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Where Industry Once Hummed, Urban Garden Finds Success
Jon Hurdle, New York Times
PHILADELPHIA – Amid the tightly packed row houses of North Philadelphia, a pioneering urban farm is providing fresh local food for a community that often lacks it, and making money in the process.
Greensgrow, a one-acre plot of raised beds and greenhouses on the site of a former steel-galvanizing factory, is turning a profit by selling its own vegetables and herbs as well as a range of produce from local growers, and by running a nursery selling plants and seedlings.
The farm earned about $10,000 on revenue of $450,000 in 2007, and hopes to make a profit of 5 percent on $650,000 in revenue in this, its 10th year, so it can open another operation elsewhere in Philadelphia.
… The farm, in the low-income Kensington section, about three miles from the skyscrapers of downtown Philadelphia, also makes its own honey – marketed as “Honey From the Hood” – from a colony of bees that produce about 80 pounds a year. And it makes biodiesel for its vehicles from the waste oil produced by the restaurants that buy its vegetables.
Among urban farms, Greensgrow distinguishes itself by being a bridge between rural producers and urban consumers, and by having revitalized a derelict industrial site, said Ian Marvy, executive director of Added Value, an urban farm in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.
It has also become a model for others by showing that it is possible to become self-supporting in a universe where many rely on outside financial support, Mr. Marvy said.
(20 May 2008)
Your friend, the kitchen
Paul Roberts, Los Angeles Times
We’ve been fed high prices and bad nutrition for too long — break free of the food industry and start cooking.
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If Americans are feeling frustrated about food, who can blame us? It’s not just the bugs in the burger or the hormones in Chinese seafood — or even the skyrocketing prices. It’s that most of us feel powerless to fix things. We may be a nation of do-it-yourselfers when it comes to deck repair or tax returns, but even as our industrial food system grows less reliable, our reliance on that system has never been higher.
What’s to be done? Growing our own isn’t a solid option anymore. Beyond the occasional backyard garden, few of us have the capacity to produce our own food. But until the last few decades, most Americans still exercised a lot of control over the quality and cost of the food entering our home: We cooked almost every day. We bought ingredients and turned them into meals; we planned menus and stocked pantries, all of which required thinking about, and being connected to, our food.
Today, despite a mania for cookbooks, celebrity chefs and 24-hour programming on the Food Network, cooking is a dying art. According to the Department of Agriculture, half of our food dollars are spent on items cooked outside the home, and almost half of the meals served in the average U.S. household lack even a single from-scratch item.
… If we’ve lost our kitchen skills and our connection to food, both can be regained. Schools are bringing back home economics classes. Cooking classes are gaining in popularity, and some cookbook publishers are simplifying recipes to help novices find their way.
Yes, we’ve heard about kitchen renaissances before. But this one comes with a potent incentive: When done thoughtfully, home-cooked food is not just healthier, safer and better tasting but much cheaper than the factory version.
Paul Roberts is the author of the new book, “The End of Food.”
(21 May 2008)
High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules
Associated Press
High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.
T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits.
“This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,” he said. “We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.”
(21 May 2008)
Organic Garden and Small Farm Skills – Hoemanship
Gene Logsdon, Organic To Be
In his fascinating book, The Farm and the Village (Faber Paperbacks, London, 1969), George Ewart Evans points out that the village blacksmith of the 6th to 17th centuries found himself very much in demand if he could make a hoe blade thinner than those of his competitors without sacrificing strength. The reason was simple enough. Not only would a thinner blade slice more easily into the soil, but more importantly, it would weigh less, by at least a couple of ounces. To people who hoed for 10 hours a day all week, a couple of ounces made a big difference.
I can appreciate that observation, since in addition to normal garden hoeing, I hoe ½ acre of corn twice during May and June, and I hoe dock, thistles, and other weeds routinely from an 8-acre pasture field. The only hoe I’ve been able to find to suit me is an ancient one I bought years ago for 50¢ at a farm sale. This hoe is so old that about a third of its original blade is worn completely away, and what is left is not half the thickness of a new hoe blade. Light, its edge sharpened well, the hoe does not tire me nearly as much as new ones, and the fact that the blade is smaller by a third means I can maneuver it between plants in the row much more easily.
… Hoeing Know-How
The secret of using a hoe properly is that one should never actually “chop” with it, at least not to the point of raising it more than knee-high. If the blade is sharp and angled properly, you can set it on the soil, and, by pulling it toward you with a downward pressure of your arms, it will go into the soil well enough. In weeding, you need never raise the hoe more than a couple of inches above the surface on your backswing. As often as not, I let the hoe scrape or scuffle right on the surface as I push it ahead for the next draw, filling in with loose dirt where I have just hoed out weeds and the dirt around them.
Excerpted from Gene Logsdon’s “Practical Skills: A Revival of forgotten Crafts, Techniques, and Traditions” © 1985 Gene Logsdon and Rodale Press, Inc.
Illustration Credit: Barbara Field
(20 May 2008)
Important traditional knowlege in case we have to start thinking about raising food again. -BA
