Photo: B. Alter
Call them edible gardens, or urban agriculture, or guerrilla gardening: whatever. The fact is people are finding unused nooks and crannies to plant vegetables everywhere.
In London, Capital Growth is an organization dedicated to doing just that on a city-wide scale. They are aiming for the creation of 2,012 new spaces by 2012 (part of the general 2012 Olympic fever). They held an Edible Gardens Day where the public could visit many of these hidden plots. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
School gardens are becoming more and more popular around the country, but they're harder to establish in some places than in others—in the middle of a city, for example, where the soil is deficient and needs work before it can support growth of plants and vegetables.
So what does that process look like, of turning essentially nothing into something? Sprout City Farms (SCF), in partnership with the Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit: Transition Bath
When I wrote about a solar warehouse in Baltimore, I noted that one of its biggest advantages was how visible it was from a nearby highway. A similar point could be made for a new vegetable garden in Bath, England, that overlooks a busy and unpleasant junction that is regularly snarled up with stuck commuters. This beautiful time-lapse video shows how ordinary residents turned a park into a food-producing billboard. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photos: Mirko Ihrig / Olli Hirvonen
Since the last time I was in San Francisco, little community gardens seem to have multiplied dramatically, popping up in narrow spaces between buildings and formerly garbage-strewn lots. That pattern is being repeated around the world, as people seek cheaper, healthier ways to feed themselves, say two European design students who have created an urban farming tool set ma...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit: Grow Local Colorado
It's always seemed strange to me that most parks grow only ornamental flowers and shrubs. Sure, it's nice to have pretty flowers around, but what if our parks also produced food for those who need it? From sharing gardens to community nut tree plantings, we have indeed seen some moves to turn shared land into a productive food producing ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon meadia) at Liz Christy Community Garden provide a visual refuge from hectic Houston Street in NYC. Photo by Bonnie Hulkower.
Spring is in the air. Flowers and ideas are blooming in NYC. NYC has a new nature focus. The updated PlaNYC, released on Earth Day 2011, mentions biodiversity and natural systems for the first time. Nature is officially now a mayoral priority. Read the full story on TreeHugger
A school garden in Uganda. Photo: Slow Food.
One thousand gardens are blooming across Africa, where the international organization Slow Food is helping schools, villages, and other communities grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs using sustainable water management, pest repellent, and fertilizing techniques. The project also aims to protect varieties of indigenous crops that would otherwise ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
"Renegade lunch lady' chef Ann Cooper with kids "eating the rainbow"
Fungi to fight plant pests? Agri-biz says it can't be done. Healthy school lunches? Superintendents claim it's too costly and kids won't eat vegetables. Health insurance and pensions for farm workers? There go the profits. Stock options? Forget about it. Mobilize a new generation to farm? Green thumbs are for texting. The average age of farmers' is 57. Four folks who are breaking ground in the world of sustainable agr...Read the full story on TreeHugger
The "Ville Fertile" exhibit, at the Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, at Trocadero, in Paris. Photo: Alex Davies
On Friday, France wrapped up its Week of Sustainable Development - seven days of exhibits, workshops, lectures and tours designed to educate the public about the myriad ways the country is going green. I was in Paris for some of the week, and got a first hand look at how the City is actively working towards a sustainable future. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
A community garden in Paris' 14th arrondissement. All Photos: Alex Davies
Paris just wrapped up its Week of Sustainable Development, a showcase of the City's myriad efforts to promote green thinking, from renewable energy to pedestrian and cyclist-friendly policies. Paris has also made a big push to green its already-green spaces: its parks and gardens. With 82 parks designated for "ecological management" and about 60 community gardens, Parisians are growing their own food and enjoying life in open spaces that are not only more sustainable, but more natural....Read the full story on TreeHugger
Bloggers Fighting Hunger join forces on April Fool's, I mean, April Food Day.
Today is the third annual April Food Day, an initiative launched by a bunch of bloggers as a hunger awareness campaign. It's a worthy way to shift the focus from foolishness to something worthwhile, and a good excuse to look at how to feed the world - and ourselves. April Fools is fun for a laugh but there's certainly nothing funny about 925 million hungry people - or 13.1 percent in the world -- and of course, it's not reserved for one day. So skip the stunts and indulge in this effort. Here'...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit: nicasaurusrex, used under Creative Commons license.
Some time back we were surprised when a California man was arrested for stealing waste grease from a dumpster. More recently we've seen a woman handcuffed for taking food from supermarket trash. Now the police are swooping in on more harde...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit: Martin Selway, used under Creative Commons license.
With the holidays over, many of us are returning from visits with family and friends. And while some of us will have crashed on couches, camped on the floor, or taken over our uncle's home office, some of us will have been lucky enough to benefit from a guest bedroom. Little did we know, we were destroying the planet in the process. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Inhabiting the Huerta. Photo Credit: Guallart Architects
Five years ago, we first heard about Sociopolis, a "shared habitat" in Valencia (Spain). This housing development is to trigger social interaction between inhabitants, propose a new type of housing for the family structures of our time, and offer an environment of high environmental quality. Now it's becoming reality; roads are being build, and trees are being planted....Read the full story on TreeHugger
'Spiral Garden' in an urban setting. Photo: Benet Dalmau, Saida Dalmau, Anna Julibert, and Carmen Vilar via Designboom.
With empty land at a premium in densely populated urban areas, builders have long reached into the sky to maximize the amount of residential or commercial space they can develop.
Now a team of Spanish architects has proposed doing the same thing with Read the full story on TreeHugger
photos: Matthew McDermott
The latest chapter in New York City community garden saga has closed, but the story's not finished: The Bloomberg administration has released revised rules on the gardens, after hundreds of people turned up to protest the regulations as originally proposed in mid-summer. These rules go into effect next month and replace those established in 2002 which had protecte...Read the full story on TreeHugger
The Tentstation campground is just five minutes from central Berlin's main Hauptbahnhof train station. Photo via IgoUgo.
In the crowded heart of Istanbul lies a secret garden. Actually, there are probably at least a few, but the one I had the pleasure of having a barbecue in recently sits behind a friend's apartment, a neglected, overg...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Amy Seek of Flatbush Farmshare's conception of what a vegetable garden outside City Hall might look like. Image via People's Garden NYC.
If the White House has one, and the city halls of Baltimore, Portland, and San Francisco have (or had...) them, why not New York City? I'm talking about planting vegetable gardens right out front. That's what the people behind People's Garden NYC are pushing for, creating a petition urging Ma...Read the full story on TreeHugger
photo: Matthew McDermott
To hear NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe describe it, either on WNYC or in the New York Post, the proposed rules governing the City's hundreds of community gardens are a definite step up from the 2002 ...Read the full story on TreeHugger