Greenbombing the City

Logos for artist Tattfoo Tan's Greenade and Greenraid campaigns

New York artist Tattfoo Tan, known for his work promoting sustainability, has developed a clever method for greening the city. His Greenade and Greenraid campaigns involve guerrilla restoration of abandoned and neglected spaces that are fenced off or otherwise

DIY Utopia Workshops Hit the Fine Points

Claudia Joseph speaks to a full house about techniques of composting, as well as success stories from her own garden at the Old Stone House

On Monday night, we attended DIY Utopias: Growing Against All Odds, a series of four workshops at the Old Stone House in Park Slope that dealt with different aspects of growing food in the city, do-it-yourself style. The event is part of Brooklyn Utopias, an annual exhibit and event series founded in 2009 by Katherine Gressel, in which artists are

Brooklyn Grange Pushes Successful First Season

Volunteers head to their next task at Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm in Queens, NYC

Marking the end of the harvest with their last farm stand yesterday, Brooklyn Grange celebrates its first full season of growing fresh organic veggies for New York City residents on a one-acre rooftop right here in the city. GrowingCities had the pleasure of volunteering at the farm on a recent Saturday afternoon, probably one of the last beautiful sunny days

DIY Utopias: Growing Against All Odds

Sketch for mural by Katherine Gressel

GrowingCities will be attending tonight's DIY Utopias: Growing Against All Odds. The event is a part of a current exhibition at Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn Utopias: Farm City, and consists of four different workshops that cover a variety of topics

Detroit Reassembled?

Yesterday I was passing some time at a local shop, and ended up taking a look at Andrew Moore's new book, Detroit Disassembled, which beautifully surveys the incredible state of dilapidation that the city has fallen into since the decline of the American auto

HIDDEN VARIABLES: Local & Organic Produce

Simple fact: Fresh produce loses nutritional value after it’s harvested.

Time matters. From the moment fruits and vegetable are picked their nutrients start to break down. According to a study by UC Davis, fresh produce grown within the US can often spend up to 5 days in transit to reach a distribution center after harvesting (while food imported from the Southern hemisphere can take several weeks to reach the US by ship). Once at a grocery store, “fresh” fruits and vegetables can then typically sit on a shelf for another 1 to 3 days, and then in your refrigerator for another week. By the time an average consumer actually eats their “fresh” fruits or vegetables, there are significantly less nutrients to be had compared to when the produce was harvested.

Pesticide-free local greens by SweetWater Organics at the Milwaukee South Shore Farmers Market. Greens are delivered to their within a day of harvest.

During a conversation with Jesse Hull, Director of Horticulture at Sweetwater Organics, Milwaukee, I learned a really interesting statistic - leafy vegetables for example, lose 50

Western Queens Compost Initiative

Ask any organic farmer, and they will tell you that it's all about the fertilizer. The crops depend entirely on the fertilizer for the nutrients that will help produce healthy and delicious food. In the organic farming world, the fertilizer often comes from an on-site compost system that breaks down all of the farm's organic waste through aerobic

Brooklyn's Edible Schoolyard

Design for P.S. 216's greenhouse, by Work AC - Greenhouse is retracted during Summer

One Brooklyn public school will soon be able to grow its own food, well protected from rain, wind, snow, and even the rare hail storm. A new greenhouse and classroom at Public School 216, designed by award-winning New York City firm Work AC, is the newest

A Real Greenhouse (House)

Camouflage house by Fifth World Architects

Here's a recent project that really takes 'greenhouse' to the next level. Designed by Hiroshi Iguchi of Fifth World Architects, Camouflage House is a private residence for a single family in Japan. You won't find any commercial farming here, and in fact, the house isn't even located in a city. However, many of the ideas in this design resonate strongly with the new urban food movement, and in general, Japan has a certain relationship with

Underdome Sessions - Talking About Energy

GrowingCities attended the final panel discussion last night of The Underdome Sessions, a series of four discussions on energy and public life. The Sessions are the most recent public output of Underdome, a project headed by architects Janette Kim and Erik Carver that maps various approaches to energy management and performance in order to examine their implications for public life. Underdome catalogs a spectrum of positions