Insects are important wildlife often overlooked in urban habitats. What we do notice are the cockroaches, ants, and mosquitoes in and around our homes. All too often we reach for the insect spray. But not all insects are pests – a wide variety of them help keep our cities healthy. They pollinate plants, feed other wildlife, recycle our rubbish, and eat other insect...
Newswise — Feb. 18, 2019 – Soil is all around us, in cities and rural areas. But some soil becomes contaminated. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Feb. 15 Soils Matter blog post summarizes common contaminants and the risks they carry. “The biggest risks for soil contamination are in urban areas, and former industrial sites,” writes Lauren Svejcar,...
LOS ANGELES, CA – Pens and paper are the typical supplies for many high school students, but that is not the case at Arroyo High School in El Monte. Students growing their skills in garden club Found in part by Eco Urban Gardens Helping students learn about agriculture, nutrition The school is part of a growing program, founded in partnership with a local nonprofit...
Our ancient relatives, Homo heidelbergensis, were constructing shelters at least 400,000 years ago, and architectural innovation has been a defining feature of societies since then, changing to suit the needs and desires of the builders and occupants as they evolved. From energy-efficient designs to community-based spaces, these seven designs could help shape the...
One of Santa Clara’s biggest and most unique affordable housing projects in the pipeline promises to offer a blend of urban living and farm life. The City Council last week granted final approvals to a housing project on a six-acre plot of land across the street from Westfield Valley Fair mall. The project, known as the “Agrihood,” will to provide 361 new...
What is interesting about this younger generation, who are stereotypically labeled as harsh critics of our current food production system, is that on the surface most only seem to want to voice their dissatisfaction vicariously. It is easy and safe to go after genetically modified apples and Roundup in your Cheerios via your Facebook and Twitter accounts. What is...
Only the Northern line tube trains rumbling through tunnels overhead provide any clue that Growing Underground is not a standard farm. The rows of fennel, purple radish and wasabi shoots could be in almost any polytunnel, but these plants are 100 feet below Clapham High Street and show that urban agriculture is, in some cases at least, not a fad. The underground...
Plants use their roots to “listen in” on their neighbors, according to research that adds to evidence that plants have their own unique forms of communication. The study found that plants in a crowded environment secrete chemicals into the soil that prompt their neighbors to grow more aggressively, presumably to avoid being left in the shade. “If we have a...
Green walls, rooftop gardens, and urban farms are aiming to bring nature back into central Paris as the city looks to improve its air quality and create a more sustainable future. In the last few decades, manmade surfaces have taken over green space, leading to urban heat islands and more pollution in the air. It’s left Paris, like many other big cities, with...
By the time Will Nash got to the Hart Community Homes (HCH) in Fullerton, California, he’d temporarily lived—and lost placement—in 19 foster and four group homes. Dealing with intense feelings of abandonment and anger in ways that caused those into whose care he’d been placed to label him “troublesome,” he was bounced from house to house. “You’re...
In Louisville’s Hazelwood neighborhood, where a third of the residents live in poverty, an urban farm has grown from the site of a former low-income housing complex. It took two years for community members to remove truckloads of concrete from the 14 acres where the farm now resides. But come spring, the farm will produce crops that the nonprofit Food Literacy...
Last November, I stood on the stage of the Meeting of the Minds Summit in Sacramento, sandwiched between a panel led by energetic Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and his vision for economic prosperity, and a talk on the future of autonomous delivery vehicles. My talk? To encourage city planners, developers and urban architects to bring agriculture back to cities and...
Help Ian WIN a $10,000 grant for Katie’s Krops! (SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST) “The Giving Garden was created when Ian learned there were children at his school going to bed hungry. Wanting to make a difference for his classmates, Ian decided to take action. He raised funds and solicited volunteers to construct a raised bed garden and small fruit...
The City of Raleigh supports urban agriculture rhetorically in its Strategic Plan. The city has made ad hoc interventions, like providing resources for rain harvesting at Raleigh City Farm and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle farm. Yet this leaves Raleigh behind other cities, like Atlanta, that implement systematic programs supporting the wide array of urban agriculture....
What was once a gloomy parking lot is now a green oasis in the middle of the German capital, Berlin. The “Prinzessinnengarten” (princesses’ garden) has become one of the best-known urban gardening projects in Europe. Neighborhood city gardening is on trend and in the last few years, pretty plots have been sprouting like mushrooms from the earth. WATCH...
Not long into our conversation at his lab based in Lemoyne, I decide that William Padilla-Brown, of Elizabethtown, is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. At 24, Padilla-Brown is the founder of his own mushroom cultivation company, MycoSymbiotics. He’s traveled the world, attending schools here in central Pennsylvania, in Taipei, London and elsewhere....
Growing Lots is a working farm tucked into an increasingly dense urban landscape. It used to occupy three sites in South Minneapolis where co-owners by Taya Schulte and Seamus Fitzgerald grew vegetables, operated a community-supported agriculture program, or CSA, and sold produce to local chefs. In 2018 those three sites were reduced to two. Growing Lots lost access...
Most people living in apartments are deprived of the luxury of owning a terrace or garden farm, where they can grow vegetables. Yet, many living in big cities dream of spending their time on a farm after retirement and eat the produce of their own farm. Now, to live that dream you won’t have to leave behind your city life nor live at a farm. Bangalore-based Farmizen...
The garden is one of the keys to solving the two greatest problems facing humankind, namely rapid species extinction and the effects of our changing climate. Gardens, plants, and the ecosystems in which they thrive will act as carbon sinks and filter the air that we breathe. It has never been more important that we realize this and that we protect our garden spaces,...
A recent gathering of scientists on the upper west side of Manhattan enthused about a crucial element in the formation of the surrounding city. The substance talked about in revered tones? Soil. In a fairer world, soil would be receiving reverence from people well beyond the fourth annual NYC Urban Soils Symposium, given that the slender outer layer of the planet...
