Inventive food production

[Jilly]

Even though my weird, little garden kept me fed for a few days this week, I have always thought of it as little and weird and a bit more than self-indulgent. You know, like I could take this odd space and grow something, aside from the flowers that my landlord wanted me to plant there.

So, anyway, I sat down to read this afternoon and the next thing I knew was that it was four hours later and that accidental nap means that I am still wide awake and I turned on the television to find the most wonderful program.

I entered mid-program and watched this really cool guy go about delivering food shares from his pick-up truck. Not just delivering, but using the truck bed to grow the vegetables. Then he connected with a woman who grows lots of things, including blueberries, on her apartment balcony, and then there was this other guy who had hauled tons of soil to the rooftop of his building. Cool, but kind of scary for a person like me who would certainly enjoy and appreciate having such a large gardening space, but would often be worried about that lovely garden collapsing on me some night when I was dreaming of how soon the Krims would ripen.

Then, as if that was not enough, following was a fascinating series of more astounding people growing even more astounding kinds of foods. Crazy.

Now he is designing and building a greenhouse to go over the truck bed. Urban agriculture rocks.

Anyway, I only receive a half-dozen channels with my antenna, and this was a most wonderful way to spend a sleepless night.

I am sure that everyone already knows about this stuff, but I just had to share. :)

Wisconsin Public Television
Truck Farm
http://wptschedule.org/episodes/15232/Truck-Farm//

Huffington Post
The Truck Farm: The Coolest Urban Agriculture Project Around
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/30/the-truck-farm-the-cooles_n_247818.html

Oh, someone stole his nearly blooming lavender plant. Ratbastards.

[lhamo]

I'm really excited about the future of urban agriculture. There are so many ways we could make better use of our urban spaces. What if every house had a different type of fruit tree, for example -- think of the neighborhood dessert potlucks you could have! If we decide to leave Beijing in the next couple of years and relocate back to Seattle, I think urban agriculture may be my next career direction.

[Gardenarian]

Fun stuff - thanks!
Sounds like the universe is speaking to you - grow veggies!

[puglogic]

Oh, I wish I could see that!

Jilly, I thought of this "inventive food production" when I read your post:

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/container-gardening-lettuce-vertical-wall-gutters-photo.jpg.644x0_q100_crop-smart.jpg

I'm SO going to do that next year....

[Selah]

I watched all three episodes and loved them! Thanks for brightening my day...I've already shared the link on Facebook, so who knows, it may all go viral!

[Jilly]

puglogic, that is so cool! Unfortunately, I rent and whilst the landlord wanted me to plant ornamental stuff (at my expense...thanks, but no thanks), I planted vegetables. I will be doing much the same next year, but am hoping to find some decent and cheap containers to add to the little space I have.

[flowerseverywhere]

ever think about earthboxes? Here are some homemade versions, this one with a large rubbermaid tote
http://www.denmc.com/earthbox/index.html
this one from a five gallon bucket
http://vermicomposters.ning.com/profiles/blogs/test-earth-box-global-bucketor
you can get the real thing, too. They are attractive. There is an earthbox forum as well that is excellent http://forum.earthbox.com/

also, don't forget sprouts. I always have a jar going and a few times a week can add those to salads, soups or stir fries. When I lived up north like you I had vegetable plants interspersed in the garden and since I have moved into the south I am trying to figure out how to plant and sucessfully grow some stuff. A whole new set of climate and pest problems to deal with.

[Jilly]

I made a couple of those boxes last year. They worked so well. My current gardening space is approximately ten feet long, 12 to 18 inches wide and is on a slope from the porch to the driveway. I am still amazed how much food I produced in that little area.

[iris lilies]

This article was on the front page of this morning's newspaper. It's about urban farming in a BIG way--feed corn and soy beans using 62 acres (which sounds like a lot) but it's on top of house foundations where cement, bricks, and debris are all over. Not to mention that the soil sucks. This is deep in the heart of an urban neighborhood that is very poor with houses falling down and stretches of blocks with abandoned buildings. the article says It’s being billed as perhaps the largest urban agriculture experiment in the country, and a way to put long vacant land to productive use.

This is impractical for many reasons that farmboy DH was ranting about this morning. But it's an interesting experiment and let someone else spend their money to try it out.

At one time I had a yen to move up there and buy an entire block with a small house, and really live the urban pioneer life (we've led a pioneer lite life) but one stumbling block was that we couldn't buy one entire block. The city who owned parcels at the time wanted to hold our for single family housing and would only sell a lot or two, not an entire block.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/a-farm-in-the-city-of-st-louis-some-neighbors/article_41320fe2-66af-50a0-81da-cd47b9366895.html