of students, including Aldrich, who were taking a sustainable agriculture course, designed a plan for establishing a permaculture garden on ¼ acre of lawn outside one of the dining halls. The plan reached an impasse when it was discovered that the requested location was slated to become a parking lot. But when the parking lot plan fell through, the garden project became a reality. With the students and the university administration unified behind the plan, the garden broke ground and had its first planting this spring.
The garden is a great template for thoughtful planning and design, and community inclusiveness. Aldrich notes that some very large meetings were organized to allow all stakeholders to weigh in on the planning process. And with the help of many eager volunteers, they set about turning the lawn into nutritious garden soil – check out the video documenting the process here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWHSzGDItBA
And while the spring planting was delayed a bit by the late arrival of all-important water tanks, UMass is well on its way to establishing a low-maintenance permaculture garden.
The food that’s grown (including tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, squash, basil, culinary herbs, and a great fruit selection featuring pears, peaches, quince, blueberries, and beach plums) will be served in the dining halls, but as Aldrich notes, the garden can’t feed the entire campus, and that’s not its purpose. The primary purpose of the garden is to educate the vast number of people who come in contact with it, as active volunteers or as members of the community at large. In addition to college students, volunteers and guests come from neighboring schools, community groups, and even administrative offices, and everyone who visits learns a little about permaculture and food sources as well as gaining some skills for growing their own food.
I offer the story of the Amherst permaculture garden as an antidote to the absurd shenanigans in Oak Park, Michigan: here’s a great example of what happens when an institution gets behind a community initiative instead of trying to squelch it!
And I highly recommend the UMass Permaculture Garden blog and website:
HUNGER FREE COMMUNITIES NETWORK!
This is Exciting! The Hunger Free Communities Network is up and running! It’s “a nation-wide platform for coalitions, campaigns and collaborations committed to ending hunger in their localities to learn from each other and share their knowledge and experience with other hunger free organizers.”
A vision for a centralized resource where information can be easily shared and accessed! I can’t wait to see where this goes! Take a look!
Hunger Free North Dakota Garden Project!
I tend to focus on local-to-me garden projects, but with both TreeHugger and the BBC writing about North Dakota, I had to take a look.
Sami Grover at Treehugger notes, “the most powerful sustainability efforts are those that reach beyond individual lifestyles, and into the realm of community identity and cultural change.”
The Hunger Free North Dakota Garden Project concurs, and with a partnership that includes community gardeners, the Department of Agriculture, the Farmers Market and Grower’s Association, and others, it starts with the simple request for gardeners to grow an extra row of vegetables for those in need. Last year, the project provided over 350,000 pounds of food to agencies that feed the hungry.
Seems like they are well on their way to changing their food culture!
You can check out Paul Adam’s BBC article and Grover’s Treehugger follow-up below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14022795
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/community-gardening-fight-hunger.php
GARDEN LOCKDOWN
I understand the organizing principle of the fence. It keeps some things in, and some things out.
But vegetables, unlike cows and cats, do not wander.
“Lies, lies,” you say. Strawberries, raspberries, mint, wild onions, garlic, dill, and chives (to name just a few) definitely roam. They’re (mostly) not vegetables, but fair enough.
Roam, they will, and no fence will deter them from their fierce intention to take over the planet, or at least the neighboring plot.
So the fences are for another purpose.
Community garden?
May your fences be low, and your gates, unlocked.
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 accessible, functioning fire escape :)
Andrea has sharpened her small-space, urban-gardening skills as the manager of the ingenious indoor garden of a local (and committed to locally-grown food) restaurant, but more about that later!
We’ll be following Andrea’s story of a garden-demolished-and-rebuilt throughout the summer, but her fire escape made me so happy, I needed to post a photo or two for continued inspiration!
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