At 9 a.m. on a cool, bright Saturday in mid-June, Robert Burns and Diana Baldelomar set up a farm stand outside the YMCA in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. The stand is simple: a tent to keep out the sun, two folding tables set in an L-shape and a handful of zinc washtubs filled with two inches of water. In the tubs stand heads of green and red lettuce, greens, broccoli, and bunches of mint and basil. When two women approach and ask the price of the greens, Baldelomar tells them that the turnip, mustard and collard greens are a dollar a bunch. "Honey," the woman says, "in this neighborhood, if someone asks you for greens, they are only talking about the collards." Her companion asks, "Did you ship it in from the country?" "No ma'am. These are from right around the corner, West Cottage and Brook. We went out and harvested them this morning. You should stop by sometime." Burns and Baldelomar work with the Food Project, a community-based urban agriculture program founded in 1991 to get Boston's youth involved in food production. Their West Cottage plot is one of four farms on vacant lots in the Dorchester neighborhood. The Food Project is part of a growing urban agriculture movement to improve access to quality food in cities by creating local sources of fresh produce. The movement is showing that sustainable, local food systems are not only a way to ensure food security but also a means of addressing social justice issues. [lots more, worth a read]
When two women approach and ask the price of the greens, Baldelomar tells them that the turnip, mustard and collard greens are a dollar a bunch. "Honey," the woman says, "in this neighborhood, if someone asks you for greens, they are only talking about the collards." Her companion asks, "Did you ship it in from the country?"
"No ma'am. These are from right around the corner, West Cottage and Brook. We went out and harvested them this morning. You should stop by sometime."
Burns and Baldelomar work with the Food Project, a community-based urban agriculture program founded in 1991 to get Boston's youth involved in food production. Their West Cottage plot is one of four farms on vacant lots in the Dorchester neighborhood.
The Food Project is part of a growing urban agriculture movement to improve access to quality food in cities by creating local sources of fresh produce. The movement is showing that sustainable, local food systems are not only a way to ensure food security but also a means of addressing social justice issues.
[lots more, worth a read]
I have used Earthboxes and they are actually a treat for patio and limited-space container garden projects. Low maintenance, the average adult can drag one around even after it is filled and growing, and the reservoir is a godsend in hot dry climates. Lots of folks make similar wicking-reservoir planters these days.
Next comment is that excellent soil can be made by keeping a few worm bins about the place: food scraps, yard waste, and humanure can all be converted by redworms (or Hermetia larvae) and patience into excellent nutrients to mix with whatever nice absorbent fibre/carbon you have lying about. And then you can also experiment with Tierra Preta techniques on a small scale if inspired.
My last comment is that this is exactly the kind of dense small scale polyculture that has sustained humanity for millennia, very efficiently and deliciously, and which monocrop feudalism -- of which corporate agriculture is only the latest flavour -- tries to stamp out wherever it, so to speak, crops up.
Good book of the week: Carlo Petrini's latest (I think -- he's a prolific fella), Slow Food Nation -- lousy title, obviously intended to ride on the coat tails of Fast Food Nation, a cheap and demeaning trick of the US publisher. If I'd published it I would have called it "Good, Clean, and Fair" which is CP's theme throughout: that a human right should be access to food that is good (tasty/delicious/nutritious/fresh), clean (not poisoned or contaminated, not produced by biosphericidal methods), and fair (not produced by slavery, peonage, conquest, theft etc).
as he points out, coming at it from many angles through many anecdotes and much background, good/clean/fair add up to "local" for the vast majority of foodstuffs, though like most reasonable folk he leaves some room for long haul trade in surpluses of attractive high-value foodstuffs, after local needs have been met. the english translation is a bit clunky at times and makes me wish I could read the original Italian which I'm sure is more graceful, but it's a good book nonetheless -- bridging the gap between the foodies and the landless rights movements, the four star chefs and the K-12 school garden.
oh yeah, google also for Guerrilla Gardening and some really interesting links will come up.
must... sleep... must... sleep... must... sleep... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
the reservoir is a godsend in hot dry climates.
here is a pic of my garden in the spring of 05 -- the field of favas shown there is all in earthbox-like containers. they were my nitrogen-fixing winter crop. I still have favas in the freezer from that Spring :-) The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
they are the most prolific bean I have ever planted, hardy and willing and tremendously rewarding. read recently that they were planted widely in Iron Age Britain! and they generate a lot of biomass in the form of stem and leaf, as well. a real wompom...
but you probably knew all that already :-) sorry if I am preaching to the choir The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Every bit as good as DeAnander says!
Not common in Finland. Don't know why.
As a cook I love all pulses, but I always have to look up soaking and/or cooking times for the less common ones. After cooking for a few decades you get a feel for almost anything in terms of cooking times and methods - but pulses still often defy common wisdom. It depends on the recipe - overcooking is not necessarily bad if you are going to zap them for a soup or sauce. But to get that nice al dente crunch for some dishes you need to work from wiki or google ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
I don't know what the hell the previous occupants were doing here but it seemed to include a breeding programme for crustaceans.
Slugs, hmm. Catch and destroy. Hours of fun.
The worst bean critter we had was a neighbouring rooster who we saw finishing off the last beans of two rows just when the beans were swollen and sprouting. A jab into the ground with his beak, up came a bean like a plum from a pie, gobble gobble, no more beans. Aarrgghh!
From Project Gutenburg: The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms, with observations http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2355
