urban agriculture
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Raising chickens is totally rock and roll
Jenifer Jourdanne has expensive tastes, expensive shoes, and "designer chickens." In an essay in xoJane, she talks about how her long-standing backyard coop didn't dent her rocker cred:
I will have you know I was a maverick. I was the girl in the early 90s at Viper Room where people would say things like “Slash, come over here, no really, this chick has pet chickens!" I mean I am sure they probably thought I used them in an adult act but sorry to bore you, they just walk around my herb gardens looking for snails.
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Peebottle Farms: Cooped up in the city
As soon as it got warm enough, Tei and I started bickering about the chicken coop. The plan was that "we" would build it, but we both knew that meant Tei would grumble about it first, and then reluctantly figure out how and do the heavy lifting.
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Peebottle Farms: Back to the land in Brooklyn
Welcome to my Bedford-Stuyvesant urban farm.
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New trend: Going produce shopping in abandoned gardens
Most cities these days are chock-full of foreclosed properties. Some foreclosed properties are chock-full of fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and other sources of fresh produce. That adds up to a lot of tasty plant matter going to waste -- unless people take it upon themselves to harvest food from abandoned houses, either for their own use or to distribute to shelters. That's not legal, but as a New York Times piece makes clear, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.
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How safe is your soil?
In Oakland, efforts to encourage urban farming tangle with concerns over soil safety. Cities all over the U.S. are grappling with the same issue.
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How cities could save bees
Bee populations are struggling everywhere, but ironically they may be better off in cities than in the countryside. Why? Because rural areas have larger swathes of flowering plants when they're in season, but cities have them year-round in the form of urban parks and gardens.
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How to get into urban beekeeping
This video on rooftop beekeeping in Brooklyn features Tim O'Neal, who blogs at Borough Bees and sometimes teaches Beekeeping 101. If you've been curious about putting together an urban apiary, this will give you an overview of what it's like and why it's good for the world. (Also, handy advice: "[Bees] are somewhat less chatty […]
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Manchester turns a disused building into a vertical farm
We know that some people don't think much of the idea of urban farming, in part because it takes up space that could otherwise be used to house people more densely. But what if an urban farm was a) vertical and b) using an otherwise abandoned space?
That's the plan for Alpha Farm, to be built in the Wythenshawe area of Manchester, England -
Floating hydroponic farm makes food with zero waste
Here's an urban farm we'll still be able to use when rising sea levels flood all our cities! Science Barge is a floating organic farm set aboard a barge in the Hudson river.