Concevoir un jardin en permaculture

Four Community Food jobs available in Toronto

Toronto's FoodShare has 4 jobs available, 2 Community Food Animators and 2 Student Nutrition Community Development Animators.

Urban foraging...in your grocery store

Those mushrooms you picked up for dinner tonight, might not be exactly what you thought and might be a revelation to science: a brand new species!

The next city to get a food forest is...Charlestown!!!

Green infrastructure professionals should note, according to Portland urban planning experts, that if you want a successful park, well-attended and appreciated, your planning should cater to women.

-Alterrus systems is gone, but their loss is Affinor Growers gain. Although they've focused on marijuana production until now, they see this as a great opportunity and gateway into the vertical growing sector.

-Caribbean countries are not just interested in starting aquaponics projects, they're interested hosting conferences too!

-Speaking of aquaponics, 2014 has unleashed a number of Kickstarter campaigns for home systems, some beautiful, some functional. Some both. Backed by industry leaders The Aquaponic Source, Oh-Uchi-Saien and Grants for Plants, this new system will get a lot of buzz and hsould be worth the money.

-Charlestown, West Virginia, is the next city to get an urban orchard/food forest. Who would've thought that???!!!

Turn Candlestick Park into a giant aquaponics farm

I know, I know that I made a pledge not to talk about wild renderings. But I couldn't help it this time.
This one is wild, but with a little tweaking perhaps doable?

A couple of weeks ago I saw this urban farming design to retrofit Candlestick Park. (Paul McCartney's concert in mid-August was the last scheduled event.) What will happen with it now?

Who knows what the price tag would be for something like this. Astronomical, I am sure. But something should be done with it soon, did you see how the Silverdome looks after 10 years of disuse?

 

In 1975 the Silverdome cost $55.7 million to build, which is roughly $245 million in today's dollars, according to Deadspin. In 2009, it was purchased at an auction for $583,000.
Such a shame.

Something should be done, and fast. I think the second picture is key. It's going to be expensive to retrofit and the urban farming is a great idea, but what about if we could make it half as expensive? By that, I mean make the stadium a huge aquaponics operation. The floor is a fish farm and then the water can be pumped up into the stands (where the plants grow) and trickle its way back down.

Sound crazy? Not when you consider shopping malls have spontaneously become fish ponds already! Here's one in Thailand where someone introduced a small population of Koi and Catfish.

What do you think?

Singapore - the green leaders keep pioneering

Singapore is definitely a green infrastructure and living architecture leader. And they proved it once again with the announcement of $41 million dollars (USD) in funding for tropics oriented green research (into technologies like green roofs) and incentives for green retrofits.  The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations even dropped by recently to have a look at what they are doing.

-A Calgary urban agriculture farmer wants to create the world's biggest farm. Which made me think, the biggest is a tremendous achievement, what would be even better is the world's most PRODUCTIVE urban agriculture operation. Case in point, Calgary was just hit with a September snow storm. Just being big isn't great if you can't produce food. 

-Trinidad and Tobago has another aquaponics project in the works.

-Why do people reject urban agriculture operations in their neighbourhoods? A report from Johns Hopkins investigates and proponents to take note.

-If you're in the field no doubt you've had to address the questions or assertions as to why urban agriculture can't work. This article summarizes all of them, with plenty of snark and condescension (why not ask legal marijuana growers how much light they require, instead of illegal ones?) to make it go down easier.

verticiel releases resource guide on starting your own green roof and wall business

After years in the living architecture business, and helping a bunch of people along the way, I thought it was time. Time to compile some of the resources I discovered and used over the years to help someone new to the field get their business up and running so they can join in making this planet better than we found it.

Let me know what you think!

Open source indoor farming courtesy of MIT

When starting out I know urban farmers often think about raising flowers. Some how that idea usually falls off the table. Well in New Orleans someone is actually doing it in vacant lots.

 -The urban agriculture movement seems to be dominated by women, does anyone out there have additional theories as to why this is so? The New York Times does ask an important question,
"if urban ag work comes to be seen as women’s work, what will that mean for the movement’s farming model, mission and pay?"
And is the model even viable? Recent articles, like this one, assert they may lead to sustainable jobs only if the ship is a very tight one.

-Looks like there's another professor interested in food at MIT. Unlike the rest of the indoor farming industry he's making all of his findings public. Kudos!

Three upcoming green roof conferences

In Atlanta, Georgia in a couple of weeks, Green Roofs For Healthy Cities is holding a regional symposium. It's nice to have more local gatherings staged throughout the year, the GRHC conferences always seem to be held at the worst possible times for me.
Sydney, Australia has its World Green Infrastructure Congress October 7-10. Hosted by Green Roofs Australia, the scope includes urban greening, green roofs and living facades.

In Qingdao, China in mid-October look out for the Qingdao International Ecocity and Green Roof Conference. Put together by the International Rooftop Landscaping Association, conferences in China tend to be a big affair.

Hope you can take one of them in!

A verticiel green roof - 5 years later

It's the end of year 5 of tracking this rooftop. To check out how it has changed over the years, check out last years' look back.

Here's a recent photo:

Some notes from this year...
 
-Did you know after a large chive flower goes to seed, it has about 300 seeds? And a dandelion...about the same amount! How do I know? I actually counted a few on a rooftop!!!
-Moss mats can make an effective weed blocker.
-These festuca grasses can be tricky. One of them I thought was dead. Low and behold, it came back this year and even produced seeds!
-The Sedum spurium "dragon's blood" (from the left of the stone path) and Sedum spurium "tricolor" (on the far right) are slowly overtaking the Sedum angelina (in the middle). Notice how the yellow patches are decreasing each year. They are drooping on top of the angelina, sprouting new plants and growing on top of it. It's difficult to see but the sedum angelina is invading new territory by growing low to the ground and filling in space underneath its' neighbors.
-I need to look up this phenomenon where tree seedlings change colors to blend into their surroundings. I've noticed the maple seedlings will become more red or green based on what the sedum species are doing next to them...regardless of the season.
-You can see the chives are amazing. Slowly, but surely they are popping up in places where they weren't years ago.
-The sedum mat in some places is 2 inches thick.