Americans are gardening in record numbers but what are they most interested in this year? Here are highlights of the seven top 2019 trends in gardening: • The Slow Garden Movement: The same trends that millennials are driving across consumer brands — transparency, sustainability, hand-crafted, experiential, and authenticity — are showing up in gardens and garden...
Incarcerated a total of eight times over 15 years, Darren Chapman sat in a maximum-security prison cell at age 25 and thought of happier times. “I remember[ed] watching my grandfather trade collard greens and carrots with others and interacting with his community,” he says. “My dream as a little boy was to do the same; I wanted to work with others in the same...
If you’ve recently walked down Lawrence Street in RiNo, you have probably have been stopped in your tracks by the sight of a rooftop garden. At the very least, you’ve probably wondered what was going on above Uchi. This beautiful greenhouse space is home to Altius Farms. As one of the largest vertical aeroponic rooftop gardens in the country, Altius currently...
Members of religious orders have always had a need to garden, inspired no doubt by one of the Christian faith’s noted cultivators, Saint Fiacre, a green-fingered holy man who became the patron saint of gardeners. When monks, friars and nuns established their enclaves, they turned to gardens of herbs, wildflowers and vegetables to feed and heal themselves. Other...
Urban soils are particularly prone to contamination. 50 years ago, your yard could have belonged to a farmer, who, perhaps not knowing any better, disposed of old bottles of anti-freeze or contaminated diesel in a hole out behind the tractor garage. Or perhaps the remains of a fallen down outbuilding, long ago coated in lead-based paint, was buried on your property...
More than 400 Long Beach-area volunteers are expected to give back to the community to mark the national MLK Day of Service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Monday, Jan. 21. The civil rights leader who fought against racism is honored with a federal holiday every January, around the time of his birthday. Some people get the day off from work, but others take...
Part incubator, part greenhouse and part time machine, a cold frame is anything but cold. It’s an empty, bottomless box that protects plants from winter weather. With its hinged lid of glass or rigid plastic, a cold frame captures solar energy and converts it to radiant heat, creating a warm microclimate where plants thrive. Like the windshield of your car on a...
Activist Duron Chavis realized early on he needed to get his hands dirty, and that his work begins in the soil. The 38-year-old is a proponent of urban gardening, an effort he says can address the disconnect African-Americans feel toward growing and accessing food, along with promoting self-sustainability. It’s not just about eating healthy; it’s about being...
Lawns are ubiquitous in the United States and according to a 2015 NASA study, they take up three times as much space as the next largest irrigated crop, corn. These familiar patches of green require 9 billion gallons of water per day, around 90 million pounds of fertilizers and 75 million pounds of pesticides per year. Plus, the lawnmowers that maintain them largely...
SANTA FE, Texas (KTRK) — Painted on Santa Fe City Hall, a mural serves as a reminder of the May 18 attack, but directly behind the building, there’s a place that could one day help survivors cope with the trauma. Mandy Jordan leads the nonprofit Keep Santa Fe Beautiful. Jordan’s working to turn the greenspace behind City Hall into a therapeutic garden,...
INDIANAPOLIS — There is a burgeoning group of generationally and ethnically diverse women growing food in central Indiana. The face of agriculture is changing, and there is great momentum behind the trend of more women involved in agricultural enterprises, said Eliana Blaine, soil health outreach coordinator at Marion County Soil and Water Conservation District. “Women...
Dr. Willem Van Cotthem experimented with this vertical gardening system using recycled plastic bottles stacked and attached to a fence. He began with the 2011 growing season and continued through 2012 with great success. This type of garden is cheap to start and is extremely effective for those who do not have a lot of growing space. A system like this could...
More mushrooms? A proposed bill in the Florida Senate could usher in more beds of beets at homes statewide by barring local governments from regulating vegetable gardens. It would create a Catch-22 for cities such as Orlando, where city officials bristle at preemptive moves from Tallahassee and are looking to expand urban agriculture. City officials said this week...
Before they might open up selected Eau Claire parks to beekeepers, City Council members want more details as they grapple with how that could affect residents who are allergic to the insects’ stings. The council discussed potential changes Monday night to its ordinance that allows beekeeping, which are expected to come back for a vote later this month after undergoing...
Whether you’re a newcomer to the city or a born-and-bred Seattleite, it’s no surprise that the Emerald City has a reputation for being green in more ways than one. In July, Seattle became the first city in the nation to ban the use of plastic straws at cafés and restaurants. In 2015, composting became not just a nice alternative to trash and recycling, but mandatory...
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Saratoga County is a microcosm of New York’s diverse $5 billion agriculture industry, which ranks nationally as a leader for goods such as yogurt, cheese and sour cream (first); apples and maple syrup (second); and milk production (third). Many more opportunities such as farm-to-school initiatives, urban gardening and enhanced marketing...
Detroit — Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow on Monday championed reforms to encourage urban agriculture in the 2018 Farm Bill. Stabenow, a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, urged President Donald Trump to sign the bipartisan legislation that would widen a safety net for farmers, encourage conservation efforts...
Bowery Farming Inc., a two-year-old startup that uses robotics to cultivate crops indoors, is on track for more growth. The New York-based company plans to announce on Wednesday that it raised $90 million from investors including Alphabet Inc.’s GV and Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, said Bowery’s co-founder and CEO, Irving Fain. The company declined...
