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

This is the story of Greensgrow, a one-acre urban farm in North Philadelphia, created on the site of an old steel-galvanizing factory.

Not only is Greensgrow providing a source of fresh produce for the local community, it is actually turning a profit.

Robin wrote a great blog post on Blue Skies Urban Farm about people changing their habits due to the high price of fuel, even to the point of creating a traffic-jam of sorts at the local bicycle shop.

First the Wall Street Journal, then the New York Times, and now Forbes.

As the former owner of a Mercedes-Benz diesel, the idea of running biodiesel is near and dear to my heart. The older 123-chassis non-turbo models are ideal for running biodiesel.

AZSustainably.com has a great article on making your own biodiesel.

I've been reading this reportby CNW research that provides some insight as to the total energy costs of an automobile broken doen by make and model.

Data includes supplier as well as brand manufacturer energy consumption for the listed vehicles; transportation at all levels of distribution; use of materials (plastics, steel, light-weight steel, aluminum, etc.) and literally hundreds of other factors.

When examined in this light, the current generation of hybrids don't fare as well as some conventional cars. FOr example, my Honda Accord is pegged at $1.96 per mile. The Toyota Prius is $2.19

To quote the report:

"This doesnít mean that hybrids, for example, are a bad choice. That is NOT the intention of the research. What it does mean, however, is that a 2005 hybrid uses less gasoline and produced fewer tailpipe emissions, but costs society significantly more in overall energy costs than conventional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles."

12 Degrees of Freedom asks an important question:

In this day of when $130/barrel oil, is it better to buy organically grown carrots from a multi-hundred acre farm 2,000 miles away or a bunch grown nearby using a limited amount of chemicals as part of a responsibly administered pesticide management plan?

My vote is for the local stuff.

1. You know here it comes from. Maybe you even know the farmer himself.

2. You are supporting the local economy. Farmer Joe down the road needs my money a lot more than the big corporate farm and he appreciates my business.

Urban Farming has all the signs of becoming a movement. Here is an article in the Baltimore Sun reporting that seed sales have doubled over last year.

Once upon a time, I owned an airplane. The onboard computer was connected to a fuel flow transducer and I could see how much fuel I was burning, effective range, and a bunch of other interesting data.

I've discovered an interesting device that allows me to have the same information in my car: The Scan Gauge II.

It simply hooks up to the ODBII port on your late model car and provies the following data:

• Maximum Speed
• Average Speed
• Maximum Coolant Temperature
• Maximum RPM
• Driving Time
• Driving Distance
• Fuel Used
• Trip Fuel Economy
• Distance to Empty
• Time to Empty
• Fuel to Empty

Just having this in my car will make me more conscious of my gas mileage, particularly when I see the numbers spiraling down towards awful when I floor it.

Lenore Schwartz in Pittsburgh and our own Greg Peterson are kindred souls.

I found this article on Sidewalk Sprouts about a plan to turn a portion of the White House lawn into a kitchen garden.

Now I don't expect to see George (or the next president either) out there digging in the dirt, but what a great example this would set.