Comments on: Urban Farming

By: Vincent Kosik

Vincent Kosik — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:25:49 +0000

Just viewed the movie FOOD INC.(too bad there is a limited theatre release) and it is a pity Mr. Allen was not featured in it himself. Hopefully there will be a sequel and he will be!
Peak oil is here now and we will no longer be able to truck out food thousands of miles away and that will require millions of new people learning to produce food in hopefully a sane humane manner.
The folks that will lose there employment in the airlines, auto, trucking, ect will find them here.
Thank you NPR and WBUR for this program.

By: Colin Gulbrandsen

Colin Gulbrandsen — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:17:26 +0000

A little off topic, but does anyone know the name of the artist and song that was played at the end of the clip?

By: Diane

Diane — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:08:42 +0000

I loved this show and hope you will have more like it. Now I have to explain what “it” means. Not talking heads from opposing camps discussing issues which are not really debatable like global warming. Not authors who picked a very obscure topic so they would be original. I supposed “it” is visionaries who are actually doing something about our problems or proposing really original solutions.

By: Trish Rusk, RN

Trish Rusk, RN — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:48:41 +0000

I question the caller from Connecticut reporting on growing “organic” veggies on brown fields like former gas stations, etc currently.

How do you define “organic” in the northeast? The organic farmers in California created CCOF(certified organic farmers) to establish ground rules before labelling anything organic. The mega-business farmers prevented the national/usda definition of “organic” to reflect the much more clean practices of the CCOF.

By: Ghost Town Farm founder offers tips on community, guerilla urban gardens « Andre Joseph Gallant

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:38:56 +0000

[...] Novella Carpenter offered advice on squatting urban land and growing food on the vacant lots during an interview with On Point, a Boston area public radio show. Carpenter says that many vacant lot owners are [...]

By: Rachele Rosi-Kessel

Rachele Rosi-Kessel — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:52:09 +0000

What most interested me about the On Point discussion was Will Allen’s comment about the need to grow good soil in the city. His large scale composting project in Milwaukee should be replicated in other cities. So much food waste gets thrown into dumpsters (along with way too much cardboard and other recyclables). I’d love to see Boston have a large scale commercial compost and recycling system.

By: Urban Aquaculture Center » ON POINT RADIO

Urban Aquaculture Center » ON POINT RADIO — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:44:11 +0000

[...] LISTEN Tags: radio Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. [...]

By: Russ Cohen

Russ Cohen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:17:29 +0000

FYI in case you haven’t already seen this article, which appeared in the July/August issue of E – The Environmental Magazine:

“SPIN in the City
A New Form of Farming That Can Transform Cities”

By Miranda C. Spencer

Here’s a link to the on-line version:
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4722

By: Lon C Ponschock

Lon C Ponschock — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:14:12 +0000

I’m very excited about hearing this program and will do so when it hits the archive.

Allen spoke here hosted by the local private university in Appleton, Wisconsin. This was a couple months ago and I was very impressed with the number of activities that Growing Power does. Growing Power has 60 activities from it’s growing projects to its education activities and food distribution network.

Here too the university hosting Allen’s insightful and truly non-saccharine inspirational presentation shows how urban farming can be truly marketed efficiently.

Allen’s background includes not only sports but a stint at Procter and Gamble. The NY Times piece is well worth reading.

The urban farming which Allen has designed is built on a model that can be replicated. Growing Power has staff to accomplish this if people want to learn this self sufficiency.

Cuba was mentioned above. That kind of growing power is documented in a dvd called “The Power of Community” which is readily available.

Thanks OnPoint for recognizing Will Allen.

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:35:43 +0000

We live in Westwood, which is right south of Dedham where 128 meets 95 south. The commuter rail is at the end of my street. The coop you see on our blog (the original one, not the new expanded one) is perfect for three birds and it’s intended for a small urban site. The plans are available on Ebay just search on “Playhouse Coop”. The run could be a bit larger for three heavy breed hens but otherwise its ideal for a small flock of 3 chickens. As for the neighbors….when you give them fresh eggs they will come around trust me! BTW – hens do not make any noice otehr than soft clucking, the average dog is more noisy/destructive.

By: Putney Swope

Putney Swope — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:24:24 +0000

I see you live in Westwood, very nice site and that chicken coop looks great.

I have friends in Vermont who have a large chicken coop and the only predictor that gets into it is the Fishercat.

By: Putney Swope

Putney Swope — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:15:52 +0000

Phyllis do you live in Boston?
Because where I live it would be real hard to have chickens. I want too but some of my neighbors are already eying us with as weirdo’s fro ripping up our front lawn and putting in raised beds.

By: Mieko

Mieko — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:07:07 +0000

I had the privilege to coordinate and work with 3rd and 4th graders in the Roxbury,MA neighborhood. As Will said, most of these kids didn’t know where their food came from other than the supermarket. This was sad but over time we grew vegetables familiar to them and made healthy meals in the kitchen with them. Five years ago, PBS’ featured my group of students, from planting potatoes to harvesting and cooking, on the Arthur Show.

I now work in higher education as sustainability coordinator and its inspiring to see college students grow food on campus. Yale has an interesting garden that supplies food for its campus dining halls.
Interesting stuff going on with this food revolution.

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:06:29 +0000

As someone who actually *has* chickens, I can say we also have to think about coyotes, possums, raccoons, rats, squirells, cats,dogs as well as HAWKS. A secure and well made coop will protect chickens from predators. And we have laying breeds, not meat birds, which are a genetically a totally different type of chicken. I compost the chicken poo then add it to my garden.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:06:14 +0000

Ten years ago I worked on organic farms on empty lots and city-owned lots in the City of Providence. It required intense labor and committment. There were many highlights of the experience. At the end of the harvesting season we sold vegetables at an open air farmer’s market. It brought the community together and I will never forget the moments I shared with my farming co-workers. Teaching community members how to cultivate and maintain the land was a valuable and enriching experience that everyone should take part in. I am now a resident of Southern California and I hope that the program in Providence is continuing to thrive amidst these harsh economic conditions.

By: Putney Swope

Putney Swope — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:59:28 +0000

You can’t keep large live stock in the city of Boston.
That means no goats, sheep, or pigs.

Chickens are legal as long as you don’t have a rooster.
Roosters while they are a pain do protect the hens from small predators.

By the way having chickens in an urban environment can be risky. In my area of Hyde Park we have coyotes, possums, raccoons, and rats, and my dog. Keeping them would mean building a pretty good fort/chicken coop.

By: John Powell

John Powell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:56:06 +0000

…if the apple you pick up at the market says “from new zealand”, you can’t afford to buy it, no more what the price…

By: EML

EML — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:55:24 +0000

Good gosh, these people are playing at farming. I want you to picture all the animals it takes to feed a community. I want you to think about how much fecal matter that would be generated. I certainly encourage people to grow vegeatables, but keeping animals is a joke. Nor does anyone on this show want to talk about slaughtering these animals.

By: Michele

Michele — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:54:18 +0000

I live in South Florida and have grown tomatoes, broccoli and squash for the last 3 springs. Unfortunately with the heat and water restrictions, our growing season is extremely short, 1 harvest. I would love to grow produce year round. We do have citrus trees and pineapples too.

I guess we need to focus on getting ‘good’ dirt into our garden and we have started a small compost pile, but we need to do more. With an acre of land, we should be doing more with it than just cutting the grass.

By: John Powell

John Powell — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:49:52 +0000

I have property in Allston — most of the open land is really nasty, so I grow vegetables in big pots–for almost twenty years all my kitchen scraps have been composited and put into the “vegetable” pots — just sand and compost to grow amazing stuff — plus gold fish in the rain barrel to eat the mosquitoes…