Down On The Urban Farm

Not everyone can keep a cow, but everyone can make cheese. Not everyone has a field of wheat, but we can all make our own bread.

This stand-out quote is the first thing you see at Home Farmer, a UK magazine about urban farming. The price of a subscription here in 'The States' is pretty steep, and - after having lived in the U.K. a number of years ago - I'm not sure that the growing techniques would apply here in arid Arizona, but we can dream.

They do have a blog:

http://www.homefarmer.co.uk/blog.asp

I'm seeing more and more articles >a href="http://site.cleanairgardening.com/info/ready-to-rip-out-your-lawn-and-become-a-suburban-farmer.html">like this - People replacing their lawns with vegetable gardens.

I found a wonderful resource: localharvest.org.

It is a great website for finding farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.

Another urban farm springs to life, tis time in Indianapolis

I found this great directory of green and sustainable products and resources:

VivaGreen.com

Kendra Pierce of The Urban Farm School and our own Greg Peterson are clearly kindred souls.

I've watched Greg devote enormous amounts of time to educating and mentoring others about urban farming. It's tough to convey what it feels like to see your crop's first signs of activity, poking its way up through the soil.

Kendra wrote a great article a couple of days ago about the value of understanding where and how food is grown. I hope she will use her blog to educate those not fortunate enough to visit her in person.

Arlo Guthrie, in Alice's Restaurant said, "They'll think it's a movement."

Perhaps urban farming is a movement. After all, the New York TImes wrote about it the other day.

There is a wonderful quote in that article. A woman named Florence Russell, overlooking the gardeners working compost into beds, said:

This is something good happening here.

Profound words, Florence is perhaps wiser than she thinks.

While the article talks about the revenue-generating possibilities of urban farming, I think that most urban farmers are in it for other reasons. Again, a quote form the NYT article:

“It’s not about making money,” Ms. Washington said. “We’re selling so that people in our neighborhood have good quality. There’s no Whole Foods in my neighborhood.”

A great podcast about Jules Dervaes, an urban farmer in Pasadena, California:

Click Here

I found this interesting video describing the construction and use of a DIY compost tumbler on The Compost and Composting blog:

There is an interesting debate going on in Cannon Beach, Oregon. On one side are the recyclers. On the other side are the people who think the recycling bins are 'coyote-ugly':

Click Here to read

What's more important?

I found this on Surviving the Middle Class Crash