#urban agriculture
Going Fungal - Fun events in February!
Our dancecard is so full this month. Hope you’ll tango w/ us at #blacklovedc #rootingdc #capitolcannashow #wildfoodcsa
Here’s a rundown of where you can find us in February.
All Month: Know your farmer, know your food
This Friday, we’re starting a blog series called “Ask a Farmer” where we pick our own brain about the answers to frequently asked questions on food, ecology and social justice. Expect serious reflection on identity, quirky witticisms and our classic amateur expertise. It will be fun! Join us here or on social media at #GSFAAF. Send questions to [email protected] and have your answer featured on our blog.
There’s still time to signup for theWild Food CSA. February 18th will be the first pickup and we’ll be aiming for a mix of blizzard-proof wild greens, mushrooms, and warming spices. It goes all year but why not start now? Click here for information and signup.
Double Header Weekend: Capitol Canna Show and The Black Love Experience, February 20th
On Saturday, February 20th, we will be performing an act of quantum afro-futurism.
We will be serving fungal funk in parallel universes. First up is the Capitol Canna Show where we will have new and improved Shiitake Mushroom Kits and our new product, Mycomulch. Previous kit purchasers get a 5% discount on any purchase over $20. There may also be some day-of surprises.
We’re really excited about the opportunity to help growers of all types grow better. We will be joined by our partners at Mycosymbiotics,Medicate Better DC, and Hood Hippies blogging and dishing out helpful tips on the symbiotic partnership between fungi and plants. Get your tickets and follow us on the #Mycomulch hashtag.
THEN, that same evening, we’ll be at the Black Love Experience offering some of our classic warmth to thaw the winter chill. Use the discount link #BLKLVGOODSENSE to register and come by our table for handmade local lotions, salves and balms. The Experience overall will be cocktail party meets craft fair meets concert. Definitely unmissable.
Much like you, we know that neither blackness nor love are monoliths so we’re really excited to be helping create a space that welcomes all vintages and varieties of black love. Get ready!
Rooting DC - Annual Gardeners Forum February 27th
Rooting DC is something of a yearly tradition around these parts. This year, we’re taking our relationship to the next level and will be presenting 2 workshops called “Building Your Fungal Fortune.”
Building Your Fungal Fortune: Beginner & Intermediate Mushroom Cultivation
Zachari Curtis, Good Sense Farm & William Padilla-Brown, Mycosymbiotics
Rm 317
Take the plunge into the world of mushroom cultivation with Zachari Curtis of Good Sense Farm & William Padilla-Brown of Mycosymbiotcs. Learn basic fungal biology, type of mushrooms you can grow yourself and how, and discover the potential of mushrooms for helping you grow more food, and improve the health of your garden or farm. This is a 1-hour intro to a weekend-long intensive Zachari & William are teaching this spring. This workshop is hands-on. Participants will try several cultivation techniques and leave with a fungi starter kit.
Register for Rooting DC here and find us in the workshop space or at our table!
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Not Your Dad’s Farm Job: Millennials Look to High-Tech Farms For Careers
A new generation is looking to find jobs in warehouse farms and indoor agriculture as a way to change the food system while earning a decent living.
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Want to join the food revolution? Build yourself a flatpack urban farm
Forget flatpack furniture. Also forget traditional agriculture. Coming soon to a city near you – it’s the flatpack farm. At least, that’s the ambition of Mikkel Kjaer and Ronnie Markussen, a pair of young entrepreneurs who run Human Habitat, a Danish “urban design lab”.
“We wanted to make urban farming even smarter,” says Markussen over a coffee in central Copenhagen. The duo’s aim, he says, was to design a unit that would increase food security in cities, lower the ecological footprint of food production, create jobs and easily adapt to changes in the urban landscape.
What they came up with was the so-called Impact Farm – though it’s much more fun to describe it as a flatpack farm. That’s because it’s built using an assembly-kit of ready-made components that arrive in a saved-from-scrap shipping container. Put them together and you’ve got a two-storey vertical hydroponic(or soil-free) farm, which certainly beats a Billy bookcase.
Designed to be self-sufficient in water, heat and electricity, the farm requires a footprint of just 430 sq ft – though once the shipping container has been unpacked and the farm installed, the production area stretches to 538 sq ft. Crops include greens, herbs and fruiting plants.Human Habitat was born when childhood friends Kjaer and Markussen discovered they shared a similar goal. “We wanted to reconnect people to food by giving them a green space that brings nature back into our cities,” says Kjaer. As a student of development economics at Roskilde University, Kjaer had become interested in “small-scale solutions to the most fundamental of problems – providing food”. Markussen, meanwhile, had trained as a carpenter and worked on ambitious projects such Upcycle House, which was constructed using recycled and upcycled building materials.
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Since curbside newspaper boxes don’t get a lot of action selling papers anymore, a new urban intervention puts them to use as something else: convenient compost bins.
“The boxes are so commonplace in the city, and I wanted to subtly tweak them to make people stop, look twice, and think about what they are seeing versus what they expect to see,” says designer Debbie Ullman, who created the New York Compost Box Project.
Placed next to community gardens, the boxes serve as a place for anyone to recycle food waste as they walk by. “The idea is to make it possible for busy New Yorkers to drop their scraps whenever it’s convenient for them, 24/7.”
(viaWhat To Do With Old Newspaper Boxes? Make Them Streetside Compost Bins)
This is cool! My initial question was who would use the compost, but the article says they’d be near community gardens, or alternatively could have a lock code so anyone who knows the code can take some for their own garden. My other question is who would maintain the bins? I’m no compost expert, but I understand it’s best if it has balanced food waste and dry matter (twigs etc) and is turned occasionally - would there be someone in charge of that?
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A Tall Vision of Vertical Farming in Hong Kong
by Sean Quinn, Jason Easter, Nick Benner, Yasser Salomon, Jon Martin
A vision indeed, this mega-tower inspires us to think of how agriculture can be integrated into buildings and cities. However, with its location being prime real estate and hazelnuts as one of the suggested crops, it does little for the maturation of the vertical farming dialogue.
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Excited to announce another urban farmer has joined the Kiva Chicago family! Bel of Fruiting Mushrooms, LLC is the only commercial mushroom grower in Chicago and supplies his goods to local businesses like Local Foods Grocer & DistributorandLula Cafe! As a member of The Plant community he is an important part of the ever-growing local urban agriculture movement. Please consider supporting Bel and his lovely mushrooms today!
https://zip.kiva.org/loans/17281/i/mwgt
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A little sunset rooftop beekeeping with the WestSide Bee Boyz! These guys are so passionate about the work they do, and dedicated to sharing their craft.
Support their commitment to provide urban beekeeping workshops across Chicago! https://zip.kiva.org/loans/16840/i/pjy
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UrbnEarth is solving complex issues with a simple solution!
Problem: Communities lack access to healthy fruits and vegetables
Solution: Give them the tools, info and supplies to grow their own
Support this incredible business on Kiva Ziptoday!
Share the link! https://zip.kiva.org/loans/16697
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As an urban ag and beekeeping devotee I couldn’t be more excited to announce the newest member of the Kiva Chicago community! WestSide Bee Boyz, LLC is officially fundraising on Kiva Zip to raise funds for new bees and beehives!
Thad is an incredibly positive and inspiring entrepreneur. Over the next year the WestSide Bee Boyz are doubling their impact by partnering with local schools and universities to teach beekeeping! Please considering supporting Thad and the expansion of urban beekeeping in Chicago!
Support Thad and his bees on Kiva Ziptoday!
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I recently had a trip to the central valley and was fortunate to finally visit the Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno. It’s an area of the Great Valley & the Delta that I don’t travel to often but is worth a visit. These historic gardens were mostly built underground as a response to the heat in Fresno. They are between one and two stories below ground level and are filled with citrus trees and are a great place to explore and cool off in the heat.
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Some of our perennials.
1,2 - Day Lilly
3,4 - Stargazer Lily
5,6 - Yarrow
7 - Flowers from Lambs Ear
8 - Lavender
9 - Anise Hyssop
10 - Daisy
(More to come!)
Variety of pole beans looking good!
Clovers protecting our soil from the snow. Can’t wait to see how the soil is looking in the next few weeks.
Mix of peppers that we harvested last month.
Csa volunteers hard at work. We are cleaning up the garden to prepare the soil for planting cover crops for the fall season. Planting a cover crop in fall really helps protect our soil from the upcoming frost.
Ruby’s Place rooftop farm has babies. This photo was taken in August. I will be posting some more updates for Ruby’s place soon as we are now harvesting large cucumbers and beautiful kale before it gets too cold.
Trying to grow grapes on the rooftop this year. With no large structures to climb onto, it seems that using the bench is the best option.
Harvesting some pole beans, chives, and some basil for the residents here at Georgia’s Place.
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Harvesting parsley and radishes with Marcie from Ruby’s place. Always a great help here at Georgia’s Place when it comes to harvesting.
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Sneak peek into our next project at Ruby’s Place. We hope that this will be done and completed by the end of the summer.
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At the start of spring we had basil everywhere. I guess we forgot to remove a basil plant that went to seed, but then again, we now have near 100 basil seedlings
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glorious harvest of cherry tomatoes…just the first of many, many pounds that will be harvested and given to our residents
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georgia’s place is supportive housing for formerly homeless adults. Here is one of our residents “shopping” for strawberries…it was the first time he had eaten something he picked…
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