Inside Urban Green

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You have found the home of InsideUrbanGreen.org, successor to InsidePlantsLive.org and Greenscaper.net started in 2004.

Valcent Selected As One Of The Ten Best Companies In the World For A Sustainable Future

Valcent VertiCrop system is in the news again. There is much more to say about this after seeing the doc today. Time out! Stay tuned!

LAUNCH, a global initiative whose Founding Partners include NASA, USAID, the U.S. State Department and Nike, which identifies and supports innovative work poised to contribute to a sustainable future, has selected Valcent's VertiCrop™ vertical farming technology as one of ten global innovations from a field of 150 pioneering projects. As one of ten featured leaders in sustainability, Valcent will present their advances on large scale hydroponic agriculture at the premiere LAUNCH event at the Water at Kennedy Space Center on March 16th to 18th 2010.

"Our world's balance between demand and supply of food is sensitive to climate change, fuel demands, access to water and our investments in research and infrastructure," said Stephen Kennedy Smith, President of Em-Link LLC, the Boston-based Master Distributor for Valcent in the United States.

Ambius: De-Scent Marketing

After mentioning Ambius in a recent post here they are in the "news", excuse me, manufactured news. The press release subject this time is their air scenting service.

The hard news that I didn’t post back in February was a 13.5% decline in Ambius revenue (read the last sentence in the article). While the rest of their UK parent company Rentokil was showing a recovery from a near disaster in recent years, Ambius was obviously not.

Other than their installation on the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas, there has been nothing worth posting. The only information available has been from rather non-newsworthy press releases.

If you're not familiar with UK owned Ambius, it dominates the interior plantscaping industry in North America. It also dominates the silence. Other than corporate buyers and insider wonks, who would know we have an interior plantscaping industry? It is no surprise to me that Ambius is going nowhere fast.

From My Inbox: Tournesol Living Wall At The Boston Flower And Garden Show

Photo courtesy of Mahoney's Garden Centers

From my inbox: Tournesol Siteworks will demonstrate their VGM Modular Living Wall system at the upcoming Boston Flower & Garden Show (March24-28). 

Tournesol was originally known as Planter Technology which is still the name of the consumer products business. My interior plantscaping company back in the 1970's was one of their original customers. We converted the entire company from manual top watering to sub-irrigation largely using their planter systems.

Our customers loved us for doing it. They got higher quality with less intrusion by our plant care representatives who didn’t need to be on site as frequently. 

From My InBox: Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Making Brooklyn Bloom

From my inbox: The 29th annual Making Brooklyn Bloom event is this coming Saturday at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. As in previous years it will not be about modernity.

That is not a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) he has his hand on. They act as if they don't know what they are at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or they're under a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Check that! I have asked and they still don't tell. 

In any case, the BBG track record is abysmal regarding education in the use of modern methods of urban food production. They are all about dirt and drain holes.

I went to Making Brooklyn Bloom last year and there was nothing about SIPs or other modern methods of growing in the city. In light of the current interest in local food production, that makes no sense at all. It was a waste of time that I won't repeat this year.

Valcent: A Reuters Video Report

Watch a recent Reuters video report about Valcent. Catch the comment about the U.S. government buying Verticrop systems for overseas military bases. Do we make anything any more?

Back around the time that I was a Victory Gardener, I remember a house foundation being dug across the street. The "machine" was a horse pulling a bucket scoop. How's that for a front end loader? Incidentally, I would wake up to the clip-clop sound of the Sheffield Farms horse-drawn milk wagon delivering milk (in bottles with cream on top).

I was also part of what is called "stoop labor" during WWII when vegetables needed picking at local truck farms. There were lots of them on Long Island back then. And then along came Bill Levitt. Goodbye potato fields. Hello returning vets, affordable housing and lots of kids (aka boomers).

Based on what I read it appears that many of them still have a nostalgic love for Victory Gardens. That'll really help us in the present day competitive world economy.

Introducing AlphaCrop: Entry Level Vertical Farming

Valcent announced AlphaCrop, a food production system scaled in size for much wider use than their VertiCrop system.

Without knowing the cost, it is hard to tell at this time how many families will be able to afford one but it appears to be in range of the consumer market. It is clear, however, that it offers small business potential.

One thing is apparent. Valcent is a very serious player in the field of urban food production. It even offers a houseplant-sized product (Europe only at present) called “The Tomorrow Garden”

It does not appear at this time that the U.S. has a horse in this race. What we do have, however, is horse and buggy thinking. We are simply stuck in the dirt, in a backwater of Victory Garden nostalgia.

EarthBox On The Daily Grommet Today

This was in my inbox from EarthBox. If you are a Daily Grommet newbie like me, we'll learn together. Tune in!

I did tune in. There is a video here, but in my opinion reading the comments is the most time worthy thing to do. EarthBox General Manager Frank DiPaolo is doing a great job of answering questions and acknowledging comments. 

I'm excited to share some great news: On March, 9 2010 beginning at noon and running for 24 hours, Daily Grommet (http://www.dailygrommet.com) will feature The EarthBox® Garden Kit.  Daily Grommet is a new company with a mission to find unique products and share their stories through video, blog, and an active community discussion.

Dry Information From AeroFarms

Here is some interesting information from the AeroFarms blog. Who knew?

It will be interesting to see how this all sorts out over the coming months and years.

Whatever, we in the city need to get past our fixation on   glamorization of dirt farming from the past.

Hopalong Cassidy is long gone to the big dig in the sky.

A prior post about AeroFarms

via aerofarms.com

While our systems use aeroponics to grow produce, AeroFarms’s key technological advancement lies in its proprietary growing medium. There are several benefits to growing in cloth such as removing the need for transplanting and providing a sanitized, soilless medium that grows clean greens. Because greens are clean, they do not need to be washed. The cloth also protects the leaves from the wet nutrient mist spraying the roots below. This results in greens that are dry upon harvest.

PS102 And TGC: Cultivating Food, Connecting Minds, Harvesting Hope

Last week The Growing Connection (a UN organization) officially welcomed PS102 here in Brooklyn into their international network of EarthBox food gardens. TGC director Bob Patterson conducted a most informative presentation and EarthBox workshop for an interested group of teachers and parents. Parent coordinator Margaret Sheri organized the meeting. It was a pleasure to be in the audience.

All PS102 students will benefit from the EarthBox food garden. They will learn much about plant science and modern methods of growing food in the city, no tillable land required. They will be in good company with other EarthBox SIP gardens like the Googleplex garden in California and their regional office in Manhattan.

Third grade students will also have the opportunity to communicate with students in another country via the TGC network. They will compare notes about their EarthBox SIP gardens as well as learn about each other’s cultures. What a great learning opportunity at such an early age. 

There are many schools considering the installation of dirt gardens. Instead, I would highly recommend a TGC EarthBox SIP garden as a much wiser investment of time and money. With SIPs all you need is a sunny space, even if it is on concrete or blacktop.

There is no need to till the ground (which may be contaminated) or rip up a paved surface. SIPs will produce more fresh vegetables per square foot than in-ground or raised bed gardens while conserving water and time. Since they are portable they can even go to homes during summer recess.

More widespread publicity and information about The Growing Connection would save many schools from spending a significant amount of money unnecessarily on in-ground gardens that will not produce as much or teach as much as a TGC EarthBox garden.

Starting Over At 55 - NY Times

Contact me if you relate to this "Starting Over at 55" NY Times article. I have many ideas about businesses in the field of urban greenscaping, urban food production. "Take me anywhere cabbie, there are opportunities everywhere."

In my view, the current interest in urban greenscaping is comparable to the houseplant boom of the mid-seventies, which is when I entered this field. It was also the birth of the interior plantscaping industry. This "green boom", however, appears to be far more substantial and of far greater social value than that of the 1970's.

Urban greenscaping is not just about creating "pretty pictures". It's not enough to simply like plants. It takes a lot more than that. Liking plants can make a good hobby but not necessarily make a good business.

New urban greenscaping businesses can help solve national issues like local food production, nutrition, obesity, the environment, science education, new jobs and more. It's not about dirt gardening.