I’m struggling with language here, so any advice is appreciated. An aprium is a new fruit variety, created by Zaiger Genetics. It’s 3/4 apricot and 1/4 plum, just the reverse of a pluot, also developed by Zaiger Genetics. (Before rambling on about my garden, I should mention that the SF Chronicle had a nice article on the Zaiger family a few days ago. I visited their farm a few years ago while on a tasting tour and met them. They’re good people, and (more…)
Urban agriculture
Archived Posts from this Category
June 16, 2011
What’s the plural of aprium? And a note on crop diversity.
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, Business, Genetic stock, Industrial agriculture, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture | Tags: aprium, crop diversity, zaiger genetics |1 Comment
February 9, 2011
Moving my rainwater around
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: rainwater catchment |Leave a Comment
Last year I had a pretty primitive system of rainwater collection and storage, just four garbage cans and five-gallon buckets for collecting rainwater. This year I’ve advanced considerably, with three rainwater catchment barrels in place and a fourth ready to be chained into the system. For more on this year’s new setup, see my earlier post, My rainwater catchment system. Now that I’m collecting more water, and collecting it on the lowest part of my property, I’ve been wanting to figure out a better system for using the water and moving it to where it is needed.
A friend came by a few weeks ago to see my setup and told me how he moves around his laundry grey water. He has a small pump, a Simer M40, that I liked because it has two hose bibs, making both input and output easy to use in the garden. I found one used on eBay and it arrived today. 
With warm weather the past week and wind on top of that, I needed to irrigate. Plus, we have a storm coming in next week and I want my catchment barrels to be empty and ready to collect more rainwater with the next storm.
So, I tested out the pump, both for irrigation and to empty out the barrels. The pump is small, so it doesn’t put out a lot of pressure. But, there is enough pressure to hook up my hose and water my plants. The real test came when I moved over two catchment barrels of water to garbage cans elsewhere in my yard. The pump was slow, taking 12 minutes to fill each garbage can and drain half of a catchment barrel. But, it worked and I was able to do other yard work while the transfer took place. I now have 130 gallons of water stored in garbage cans and will have capacity to collect another 260 gallons of water with the coming spring storms. 
I like this setup! I’m thinking I might even get another container, a 200 gallon surplus food container, to put under my front window, then I can store water to irrigate my front yard once or twice during the summer. The pump could be used to move rainwater from a collection site to that tank.
July 27, 2010
The trend expands
Posted by ramblinrobert under Urban agriculture | Tags: Urban agriculture |Leave a Comment
For anyone who has been paying attention the past few years, it’s clear that growing your own food is becoming popular again. Seed companies have seen sharp demands for their seed stocks and beekeeping and chicken husbandry classes are being offered in virtually every urban area. There are many reasons for this. Some people are concerned about food security. Some people want the better taste and variety of homegrown food. Whatever the reason, the trend is clear.
The New York Times has chronicled this change for the past several years and yesterday reported that the trend has even hit botanical gardens. Apparently, attendance is down and previous event sponsors are no longer supporting traditional events. So, the gardens are getting more creative on a variety of fronts. But, the primary change is captured in this single sentence, buried in the middle of the article:
Edible gardens are the fastest-growing trend at botanical gardens, consistently increasing attendance, experts say, along with cooking classes.
This is not only unsurprising, but good news. Edible gardening is also the primary trend in home gardens, resulting in higher food security and higher quality food.
July 2, 2010
SIPs, part 2
Posted by ramblinrobert under Land, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: self-irrigating planters, SIPs |Leave a Comment
Here are a few shots of the planters themselves, to show how they are constructed. The green planters were made following my friend’s instructions, by cutting out a section of the plastic tub’s lid the size and shape of the tub’s interior about five inches off the bottom (the height of the pond baskets that drop into the water reservoir). While this results in a large tub, it is very time-consuming to do this.
Me second approach (more…)
July 2, 2010
Another experiment–SIPs
Posted by ramblinrobert under Land, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: self-irrigating planters, SIPs |Leave a Comment
Last winter I took a series of gardening classes and one in particular intrigued me. The instructor, another Master Gardener in my county (in fact, she was the one that told me about the training program) taught one class on how to make self-irrigating planters. I love the acronym–SIPs–although I have to say these planters don’t really SIP. They use at least as much water as a regular planter, but more of that water is going into production because losses from soil evaporation are virtually nil.
In any case, a friend and I built a couple planters each one day. As I readied to plant them I realized (more…)
January 28, 2010
Urban Agroindustry
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, Business, Industrial agriculture, Land, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: agroindustry, aquaponics, hydroponics, Industrial agriculture, industrial urban agriculture, Urban agriculture |[3] Comments
What would urban agriculture look like if it were industrialized? Everything on this site approaches urban agriculture from an ecological perspective. As urban agriculture becomes more popular, we find entrepreneurs looking at opportunities in the field. Some of those entrepreneurs will follow the current trends towards local, sustainable agriculture. But, others will see the opportunities and approach urban agriculture from the industrial approach. What will their agriculture look like?
August 9, 2009
Unbuild it and they will come
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, Business, Community, Diet, Land, Urban farms | Tags: Asheville NC, Pisgah View Community Peace Garden, Urban agriculture |Leave a Comment
Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams improbably plows up his corn field to build a baseball diamond when he hears a voice say “Build it and he will come.” Robert White’s story is just the opposite and equally improbable — but true. When Robert became possessed with the idea of growing food, he’d never done it before. But he went ahead anyway, starting with taking over an existing baseball diamond in Asheville NC and turning it into an urban farm. When I visited there in April, (more…)
June 19, 2009
The education of an urban farmer
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, Land, Urban agriculture | Tags: book, Urban agriculture, urban farming, urban livestock |Leave a Comment
This website is partly about my education as an urban farmer. But I want to recommend to you a new book by another urban farmer who has had time to develop her farm and her farming knowledge much further than I have. Coincidently, Novella Carpenter also farms in Oakland, where I live. I heard her speak a year ago and found her talk to be not only hilarious, but filled with learning experiences. As I’ve advised elsewhere in this blog, farming is about learning. There is a lot to learn and the best way to do this is by experimenting, by trying things to see what works and what doesn’t. In Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
I expect the book is as funny and informative as her talk was. A New York Times reviewer found it so. You can decide for yourself by reading the first chapter. Even though I haven’t read this book yet–I plan to write a review of it soon–I recommend it wholeheartedly.
February 27, 2009
Make your own fertilizer
Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture | Tags: urine as fertilizer |[4] Comments
Actually, I should say “Use the fertilizer you’re already making.” While I believe compost is the best way to improve soil in most respects, growing food does remove nutrients from the soil. Compost can return some of these nutrients, and add nutrients if compost is “imported” as I do by bringing in leaves and manure from outside my yard. But, why not add a little fertilizer to help replace those nutrients? The good news is that you already have this fertilizer available and it’s free. You’re simply flushing it away, day after day. An Op-Ed piece in today’s New York Times talks about the need to change how we handle human waste (feces and urine) for environmental reasons. The article focuses on large scale waste issues. Here, I want to talk about small-scale human waste issues and how you can use them to your advantage.
November 25, 2008
Growing and eating by the seasons
Posted by ramblinrobert under Diet, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture | Tags: cabbage, cape gooseberries, figs, homegrown food, kale, lettuce, local food, sauerkraut, seasonal food, sweet pepper, tomatoes |Leave a Comment
One of the mantras of the eat-local movement is to eat what is in season. This has several advantages, among them reduction in energy used in shipping foods hundreds or thousands of miles, as well as saving the monetary and environmental costs associated with the energy saved. Other advantages are the increase in dietary variety and improved nutritional quality. Instead of eating the same half dozen foods all the time, sometimes from local sources, sometimes from a hemisphere away, eating locally means consuming early, late and winter season foods as they are available.
I’m now producing food year-round, so I am changing my eating habits to match what I produce. (more…)
