Introducing skirret, the "it" vegetable of 2016?

Montreal had their Seedy Weekend earlier in the month and one gardener brought skirret to sell. This is how trends often start, you see a vegetable or fruit at one or two farmer's markets and then WHAM, it's everywhere. Let's see if this underappreciated plant takes off in 2016.

Will recovering food waste get big bucks on Shark Tank?

Happy New Year everyone!

We're several days in and hopefully the resolutions are still intact! If you're able to, resolve to watch Shark Tank on Friday, Hungry Harvest will be pitching their idea for a CSA specializing in recovered (too small, not round enough, too big etc.) foods.  This is a big idea!

-Highline College in Chicago got a nice chunk of change, $80,000, to recruit residents from the area to participate in their Urban Agriculture certificate program. The 9 month certificate and 80 acre campus allows unique opportunities to get your hands dirty.

 -In Kenya the government added to their constitution Article 21, which states "Kenyans'..have the right "to be free from hunger and have adequate food of acceptable quality”. What this means in practical terms has yet to be determined.

-Speaking of practical terms, the Montreal Gazette asked a few experts how Montreal can reduce it's climate change impact. Green roofs were on the list and lots of other great ideas too, like urban gardening.

Quezon City signs incentives for green roofs and green walls

 
Quezon City, the Philippines largest city, recently approved tax discounts for residential, industrial or commercial buildings which install green roof or green walls! This makes it the first, and only municipality on Earth, to offer incentives for both green technologies!

Last week was filled with so many big news stories...

-In Montreal an organic farming initiative was launched to cultivate vacant land. The hope is by 2019 to have an operation "the size of 55 football fields"!

-Across the province in Quebec City the first rooftop farm on a homeless shelter began it's growing season. It will supply about 1/3 of its growing needs.

-In Wisconsin, the Aquaponics Innovation Center opened last week. With the help of $677,000 in federal funding, the "center will provide education and resources for economic and workforce development". If you're really interested in a career in aquaponics as a career, have a peek at this new job site.

-Yesterday was National Permaculture Day in Australia. I'll have a roundup later in the week on the best activities in Oz.

-A new agrihood is sprouting up in North Carolina on 230 acres of functioning farmland. The developers envision educational events for students, in addition to the working community farm.

-The vertical farming sector is growing every day. However for most people some of the most basic facts are hard to find out. For instance, how big is vertical farming or indoor farming worldwide? In China, according to one researcher, they grow 25% of their food indoors already!
How much does it cost to start a vertical farming operation? In South Korea at least we know it's roughly 10 times the cost of a standard, glass greenhouse.

Australian children's hospital goes green wall crazy + "rain vortex" in Singapore airport

-Lady Cilento Children's Hopsital in South Brisbane, Australia spared no expense in designing and building their bring new children's hospital. Look at these incredible green walls and rooftop gardens!

-Have a gander at this Singapore airport, which is in the works, the picture below shows their 40 m rain vortex in the middle of the building!

-Soil research is helping us learn more about contamination at individual urban gardens and also giving us clues to look for overall. Here's an important take away: "Urban gardeners should consider Kentucky bluegrass the 'canary in the mine shaft' for foods grown in the city, especially near busy roads and transportation corridors."

-Here’s a new app which helps urban farmers know where they can go and what the rules are. Urb.ag, “hones in on the location of where someone might want to start a farm and then applies the exact codes and what is required of the new law.” This app could save a potential farmer a lot of time and hassle.

-Could San Francisco's New Bay Bridge turn into the next iconic green infrastructure project. Dare I say it...highlinesque?

-Montreal, in two years time will have something iconic of its own down at the Old Port.

-For you green roof geeks, here's an interesting study about the carbon sequesteration potential of using sewage sludge in green roofs in China.

-Most people remark how cities are becoming less and less green, some parts of New York City have become more green over the years and that’s even before their Million Trees NYC campaign. Here are the photographs to prove it.

-Among everyone's favorites, like sweet corn, potatoes and tomatoes and lesser known treats (crambe...cuphea...luffa gourds?), the USDA has now recommended aquaponics as a viable crop for diversification.

Monsoon rooftop gardens + app to help Californians save water

-I definitely want to see more articles like this! Here's how to set up a succesful roof garden for monsoon veggies like sheem and borboti!

-Both Montreal and Charlottetown (P.E.I.) are turning to green roofs, Montreal is looking to streamline their approval process and Charlottetown is investigating green roof legislation. 
 
-A few weeks ago I wondered whether a place like Syria should be using more temporary agricultural systems  than rooftop farming, it just didn't seem feasible to dodge bullets while tending to rooftop gardens. It seems aquaponics systems are now being used in Gaza.

-I'm not sure if vertical farming can work, but my takeaway from this article is that the business is as much about operations (in particular, software) as it is about offerings.

fighting in Gaza has forced farmers and herders to abandon their lands and has paralysed fishing activities, bringing local food production to a halt and severely affecting livelihoods, the United Nation’s FAO warned last week.
Recovery in the agriculture sector, once hostilities cease, will require significant external assistance over the long term. And this is where we see opportunities for alternative agriculture systems for smallholder farmers and families. Aquaponics and hydroponics can be done on rooftops, and it is especially meaningful in areas where water is severely limited.
The FAO estimates that the recent fighting has resulted in substantial direct damage to Gaza’s 17,000 hectares of croplands as well as much of its agricultural infrastructure, including greenhouses, irrigation systems, animal farms, fodder stocks and fishing boats.
According to the latest update Gaza has lost half of its population of poultry birds (broilers and layers) either due to direct hits on their shelters or lack of water, feed or care resulting from access restrictions.
Around 64,000 head of small ruminants are in need of animal feed and water in order to avoid further animal deaths and the additional erosion of herders’ productive assets.
Meanwhile losses by Gaza’s fishing sector so far are estimated at 234.6 tonnes over the period 9 July – 10 August –equivalent to 9.3 percent of local fishers’ yearly catch.
“Up to now, ongoing military operations have prevented detailed assessments of damages to agriculture from being completed,” said Ciro Fiorillo, head of FAO’s office in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip imports most of what it eats — however locally produced food represents an important source of nutritious and affordable food, and some 28,600 people in Gaza rely on farming (19,000 people), livestock raising (6,000) and fishing (3,600) for their livelihoods.
“Under the most recent ceasefire many farmers and herders are now able to access their lands, however resumption of food production faces serious obstacles given the damages sustained and shortages of water, electricity, inputs and financial resources, as well as ongoing uncertainty regarding the possible resumption of military activities”, said Fiorillo.

- See more at: http://www.greenprophet.com/2014/08/why-gaza-needs-hydroponics-and-aquaponics-for-food-security/#sthash.IciZDFYI.dpuf

-How can food transform healthcare for both the patient and provider? Will Allen will speak at the Transform symposium to let us know.

-What some thought was impossible has come to pass, Canadian Pacific has torn up some community garden plots over 15 years old. Naturally Vancouverites are not happy.

-Chicago's urban fruit orchard featured rare and unusual apples has gone quickly from concept to reality and is now a go.

-Climate Central has published a study which states 57 of the 60 largest cities in the U.S. have significantly higher temperatures than adjacent rural areas. In some cases those discrepancies had reached a difference in daytime highs by 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Yikes! Denver is going to need more green roofs and green infrastructure...soon! Florida has done something quite interesting, they've purchased some land to close the gap in their greenway and trail system so now it looks like you can travel from west coast to east. What do you think, Denver? A good idea?

-Despite a three year drought, one of the worst in 500 years (what!!!), Californians still aren't saving water. Hopefully an app, will raise awareness...even a little!

Sydney's green infrastructure plan

-Sydney, Australia has been working with some green roof guiding principles and standards for a couple of years. They've released a formalized plan to green new development and private land, streets, add parks and expand their urban forest. Still no rebate or cash incentives, unfortunately.

-A Montreal borough is trying to streamline their evaluation process so that green roofs can go up on buildings in less than 6 months.

-The EPA has given one of its highest honors, the Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Education, to one of the first teachers to incorporate a food producing green roof garden into his curriculum.

- Two years ago came the first warnings about possibly contaminated soil in Boston urban gardens...and perhaps elsewhere. Here's a comprehensive article about the presence and danger of the number one contaminant, lead.

-There's still a lot of research which needs to be done in aquaponics. Hopefully with the explosion in enthusiasts will come some new and cheap ways to solve common problems. Here's an innovative one, use old refrigerators in your outdoor aquaponics system. Speaking of which, did you know the vertical farming industry now has its own trade group?

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!

Will Montreal be next to adopt green roof bylaw?

With 3 out of 4 candidates professing their love for green roofs, and the fourth open to "encouraging" their spread, will the 8th biggest city in North America be the next to adopt green roof incentives and a green roof bylaw? Stay tuned...

Green roof to extend over entire European city

Lots of little stories, that fit neither here nor there. But I can't forget to mention...

-A great aquaponics news item from the last week. I've talked a bit about aquaponics being used in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. More programs are underway, including this one which boasts an aquaponics co-op.

-ICLEI and RUAF have teamed up to improve food and nutrition security of urban populations through training and technical assistance.

-City planners in Sudbury are entertaining the idea of asking residents to grow more of their food, while government officials in the Montreal suburb of Côte-St-Luc are easily the most excited elected officials I have ever seen. Talk about support!

-An entire city is slated to receive green roofs! EuropaCity is an entirely new city to be constructed on 200 acres of land in a suburb of Paris.

-For those outside Chicago who can't see the tranformation of the Plant this article helps keep us up to date.

Green roof lesson plans

South Korea is making a push to become the world's urban agriculture hub.  Buoyed by over $2 million in funding, they hope a 12 fold increase will spur innovation and development.

-$2 million is a nice chunk of change, but that won't allow South Korea to win the coveted title with some cities, like Montreal, trying their darndest to make urban agriculture part of their brand.

-Following up on last week's PBS special on green infrastructure comes a lesson plan for teachers to help their students get the most out of the video. If that's not enough, here are even more lesson plans.

Montreal's urban agriculture conference begins

I hope that everyone's Mother's Day was fantastic. The GILA (green infrastructure, living architecture) community took a break like everyone else, but there were a couple of interesting events/articles. The biggest was a guest blog post from Will Allen on Forbes.com making a call for all to support the next green revolution. Of course we cannot forget Montreal's long awaited urban agriculture and food security conference, which kicked off on Saturday. Can't wait to hear the details.

Another green roof bylaw hits North America + trading paper for prickly pears

-Rosemont-Petite Patrie, a borough of Montreal, is the newest city to mandate  the installation of green roofs or green walls on buildings.

Congrats to Rosemont-Petite Patrie for joining the club. 

-Wednesday, May 2 tune in to Living Mandala for a free webinar on aquaponics with applied permaculture. If you're in the upstate New York area, you can try the hands-on workshop.

-This articles deserves some publicity. First of all, it’s written by a namesake....Kelven. I mean, it’s not how I spell it, but close enough. On the serious side it opens our eyes to how urban farming can be the key to survival for undernourished prisoners in Zimbabwe. 

 Lastly, in what I hope becomes a blueprint for urban agriculture and recycling around the world in Mexico City the Ministry of the Environment has set up a barter market where one can trade recyclable trash for credits at local farms.

The federal farm bill is up for renewal!

The federal farm bill is up for renewal this year, how will this all shake out?
Utne reader’s blog does a commendable job of collecting resources to get Americans up to speed. With this election being even more contentious than previous ones, I wonder if this will be hardly a blip on the radar, a middling issue or lead to a massive battle. My guess, the nation will be caught up in presidential election fever. There will be the normal level of house and senatorial acrimony (not “let’s shut down the government level”), a slightly leaner budget will get passed, but neither Obama nor Romney (the odds on favorite) have ties to this battle so it will not draw big presidential focus or headlines.

-Public hearings into urban agriculture and its place in Montreal are scheduled from June 11-14. The Office de consultation publique de Montréal's has 24 videos up displaying various urban agriculture techniques. Don't forget to look for an urban agriculture expo on May 12 and a conference on May 17.

-BrightFarms is ready to go with a 100,000ft2 facility in Brooklyn. It may be the world’s biggest rooftop farm, for now (that title seems to change hands every 6 months), regardless, it's still epic.

-School gardening coordinator, love the concept and hope that the title and practice spreads beyond Portland. Anyone know how much a school gardening coordinator makes per year or are (substitute) teachers taking on the roles in addition to their normal duties?

-Wind power is not really related to green infrastructure, but I had to share this really cool wind power capacity map.

A couple of tasty TV tidbits

March 27th there will be an fundraiser in Tokyo to help spread the word about aquaponics. In tsunami impacted areas embracing aquaponics means farmers can experiment with closed loop systems and not worry about radiation contaminated soil.

If you're up for some tv, check out PBS' new series "Food forward".



And for those who want to learn about urban agriculture in Montreal, in French here's a terrific CBC show.

November songs + how much is a tree really worth?

Last week I wondered how much more it would cost to save those big trees in Chicago's Bryant park. I don't know that for sure, but I can take a guess...

There will be lots of assumptions here, but, here's what I know:

Last year we priced a green roof job in Toronto where the building owners wanted 18-20 foot maple trees. Each root ball would probably weigh 4500 lbs. or so. (I am going to assume the cost of trees in Chicago is roughly equivalent to Toronto, a city basically the same size.) The cost to install probably 10 of those trees? Maybe $30,000 dollars. Throw in the cost of the crane to lift the trees, take them somewhere else...and this is where we would run into trouble. What would you do with those trees while all the rest of the foliage and dirt was removed, a new deck was constructed and layers of the green roof put on? How long would that project take? Months?
It would require a great deal of coordination, but I am guessing to temporarily house 10 of these trees in an alternate location, care for them and eventually put them back, one is looking at $100,000 easily.
So the next question to ask is "How much is a tree worth?" The answer hinges on who you ask. A developer might have a different answer than a parks commissioner. And I guess that's why some can justify cutting down trees and replacing them, as opposed to saving them and relocating.

-Montreal is in the news this week. At McGill University they installed a permaculture garden outside of their Post Graduate Student Society. Across the city, a supergroup comprised of orgs with health, food-security and environmental mandates needs 2,000 more signatures to put the development of urban agriculture in the lap of the city's executive committee. The Groupe de travail en agriculture urbaine started kick of their quest in August, the November 8 deadline is looming...help them get there!

-I posted the list for the October songs a little too late last month, it should really be done in the beginning of the month so that you can enjoy them all month long, no?

Morissey -November Spawned a Monster
Gorillaz -November Has Come by
Mr. November -The National

Truly living architecture - vine bridge with a 5 decade lifespan

-In the Philippines something called the Agropolis Project has been formed to provide a multitude of urban agriculture themed programs including teaching out-of-school youth to become farm entrepreneurs and launching a Diploma in Agriculture Entrepreneurship.

-In Montreal there is a final late push to get more signatures on an urban agriculture petition.

-Last bit of information for today focuses on true living architecture, this "installation" is meant to last at least 50 years.

August roundup - green roofs, urban agriculture, green architecture

As the east coast hurricane leaves us and we bid adieu to the end of August, here are a few more stories which caught my eye:

-Faith based groups have often lead the way in change. In Madison, Wisconsin the Holy Wisdom Monastery is the undisputed leader.

-St. Lawrence University has just launched Canada's first Sustainable Local Food Certificate for this fall.

-Here's a fantastic article about what President Obama can do to help fight the recession utilizing urban farming.

-What is the capacity of NYC for urban crop production, green roofs and what are the potential benefits of urban agriculture in NYC? Columbia University's urban design lab has the answers.

And lastly, there are a couple of ways for North Americans to get involved in their city with living architecture.

-In Montreal a working group needs 15,000 signatures on a paper petition by Nov. 8 to have a public consultation on the state of urban agriculture in Montreal.

-If you are an Atlanta resident you can help design an urban farm.

The lexicon of living architecture : The Vertical Street

-A company in Australia has proposed a vertical city. First time that I've heard that term, let's see where it pops up next. Hey, this could be a game. I'll call it "follow the meme". Or perhaps "follow the fad". "Track the trend"? Okay...I'll seriously stop.

-Haven't seen too many master's thesis on green roofs, so we should consider ourselves lucky to learn so much about the Plateau Mont Royal green roof in Montreal. A 91% decrease in air condition requirements? Wow.

-Did anyone else catch the "bad" and the "good" living wall discussions at Treehugger?

-Is there a land grab going on in Africa? I only know a little about PR, but claiming that your company pays "40% higher than the minimum wage in Mozambique", still might mean that you're getting away with highway robbery. What's more minimum wage in Mozambique apparently varies...greatly.

-Finally, Beirut is getting it's first green roof.

Of urban farms, dreams, and redtape

Anyone who has been following the urban agriculture movement knows the work of Sweet Water Organics, disciples of Will Allen. Looks like they are in line to expand provided with a loan from the City of Milwaukee.10 employees by 2012, 21 in 2013 and more to come. If Milwaukee is the worldwide hub for urban agriculture, the Bayview Compass might have found their niche too as they've been busy churning out urban ag articles recently. Milwaukee is fast becoming what Detroit wants to be.

-A common theme among urban agriculture proponents is the redtape in their local municipality. You can add Montreal's urban pioneers to that list.

-A 2-acre urban farm urban farm will be built in Dallas on a little used college football field. Eventually, the college wants to open its own grocery store!!! Hopefully if that happens, the store will follow a Portland CSAs lead and accept food stamps as payment.

With yesterday's election, we can't forget about Canadians trying something new.

Along with the help of various assistants and machetes...

Something about that line just struck me really funnily. On a more serious note, this "Chase and Chase" team sounds like a true dynamic duo. They've unearthed (with some help) that the Mayans were green builders. I wonder what kinds of plants they used on their green roofs?

When you're in Los Angeles and looking for grub, here are some of the best ways to scrounge up some food.
David Craft's latest ebook can help you distinguish even more foraged finds. Give it a preview and see if you want the whole shabang.

The Obama Administration is getting behind the locavore movement. And it includes gems such as "Where possible, use school gardens to educate students about healthy eating. School gardens offer opportunities for fun and physical activity while also serving as an important educational tool to help students understand how healthful food is produced" Sounds good to me.

Montreal bus shelters are getting green roofs. I saw something like this in Toronto, except, I think it was the handwork of guerrilla gardeners because once the city found out, the greenery came down. Heading further east, Nova Scotia Community College recently completed their first vertical garden.



Lastly, if you're in Portland, Oregon...please drop me a line and let me know how the local food cook offwent today.