rationalist - a great idea about the fruit trees. unfortunately, i bet that nobody would respect the commons, and you'd have a small group of people who'd pick them all and then try and sell them.
not a bad way to create a few jobs for some otherwise non-entrepreneurial folks, but can you imagine the liability the cities would be exposing themselves to?
that being said, there are a handful of both lemon and orange trees in my neighborhood that i pick from regularly. i love having nearly year-round meyer lemons! the better to make my Arnold Palmers with!
yeah, that's a good point, but somehow not a show-stopper point to me. It feels like there's got to be *some* way to work around it. Maybe each tree could be 'managed' by the owner of the home it sat directly in front of? And would it would be best to plant a nice mixture of trees, or a whole block of oranges, a whole other block of lemons, one of limes, one of grapefruit, etc? I think it'd certainly be worth an experiment of a few blocks worth to see how it went.
don't know if you've already known... but i volunteer at the roof top garden on John Ronan's Gary Comer Youth Center... pretty cool stuff... other than our 1 a month volunteer raid... the garden is also taken care of by youth programs, they learn to garden and cook and stuff... they were trying to locate shelters to give the produce to, but for now are cooking for the youth programs with their organic produce... (there are a couple other urban organic gardens in chicago as well...)
anyway, thought i'd share, but the garden is a cool place to be (except when it's really hot)... and i'm upset that i haven't brought my camera...
I can't find a handy link right now, but recently there was a story about a barge garden being docked this summer in NYC. Since many big cities are on rivers or lakes, this seems like it would be a more feasible solution to urban gardens.
It'd be damn near impossible to grow organic indoors on the scale that this article talks about it. The cloud of white flies would carry the farmers away.
I want goats too. And chooks! (that's what they call chickens in New Zealand) Chickens would be great in an urban setting. Not only will they eat all your kitchen scraps, but they'll turn it into compost!
Urban worm farming is also a viable option for composting. You can keep worms in a bin under your kitchen sink. I've built a combo worm farm/herb garden, and so far stuff is growing like crazy.
But honestly, I don't see much value in these farm skyscrapers, for many of the same reasons posted above. I think a more appropriate target would be to limit ex-urban growth and plan smart farms that produce high quantities of produce on land that would normally become suburbs. Or perhaps as we begin to abandon the suburbs, we will already have large amounts of land that nobody wants, and it will only make sense to farm it.
the potentially best application for 'vertical farms' is water treatment. when you consider the area typically utilized by a potable or sanitary water treatment facility and the lack of urban lands, stacking the treatment cells starts to make sense. Look at NYC, they've had to build sewage plants over the river (and then place a park on the roof) just to keep from dumping raw sewage into the hudson. if you stack the treatment into a tower, then you can preserve the open space for recreational use...
Cool thread, we do the small scale urban gardening in our little back yard. It is more educational, for the kids, than productive. We get plenty to eat out of it but not enough to sustain us. We have a lemon tree (in a pot), raised beds with corn, tomato, radish, cucumber, pumpkin, and wild flowers. Inverted beds with strawberries, lettuce and peas. As well as a strip for the kids to do whatever they want, which has sunflowers, pumpkins, corn, radish, cucumber and who knows what else.
Here is the garden:
My strawberries (with peas and lettuce in the shade)
And the compost, the half barrel in the back, under the wildflowers and between the raised beds, we grow directly on top as it is easier on the neighbors than open boxes and pits, and cheaper than the fancy composters;
We are trying to convince the manager to let us plant in the front as well, but he is worried about when we move. There is plenty of places to plant but everywhere people seem hell bent on lawn and rocks.
j
good idea treekiller... but how do you get the city to approve a sewage skyscraper, and are we talking about traditional water treatment systems or using little critters to clean up the water?
god forbid a plane should crash into a skyscraper chocker full of methane gas....
funny a methane skyscraper should come up. i'm working on a biodiesel facility now with methane tanks. code dictates that methane explosion relief must be directed up and that each individual tank needs separate enclosure (in our case foot thick poured concrete walls), basically dictating that all tanks must be at or below grade.
hey tree, did you go to the brownfields conference in detroit? my wife was going to attend, but had to unexpectedly be out of town. would be interested to hear your thoughts on it. the detroit urban farming and bioremediation scene is HOT these days;)
I registered for the brownfield conference (it was free). but the imminent arrival of my acorn kept me from going (and that my office didn't have the money to pay for everything). Maybe next year- but I'm sure that I would have gotten great info. The conflicting expo is the greenroofs conference.
Thanks TK for the article, that really gets me excited. There are a bunch of community food gardens in the city that the urban garden center supports that I've thought about involving myself in and this just get me more motivated to do so. There are so many vacant lots even in our city and this is an amazing way to use them.
Urban Farming
finally, i'm not the only one posting links to the metrotimes anymore.
rationalist - a great idea about the fruit trees. unfortunately, i bet that nobody would respect the commons, and you'd have a small group of people who'd pick them all and then try and sell them.
not a bad way to create a few jobs for some otherwise non-entrepreneurial folks, but can you imagine the liability the cities would be exposing themselves to?
that being said, there are a handful of both lemon and orange trees in my neighborhood that i pick from regularly. i love having nearly year-round meyer lemons! the better to make my Arnold Palmers with!
yeah, that's a good point, but somehow not a show-stopper point to me. It feels like there's got to be *some* way to work around it. Maybe each tree could be 'managed' by the owner of the home it sat directly in front of? And would it would be best to plant a nice mixture of trees, or a whole block of oranges, a whole other block of lemons, one of limes, one of grapefruit, etc? I think it'd certainly be worth an experiment of a few blocks worth to see how it went.
nonsense, i am not lame. i'm trying to help you. prius' are also passe.
don't know if you've already known... but i volunteer at the roof top garden on John Ronan's Gary Comer Youth Center... pretty cool stuff... other than our 1 a month volunteer raid... the garden is also taken care of by youth programs, they learn to garden and cook and stuff... they were trying to locate shelters to give the produce to, but for now are cooking for the youth programs with their organic produce... (there are a couple other urban organic gardens in chicago as well...)
anyway, thought i'd share, but the garden is a cool place to be (except when it's really hot)... and i'm upset that i haven't brought my camera...
I can't find a handy link right now, but recently there was a story about a barge garden being docked this summer in NYC. Since many big cities are on rivers or lakes, this seems like it would be a more feasible solution to urban gardens.
can someone help me out with a link?
It'd be damn near impossible to grow organic indoors on the scale that this article talks about it. The cloud of white flies would carry the farmers away.
I want goats too. And chooks! (that's what they call chickens in New Zealand) Chickens would be great in an urban setting. Not only will they eat all your kitchen scraps, but they'll turn it into compost!
Urban worm farming is also a viable option for composting. You can keep worms in a bin under your kitchen sink. I've built a combo worm farm/herb garden, and so far stuff is growing like crazy.
But honestly, I don't see much value in these farm skyscrapers, for many of the same reasons posted above. I think a more appropriate target would be to limit ex-urban growth and plan smart farms that produce high quantities of produce on land that would normally become suburbs. Or perhaps as we begin to abandon the suburbs, we will already have large amounts of land that nobody wants, and it will only make sense to farm it.
the potentially best application for 'vertical farms' is water treatment. when you consider the area typically utilized by a potable or sanitary water treatment facility and the lack of urban lands, stacking the treatment cells starts to make sense. Look at NYC, they've had to build sewage plants over the river (and then place a park on the roof) just to keep from dumping raw sewage into the hudson. if you stack the treatment into a tower, then you can preserve the open space for recreational use...
Cool thread, we do the small scale urban gardening in our little back yard. It is more educational, for the kids, than productive. We get plenty to eat out of it but not enough to sustain us. We have a lemon tree (in a pot), raised beds with corn, tomato, radish, cucumber, pumpkin, and wild flowers. Inverted beds with strawberries, lettuce and peas. As well as a strip for the kids to do whatever they want, which has sunflowers, pumpkins, corn, radish, cucumber and who knows what else.
Here is the garden:
My strawberries (with peas and lettuce in the shade)
And the compost, the half barrel in the back, under the wildflowers and between the raised beds, we grow directly on top as it is easier on the neighbors than open boxes and pits, and cheaper than the fancy composters;
We are trying to convince the manager to let us plant in the front as well, but he is worried about when we move. There is plenty of places to plant but everywhere people seem hell bent on lawn and rocks.
j
good idea treekiller... but how do you get the city to approve a sewage skyscraper, and are we talking about traditional water treatment systems or using little critters to clean up the water?
god forbid a plane should crash into a skyscraper chocker full of methane gas....
and nice garden j, I like the checkerboard tile + lettuce.
funny a methane skyscraper should come up. i'm working on a biodiesel facility now with methane tanks. code dictates that methane explosion relief must be directed up and that each individual tank needs separate enclosure (in our case foot thick poured concrete walls), basically dictating that all tanks must be at or below grade.
profiles several farms growing on vacant lots around the city and country - not vertical or architectural but very urban...
see also: plowing subdivisions under
hey tree, did you go to the brownfields conference in detroit? my wife was going to attend, but had to unexpectedly be out of town. would be interested to hear your thoughts on it. the detroit urban farming and bioremediation scene is HOT these days;)
I registered for the brownfield conference (it was free). but the imminent arrival of my acorn kept me from going (and that my office didn't have the money to pay for everything). Maybe next year- but I'm sure that I would have gotten great info. The conflicting expo is the greenroofs conference.
Thanks TK for the article, that really gets me excited. There are a bunch of community food gardens in the city that the urban garden center supports that I've thought about involving myself in and this just get me more motivated to do so. There are so many vacant lots even in our city and this is an amazing way to use them.
so Jbond
i might just be having a stupid day or something, but do you know the name of the manufacturer for those Dye Sensitized Solar Cells?
i just tried to do some quick searches and only found research articles about the idea, not any specific manufacturers
seems pretty cool
joshcookie
very nice gardens
makes me wish my little 10x10 backyard wasnt a conc slab
so Jbond
i might just be having a stupid day or something, but do you know the name of the manufacturer for those Dye Sensitized Solar Cells?
i just tried to do some quick searches and only found research articles about the idea, not any specific manufacturers
seems pretty cool
joshcookie
very nice gardens
makes me wish my little 10x10 backyard wasnt a conc slab
sorry for the double post
the Urban Farm is actually a place here.
http://www.urbanfarm.org/index2.html
i volunteer there often.
Sweet!
im pretty sure i've seen this posted around here...if not, or for those who haven't, here you go...
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/farmadelphia.html
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