Bio bricks and Mushroom burial suits

I had to profile two incredible products already for sale.
The mushroom burial suit, seen above, turns dead bodies into clean compost. All the things, both good and bad, that we ingest over our lifetime, leach out when we are buried or are released into the atmosphere if we are cremated.
The suit, filled with mushroom spores, makes it possible for our final burial to be as green as our lives.

Making bricks releases up to 8% of all greenhouse gases. We obviously need to do better. Enter bio bricks, bricks grown from bacteria, which could eliminate one of our enduring and truly destructive traditions. $2.8 million dollars in first round funding will go a long way towards making this venture a future force.

See the School Grown Rooftop this weekend

You've perhaps heard about the School Grown Rooftop in Toronto at Eastdale Collegiate Institute.
For those late to the game, it's a 16,000 square foot rooftop atop a high school on the east side of Toronto with gardening beds for vegetable and fruit production. verticiel Inc. was fortunate to be part of the team which brought the project to life.
From 10 am - 4:45 pm this weekend, May 24-25, you can visit the rooftop during Doors Open Toronto and see what the buzz is about.

The largest horticultural therapy garden opens

It's hard to make money as an urban farmer...really hard. One entrepreneur in Philadelphia has done just that. Mary Seton Corboy deserves a ton of acclaim and your full attention.

-Community gardens normally are built on public lands, for obvious reasons...building a garden on private lands raises a number of potentially thorny issues. So this guide full of best practices is definitely a handy addition to your virtual book shelf.

-As far as I know the aquaponics certificate offered in the Northern Mariana Islands may be the first of its kind in the world. Maybe it went lightly reported because it's the Northern Mariana Islands and few people know where that is? Congratulations to the inaugural five.

-The largest horticultural therapy garden opened in Chicago last week. At 12,000 square feet it is the biggest in North America by far.

-No doubt you've seen a few crowdsourcing campaigns focusing on aquaponics. Some based on mushrooms, others urban agriculture. How about one that tries to do them all?

The growing population in Australia’s major cities poses a problem for city planners as well as residents seeking to find adequate green space. A rising number of previously desolate urban rooftops are now being put to use as private residential green spaces for relaxation, personal well-being and socialisation.

“There’s no question about the environmental benefits of green roofs but the social benefits are not yet fully explored,” said 360 Degrees landscape architect Daniel Baffsky, who designed the rooftop garden for the M Central building in Pyrmont last year.

“Up on the roof everyone is equal,” said Baffsky, speaking of the social hub he created for the building’s 400 residents which provides a common area for interaction. This provides a huge benefit for urban apartment owners who previously had no place for chance encounters in which they could get to know their neighbours. It also offers a community feel to those living in urban jungles.

Even single family residences are adopting green roofs as an added sanctuary and to reap the environmental benefits. Australian green roof design firm Junglefy says its main market these days is for roof gardens on home extensions.

Nick Williams, University of Melbourne plant ecologist says tough, versatile plants for a rooftop garden are a must so they can survive long periods without being watered and require little maintenance. Plants with a high tolerance to sunlight are also essential.

- See more at: http://sourceable.net/sydney-rooftop-gardens/#sthash.cWmv6RCH.dpuf

Songs about farms in honor of the School Grown Rooftop!

It's been a secret until now, but yesterday was the official launch of the School Grown Rooftop. Spearhead by FoodShare and based at Toronto's Eastdale Collegiate Institute, verticiel was lucky enough to participate as a consultant for the project. Lots more information to come, for now here are a couple of quick pics and a bunch of songs in honor of this tremendous project!

Sting - Fields of Gold
Robert Plant - The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn
The Muppet Show - Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens
Loretta Lynn - You're Loking at Country
The Andrews Sisters - A Bushel and a Peck

Edible Mushrooms

Have you seen mushrooms popping up in your neck of the woods? With warm, steamy weather across most of North America, it's the perfect time to start your own mushroom garden. Here's a video to get things started...

Big green roofs lead to a healthier life

I can make that statement, right? Tuesday's Metro  summarizes an extensive Canadian study by Health Canada which states living near a green space leads to a healthier life. A similar study in 2008 confirms this. So one could reasonably assume just living near a big green roof would have similar effects, right? Read the full story and let me know what you think.

-If you live in Michigan and would like a sweet aquaponics setup for a reasonable price, someone posted one last week on craiglist. Talk about a deal!

-Another aquaponics system might be on the market or the occupants of a co-op will be looking for a new place to stay because their aquaponic system may get them evicted. You know a family truly loves urban agriculture when they brush aside their co-op board and threaten to double-down by expanding to growing mushrooms! I hope cooler heads prevail, for we all know urban agriculture works in New York City apartments.

Mushrooms may be the ultimate urban agriculture product

-Raising mushrooms seems to be one of the hottest urban agriculture/socially responsible businesses. You can take waste, for instance, coffee grounds, grow and sell the mushrooms in a dark, dank basement (of which there are plenty in an urban setting) and when the grounds have been spent completely, you can sell that product as a fertilizer. Well, add this to your list of mushroom media: dirty diapers.

-There is a battle royale taking place in West LA. Residents of residential-agricultural zones say the character of their neighborhoods are threatened by proposed development.

-Oooo...it's that time of year folks, a new Plant Hardiness Map for the USA. Behold the beautiful colors in all their interactive splendor!!!

-Lastly, a community in England hopes to produce all of their own food by 2018. Good luck, Todmorden.

So busy!

Between starting gardens at home (both horizontal and vertical), ongoing projects (which hopefully we'll post some pictures of soon) and designing green roof and green wall projects, it's been tough to blog the last few weeks.
But, here's the latest interesting living architecture news:

-A couple of reports have hit the internet recently about the effects of green roofs. First is a study by Mary Jo Kirisitspublished in the journal Water Research which examines the effects of conventional and alternative roofing materials on the quality of harvested rainwater . Haven't read it yet, but will have to soon as Dr. Kirisits seems to be the real deal.
The second from Columbia University says that green roofs do a fantastic job at retaining water. 20 TIMES BETTER than the City of New York stated in PlaNYC.

-Mayor Rahm looks to take Chicago to the next level. I love this 55 promises list. Not just because it's not a round number or due to all of the content (we can't agree with everything...right?), but the elimination of food deserts slides in at #17, higher than street safety! Wow!

-Oh yeah, there's an urban farming internship available at Kingsborough Community College. So for those of you who procrastinated...because it always pays off, you are right once again!

-By the way, the picture above is a bag full of fun...which hopefully will yield some oyster mushrooms in the near future!

Congresswoman Maloney checks out a green roof

It's great that some politicians seem to get it. Count Congresswoman Maloney as a fan of green roofs, as she drops in on Regis High's new installation. A mayor in California is at the other end of the spectrum. One wonders, are these two figures outliers? In this case it's very interesting that with all the information available, there are still leaders out there positioning urban agriculture vs development, not exploring how both can happen at the same time!

-Is food preservation a political act?Glad you asked, say Ronit and Melissa.

-For those in Philly looking for an urban farming gig, here's a nice part-time opportunity to get into the biz.

-And last, but definitely not least, EcoCradle
gets the award for innovation of the week. Perhaps year? Packing as durable as plastic, but made from mushrooms!

Nuts!

Great article about an expanding wild edible empire. More and more I've seen products from Forbes Natural Foods popping up at farmer's markets. This dude is the dude. As a child I would try to eat beech nuts from a tree in our backyard, to no avail because of the tannins (I now learn). But, if you chase a link from the article it says you can soak them for a bit then maybe make a pesto. I'm all about pesto. Sun-dried tomato pesto. Nasturium pesto. Now beech nut pesto? Skip spring and summer, bring on the fall and beech nut season!!!

Want a great tree for a forest garden? How about some nuts? Should we add beech to the list?

Permaculture guru Geoff Lawton talks about how permaculture can be used to help Haiti.

And because I had a five year old ask me today, here's how mushroom are produced?



Thanks youtube for helping us out!