Politics meets horticultural therapy + underground greenhouses

Politics is top of mind for everyone in the USA and beyond as well. So it was interesting to see the Republican National Congress, Real Clear Politics and several credit unions in Ohio have joined forces to create a year-round horticultural therapy program. The Democrats are doing the same soon!

-Solutions for Change has been the leader in aquaponic education and production. They are tripling their size this year thanks to a $1,000,000 dollar grant.

-In Minneapolis an experimental sunken greenhouse has come through the winter, none the worse for wear, while still producing vegetables. This could be a turning point for those in colder climates.

-The insect farming industry has just reached the next level, as Mark Zuckerberg's sister has invested in a leading company. 

The Super Bowl's super green roof

The Super Bowl is today, as you probably know. The Big 50!  And Levi Stadium is pretty proud of it's start-of-the-art facility, including a massive green roof which boasts 16 indigenous plant species and a handful of others used in the restaurant on site.

The Great Green Wall starts to grow

After historic climate change talks people are encouraged good things, actionable steps, will actually be taken by governments around the world. One such vital initiative is the Great Green Wall.

Ten countries are offering more degraded and deforested land and France has offered over 5 billion dollars to help its former colonies with environmentally friendly projects, including the Wall. That's a huge deal! The project has languished due to lack of investment and under the threat of extremism. Experts worry if real economic opportunities aren't created, in addition to the Wall, the trees will end up being used by those living near it.

-Speaking of desertification in Africa, there's a new greenhouse which just hit the market which uses could be a boon for dry lands. Work is being done in the USA as well, California in particular, in an attempt to solve a problem which knows no bounds. The City of Los Angeles has partnered with private industry and several non-profits to craft design solutions and a digital tool which helps cities in dry climates become self-sufficient in terms of water while delivering additional benefits, including improving performance in energy, the environment, and public health. The initiative is called the Drylands Resilience Initiative.

-Outside Atlanta a partnership with Georgia Tech university is developing the highway of the future. Some features? Use the right-of-way along the roadside to farm biofuel plants like sunflowers, corn and canola, combining sound barriers with solar panels, incorporating hog manure as a binding agent in lieu of asphalt, and creating living billboards made of plant material.

Synthetic grass stores are spreading

Found primarily in California and Arizona, fake grass stores are beginning to pop up around the country. Definitely a sign of the landscaping times.

São Paulo's green roof and wall incentive & agrihoods take off

If there's one thing I learned this week, all good things come from the NY Times.

While reading about São Paulo mayor, who is trying all sorts of things to reduce gridlock, I stumbled upon other initiatives he has enacted including the stipulation that companies must pay for "environmental conservation works" and can do so by installing green walls or green roofs, like the one above.

-Two weeks ago in Santa Clara a plan was selected for a 1.5 acre parcel. It includes 165 affordable senior rental units and much, much more. If you want a list of prominent agrihood/agriburbia developments across the nation, one was convenient posted last week.

That article is one of three I saw over the next 10 days detailing newish and future agrihoods.

-An interesting pairing has Back to the Roots teaming with Sodexo to supply 2,300 schools with garden tool kits, including aquaponics kits, mushroom mini-farms and their “garden-in-a-can”. There’s curriculum for the toolkits as well.

-Vancouver is now offering $10 trees to encourage home owners to build up their urban forest. Fruit trees are available too, including prunes!

-India is working on creating a green wall of their own, this one featuring palm trees to stop sea coast erosion.

Climate change dominoes & the lowline

Over the years, loyal readers, you'll notice the blog has changed a bit. I used to just focus on individual projects, mine and others. But these days there's a lot to talk about on the macro scale. And I prefer that, to be truthful, it's nice to discuss things which effect us all.

Case in point how climate change is changing living infrastructure. I think this may become a regular feature of mine.

Some experts have asserted that drought conditions, brought about by climate change, are partially responsible for increased movement of people in affected regions, as people both seek resources peacefully and violently. Even in peaceful parts of the world, climate change is effecting housing development. Which means, it could increase the amount of vegetation...if a developer decide that it isn't worth their time to erect structures there the plants remain. There are so many questions which arise from this. If one cannot build further away from cities for people to commute, does that mean there will be less vacant lots, maybe even parks, with in city limits? Will less green in the urban environment mean more stressed out people, as strong correlations have been drawn between the amount of plants around human beings and their level of stress?
Will this mean more creative uses for underground space...like the Lowline?

We live in very interesting times!

The World's Biggest Green Roof - coming soon...

I try to stay away from commenting on projects still in the development phase, but if a developer is willing to make the largest green roof in the world, at a price tag of at least $300 million, I think it’s worth paying attention.
The idea apparently sprouted from a community consultation. In the future, maybe they could even have their green roof design by children, as is being done in Stockholm with the help of Mine Craft!

-The Great Green Wall is about 10% done, 330 miles out of 4,750 is a great start. However if the UN estimates are true, that by 2025 two thirds of Africa's arable land will be covered by desert, we had better get a move on to plant the other 90 plus percent.

-Speaking of changes, Americans’ lawns gobble up more land than Texas, that’s three times larger “than any irrigated crop in the U.S.A.”  How will that change in the coming decades?

-Here’s what Toronto could have done if the City council had decided to tear down part of their Gardiner Expressway. Welcome to Providence!

GILA word of the week: Green roof + cool roof = cool-green roof!

Talk about smart. This social entrepreneur grows plants on vacant lots in the USA, which are harvested as dyes for garments, which are in turn woven by women in India.

-This is the first article about horticultural therapy, that I've read, detailing how it helps young people!

-Farmscape Gardens is the very definition of "under the radar". They maintain 400 gardens in California, but very few people outside the state (according to my unscientific poll!) have heard of them.

 -According to a new research paper by a team of Australians, just 40 seconds looking at nature can sharpen the mind. Last week seemed to be the time to drop hard core research, because a literature review revealed that despite almost 12,000 relevant studies there needs to be more emphasis focused on finding a direct relationship between food security, nutrition and urban agriculture.
And last, but not least, what would happen if you combined the features of a green roof and cool roof? You get the cool green roof and a total game changer.

$46 million for 1,800 urban farms in Seoul

Lots to talk about over the last week, municipalities across the world are doing some incredible things revolving around urban agriculture and green roofs:

-The government of the city of Seoul will inject about $46 million dollars into urban agriculture to hopefully build 1,800 gardens in parks, schools and rooftops, all of which will be within a ten-minute walk!

-Staying abroad, a small aquaponics project has been funded in Trinidad, it's great another island nation is jumping on board. But I wanted to discuss semantics. What do you think looks better, $.5 million or $500,000? Intuitively I know it's the same, but there's something about seeing the decimal which makes me think it's smaller than if we saw all those zeros.

Stateside the biggest news of the last week comes from Houston...let me repeat, Houston!...has given the go ahead and favorable terms, for an aquaponics operation in an abandoned building. The company agrees to apply almost $5 million dollars into the project.

-Living architecture has reached new heights when towns like Traverse, the tart cherry capital of the world with 15,000 people, is considering green roof credits!

-In California's Napa Valley one of the country's most eco-friendly developments just got the green light.  They are calling it a "housing experiment", Napa Creek Village promises greener design (LEED platinum complete with green walls) and a path to home ownership via a rent-to-own mechanism!
 
-Oregon's state legislature is considering property tax credits for those who start urban agriculture operations.

-Up the coast a bit Vancouver will convert some of the caretaker houses for their parks system into food hubs, to plant gardens, share ideas on producing, preserving and preparing food and more. It seems they have been also used for art over the years, hopefully that continues as well.

-And this last story comes from a college. Cornell University now has a college level course, from which you get credits AND a permaculture certificate once you are done!

$2.1 million dollars for aquaponics research

Lethbridge College in Alberta has been at the forefront of aquaponics research for over a decade, really it's the place to go in North America. So the fact that they got over $2 million dollars makes a lot of sense, they deserve it and I can't wait to see what comes from their efforts!

-How something is labelled makes a huge difference. So I often find it interesting to hear the phrases of English speakers outside of the UK or USA. In this article this Vietnamese woman calls the produce she collects from her rooftop garden "clean" food, because it's organic. How would things change elsewhere, if organic produces co-opted the phrase "clean" for their produce?

-Installing a green roof, with the help of a couple of professionals, can be a fantastic community event. And it's tremendously satisfying to put the plants in and stand back as you water the plants to help them settle in. But I have never heard of what these folks in Buffalo are trying to do, getting people to also GROW the plants at home, take care of them and bring them to the installation.

-Following up on last week's email, if you want to see pictures of Patrick Blanc's home, and not just a video, check this out.

-I don't think people took the California drought as something to be worried about until the mandatory cuts came last week. What will this mean for landscapers? A switch to more permaculture based gardens as people look to grow more of their own food? More xeroscaping? More painted grass?
The mayor, seemingly, has taken this crisis to heart and wants to weave sustainability into every city department and proposes things like allowing food stamps to be used at farmer's markets. Which would be great, especially because in 20 years the number of farmer's markets has quadrupled across the USA!

-Please indulge me for a second; I have a little pet peeve. I'd like to have a definition for "vertical farming", because I realize it's not something everyone agrees on. And I think you'll see that, as time goes on, there will need to be standardization of the language because the technologies required for growing plants 2 stories high versus in a plastic drum half the height of an average human, are vastly different.

-Here's a KickStarter campaign everyone can benefit from. If these entrepreneurs get their funding, they will create the first DIY program to turn anyone into a mushroom farmer.

What does California's drought mean for the green roof industry?

Some would argue it's long overdue, others think it doesn't go far enough, but the fact that California has it's first water restrictions ever is a game changer. The state has entered a different era and with a mega-drought possible for the state and multiple regions, what California does now may end up being a template for many parts of the American Southwest and Plains.

The living architecture industry is still burgeoning in North America. In a sense, that's great. The industry still has room for growth and innovation. I predict a few things will happen:

-In the green roof industry we'll see more options developed as system providers and developers react appropriately to a new normal. We will probably see more research into drought tolerant plants and maybe even development of "green roofs which aren't green", beige roofs, if you will. I'm thinking xeriscaping on rooftops, with sand being the medium of choice, for the semi-arid regions especially.

-The green wall industry will go through some changes as well. Plants from tropical regions are favored in the industry. With water becoming a more valued resource, I think we'll see green walls featuring a wider array of plants and maybe even more green walls incorporating preserved plants and bryophytes.

The next few years will definitely be interesting!

Plant for free on the devil's strip

What do you call that piece of land between the sidewalk and street?

I had no idea. It appears it's often called the "road verge". And it goes my many other names, tree belt, utility strip, out lawn. Well whatever you call it in Los Angeles it's city owned and you can now plant on it for free. Question...do you want to, if it's in a high traffic area? Maybe that's why it goes by another name: the devil's strip.

-San Jose, California seems very serious about offering tax breaks to owners of undeveloped land. The purpose? Agree to a 5 year lease for urban agriculture. 

-Want to bulid your own multi-story worm hotel but not pay a dime? These munificent souls have posted some open source design. Download the blueprints and tweak to your satisfaction.

-Chulalongkorn University has invested about $180,000 USD in a 17,000 square foot green roof on a nearby mall. This is the biggest green roof I know of in Thailand and they got very good bang for their buck!

-It's always great to have more scientific evidence detailing the efficiency of green roofs. Here's a study of some green roofs in Italy which has determined "incoming heat into the building through the roof is 60% lower than the incoming heat without vegetation."

-Two professors point out something which seems obvious in retrospect, holding 20% of the Earth's fresh water, how climate change affects the coastlines of the Great Lakes is something we should pay attention to!

The big question...will food one day be a government regulated industry?!

In New York a few organizations have banded together to establish a rather large shade food forest. Stay tuned, this is definitely a first for that area.

-Here's an awesome infographic detailing the major ways buildings can grow food.

-It was just last week I was writing about agrihoods, here's one in Chicago in the works. 

-A number of people are drawn to aquaponics because it offers self-sufficiency. Two brothers hope that one day every Native American tribe will have their own operation.

-I was reading an article about how vertical farming have yet to take off in New York City, despite the best efforts of many enthusiasts. One entrepreneur thinks things could heat up as urban agriculture systems become embraced as amenities.
For me there a few things which are hard to square. If food is essential why is it so lightly regulated? One day, could we see food be more closely regulated, since so much of our food is made up of a regulated resource...water. With California experiencing droughts, will politicians there (maybe in 10 years???) and in other drought stricken locations advise, then perhaps incentivize, farmers to grow certain water friendly crops? Will home owners battle farmers for the rights to water and how they can use it?
Will the government one day be responsible for growing food for everyone...and locally?


Speaking of land battles, here's one happening today in Ontario as farmers disagree with conservationists about the use of an urban park.

Edible Education 101: Michael Pollan (2015)

Over the years this course as attracted some of the best in the food system business. The UC Berkeley organizers deserve huge kudos, not only are the students terribly lucky but we are too that the internet exists!

Occupy the Farm...the movie

I'm sure everyone remembers reading about the battle between the University of California and neighborhood farmers. Here's a trailer for the documentary of what happened and how...

You've heard of the Bitcoin, now meet the Beetcoin

A new way to invest in local agriculture!

-San Francisco legislator, David Chiu, is proposing a green roof bylaw for all-new buildings in San Francisco.

-Every once in a while the Ecologist puts together one nice long blog with all sorts of interesting links. Here's one which has a ton of great articles about vertical farming, including a couple of ventures in Japan.

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?

Don't put crocodiles in your rooftop garden!

It's wonderful when public officials just "Get It!" The mayor of Montreal seems to be one of them, when it comes to urban agriculture. He's encouraging Montrealers to grow food in public spaces and relaxing zoning laws to allow more commercial and residential urban agriculture, in addition to giving them the right to sell to grocery stores or sell on their farms!

-There were a couple of articles about a living wall in California which had failed and is now a communal eyesore. I wanted to see what kind of living wall this was, it seems to be more of a vegetated sound barrier than a "living wall", in my view. What do you think?

-A new title holder for the world's largest vertical garden/living wall has been crowned.

-Check out this handy garden sensor which can relay real-time data about the status of your garden and if you like the idea, support them on Kickstarter.

-We need a 596 acres-esque company in every city! By piecing together every master plan in New York City history they have found sites that were planned open spaces that were behind fences and opened them for public use and helped residents understand why things look the way they do.

-Lastly to follow up on Monday's post about rooftop terraculture, if you're going to do it, make sure to stock your rooftop pool with easy to handle animals. So that would eliminate crocodiles!

New ways to quantify the benefits of green infrastructure

K-12 Minnesota teachers have released a comprehensive new guide for integrating school gardens with academic standards. At 268 page, there plenty for you to use as well.

-With land becoming more and more scarce, several folks have proposed planting community gardens under power lines. In California, there is a new push and in 2012 a Torontonian won a design award for the same idea.

-The benefits of green infrastructure are at least a dozen fold. But historically it has been difficult to quantify how much a green roof or green wall can increase rental and property values or reduce the cost associated with flooding. The NRDC thought it was about time that these issues were addressed.

-Sydney, Australia has a new draft green roof and green walls policy. I am not sure how this is different than the last one. The next step for Sydney is incentives! That would be exciting!

he draft policy and implementation plan promotes the measures as a means of improving air quality, supporting biodiversity and creating new places for relaxation in the city centre.

At the moment, there are around 96,000 square metres of green roofs and walls across Sydney and the trend continues to grow rapidly. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the city is receiving around one new development application featuring a green roof or wall each week, and that there are more than 50 projects already approved for construction.

“Green roofs and walls are not only beautiful additions to buildings, they also improve air quality, clean stormwater and provide a natural habitat for biodiversity. We want to support this emerging industry, give local providers a boost and help city residents and businesses discover the benefits of installing green roofs and walls,” Moore said when announcing the new draft policy.

- See more at: http://sourceable.net/sydneys-new-green-roofs-walls-policy/#sthash.5vBRqvJm.dpu

Permaculture for Humanity: Beyond Buildings and Food

Larry Santoyo is a well-known, southern California based permaculture designer.
After 25 years he's accumulated a lot of experience and is kind enough to share...