Inside Urban Green

Dear Mr. President

Update: As of 9:05 am ET January 29 there are 3,967 questions about marijuana and only 1 about what I posted about. There are obviously a lot of people who are well organized (and funded) around pot growing but don't get it about urban food growing.

Is marijuana our national priority over new job creation, hunger, better nutrition, obesity and childhood lead poisoning? If it is, we have bigger problems in this country than I realized.

 Many of you may know that the White House sent an email invitation to post a question to the president on YouTube. I did! This is a screenshot (no live links) of my question to President Obama in 250 characters and spaces or less.  Both the "watch video link" and the bit.ly link go to the logo video on TEDxManhattan.

To find the question scroll down to the Search box on the right and search on the word SIPs or sub-irrigated. Please do yourself and all the children you know a favor by giving it a thumbs up, Tweet it and do whatever else you can do in the great big wide world of social networking to share the question with others.

I truly regret not having my social networkng act together yet, but I will very soon! The Dear Mr President question is only the start of things to come. A new activist web site to get modern methods into the so-called Peoples Gardens including the White House Lawn garden is in the very near future.

With no demonstration of a dirt garden alternative like SIP beds and boxes they should be called the Some of the Peoples Gardens.

Thanks to the UN FAO organization, The Growing Connection, there are a few EarthBoxes in the USDA Peoples Garden in D.C. Other than this rather anemic demonstration that few Americans know about the rest of the gardens are all about top-watered dirt boxes.

These inaccurately named Peoples Gardens are certainly not gardens for all the people who live in concrete jungle cities, particularly inner city neighborhoods of color. 

Here are some very smart people who get it and deserve your recognition.

Rick Bayless, chef extrordinaire and a favorite of Barack and Michelle Obama grows vegetables on the roof of Frontera Grill in EarthBox SIPs. Smart chef! Smart Chicagoan!

Vikram Bhatt, Director of the McGill School of Architecture’s Minimum Cost Housing Group (MCHG) initiated the McGill Edible Campus. This award winning campus garden was created by students who made the SIP planters from recycled materials. The campus is a joy to behold. Smart educator, smart students! Smart Canadians!

The Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal is the grand daddy of rooftop gardens all over the world. It has been a proving ground for many different sub-irrigation and simple hydroponics methods for many years. The young people who staff this and other gardens provide fresh vegetables to the Santropol Roulant kitchen. Read their rooftop gardening guidebook. Watch a video about the project. Smart rooftop gardeners! Smart Canadians

Ken Waagner, unsung hero of modern urban gardening, managed to get EarthBox SIPs installed on the granite steps of the Museum of Science and Industry and the rooftop deck of the Smart Home. Smart business man! Smart Chicagoan! (smart museum CEO and smart architect too!)

Ron Wolford, Madiem Kawa, of the U of IL Extention Program and Cook County Master Gardners are the ones who create, manage and maintain the innovative gardens, including EarthBox SIPs on the grounds of the Museum of Science and Industry & Smart Home. Smart educators! Smart Chicagoans!

Johanne Daoust in Toronto discovered SIPs last year, converted her entire rooftop garden (including traditional raised beds) and heard the applause of all of her friends. Smart professor! Smart Canadian! Read a prior post here.

Long time penpal Heidi Hough who created the SIP acronym, has been growing in SIP buckets for years. Smart editor! Smart Chicagoan!

Helen Cameron, co-owner of Uncommon Ground restaurants in Chicago grows some of her rooftop vegetables in EarthBox SIPs and also created a sidewalk garden with them. Smart business woman! Smart Chicagoan!

Lorraine Gibbons of Garden State Urban Farms founded a socially responsible business serving the needs of New Jersey urbanites of all stripes, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker. She grows in many EarthBox SIPs as well as a hydroponic greenhouse. Smart business woman! Smart New Jersian! Smart Mayor!

Larry Hall invented a very creative way to use SIPs and rain gutters to make an auto-irrigated gardening system. This SIP system has enormous potential for urban food production, school and community gardens in particular. Larry has done this for social good. Smart inventor! Smart Minnesotan!   

There are many, many more smart SIP gardeners across the country and around the world. We just haven't organized yet, but we will!

 

 

TEDxManhattan Leads the Way About Lead and Good Food

This is a screen shot from the TEDxManattan “Changing the Way We Eat” event held this past Saturday in New York and live streamed to a large audience on the web. The speaker is Paul Lightfoot, CEO of BrightFarms the company that is developing a business installing hydroponic greenhouses on supermarket roofs.

Dollars to donuts Paul did not know that he was standing by a hydroponic lettuce grower in the shape of the TEDx logo. It is also likely that few in the audience did either until the end of the program when this video was shown. Then the lettuce was out of the logo so to speak! Have a look and Tweet away.

The video is also on Vimeo.

Toxic Toys Lead to a Poisonous Affair

via www.youtube.com

This is a sad story regarding toxic toys, but it's even more sad when real live little Barbie and Ken kids get lead poisoning from eating fresh vegetables grown in their toxic metals contaminated city back yards.

National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week is over as of yesterday and I still have not discovered a story about it by any of the urban gardening, urban agriculture, local food or USDA extension program websites. In an age of hyperbolic adjectives, I’ll call their omission of this subject criminal. Have they no shame?

Have you had a toxic metals soil test of your yard?

New York City » One Big Brownfield

 This abandoned lot on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue will become one of the first properties to be redeveloped under the nation's only municipal brownfield program. Though suspected contamination in the soil has kept it empty for decades, it is not considered polluted enough for the state or U.S. EPA to manage. Photo by Nathanial Gronewold. 

Dawn Philip at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest says opportunities are almost endless.

"New York City is one big brownfield," she said. "The lack of clean, cheap land in this city is kind of amazing. ... There's just not a lot of open space, and there's not a lot of clean open space."

This article is about known brownfields in New York City. The even larger problem is the untested, undiscovered contaminated soil that lies in back and front yards all across the city along with guerilla gardening vacant lots. It is truly the dirty secret of urban life in many cities across America, Eastern cities like New York in particular.

It is rather obvious that the urban gardening folks do not want to talk about it. Today is the last day of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week and I have yet to read a post or article about it in a gardening, horticulture or local food publication.

It is well documented that women populate most of these organizations in the majority, many of them mothers of small children. One wonders what they are thinking when they glorify gardening without informing the public about the health risks of growing food in contaminated city dirt.

The solutions are obvious. Get a toxic metals soil test before growing edible plants in the ground. Better yet, grow them in highly productive, water saving sub-irrigated planters known widely as SIPs. The EarthBox, City Pickers (Home Depot), Garden Patch Grow Box and Tomato Success Kit from Gardener's Supply are examples of consumer SIP products but they are easy to make.

Thanks to our antiquated horticultural education, it is not widely known that you can even convert tradtional raised beds into SIPs.

Liberty Hyde Bailey, who many consider the father of American horticulture made sub-irrigated raised beds more than a hundred years ago. Contrary to what our gardening media says, this is not new technology. It is only new if you don't know the history of horticulture and sub-irrgation.

via www.eenews.net

NEW YORK -- The city this summer enthusiastically rolled out what its promoters say is the nation's only municipally led brownfield cleanup program.

But few developers have jumped to participate in the effort to reclaim abandoned industrial and commercial property.

Daniel Walsh, who directs the city's new Office of Environmental Remediation (OER), isn't fretting about the program's slow start, saying it is only natural that a pioneering effort would require upfront time and work.

Could We Save Trillions by Eliminating Lead Poisoning?

Rebecca Fuoco a Fellow at the Center for Health Leadership in the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health believes we could save over $3.5 trillion dollars by eliminating the health hazard of lead poisoning. Lead contaminated urban soil is a significant contributor to the problem, particularly in lower income city neighborhoods.

Why is the gardening and horticulture community apparently ignoring the issue? Tomorrow is the last day of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week and I have yet to read an article about it from the USDA extension program or any of the urban agriculture, urban gardening or foodie organizations.

via thehill.com

By Rebecca Fuoco, a Fellow at the Center for Health Leadership in the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health - 10/24/11 11:48 AM ET

Lead control: An investment with economic (and health) returns

Today marks the start of National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week (NLPPW), led by the CDC every year during the last full week of October. But this year’s campaign is making the usual, costly mistake: it’s treating the prevention of childhood lead poisoning like an education issue, when really, it’s an economic issue.

According to an in-depth analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, every $1 spent on controlling lead hazards results in a return of $17–$221 in reduced health care costs, higher lifetime earnings, tax revenue, reduced spending on special education, and significantly reduced criminal activity. Emerging from the worst recession in generations, increased spending on lead control would be a smart investment for the economy, public health, and social justice.

EPA Greenversations » National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week

The following is from Greenversations, the official blog of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The post is by Esther Kwon, an intern at the EPA.

One of the significant sources of lead poisoning is contaminated city soil. It is a widespread problem in New York City and most other cities across the country. It is a pertinent health issue regarding urban gardening and urban agriculture.

National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week started last Sunday, October 23. To the best of my knowledge at this point in time, there has not been one announcement or blog post about the subject from any urban horticulture, urban agriculture organization or institution in the U.S. 

Where are all the local foodie and gardening activists? Where is the USDA Extension program on the subject? Their high-powered propaganda machine is conspicuously silent.

This is about the health of your children and grandchildren. If you care, please do something. Tweet, post on Facebook, call your representatives.

via blog.epa.gov

A Week for Happy, Lead-Free Kids
Monday, October 24th, 2011

By Esther Kwon

Among the long list of things my parents told me to be afraid of when I was a child, lead-based paint was never one of them. Perhaps the reason why I was able to grow up without worrying about what was coating the swing set I played on and what kind of paint was on the walls in my room was because of the federal regulations and efforts made since the late 1970s to prevent children and adults from being affected by lead-based paint poisoning. However, it saddens me to know that there are still so many children who are exposed to lead-based paint hazards in and near our homes.

My Best Advice About Contaminated Urban Soil

From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)...

Most Common Sources of Lead Poisoning:
* Deteriorating lead-based paint
* Lead contaminated dust
* Lead contaminated residential soil

My best advice about the health threat of contaminated residential soil.

1. For optimum protection, grow edible plants in self-contained sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). This is arguably the most hygienic way to grow food plants. It is highly productive, saves water and time while offering protection from contaminated ground soil. Note that traditional raised beds can be converted to SIPs by adding a liner and a simple-to-make water/oxygen reservoir system.

2. Have your soil tested for toxic metals contamination before growing any edible plants in the ground. Ask questions if you are not sure of the results.

3. Do NOT listen to the advice of other gardeners about "easy" ways to remediate your soil. The majority of hobbyist gardeners, even those with long experience, have only anecdotal knowledge about both toxic metal soil contamination and horticultural science. Very few have higher education in soil contamination issues or horticultural science.

These same urban gardener counter-culture people gave me the following type of advice when I discovered that I had prostate cancer this year.

"Don't get radiation!" and "Take saw palmetto." Not one of these self-styled doctors expressed empathy or an understanding that I had cancer and should follow best medical practices. Incidentally, Walter Isaacson’s book about Steve Jobs reveals that he regretted not having surgery. Instead, he followed the same type of alternative medicine advice I got from the urban horticulture counter-culturists. Sadly, we know the result.

My urologist recommended radiation treatment and that is what I underwent for two months (5 days/week) at NYU Medical Center. I postponed surgery to replace my two very painful knees and followed the advice of both my urologist and radiation oncologist. My PSA before radiation was 12.0. A follow up PSA recently read 2.0 normal and I sleep better. I will have another follow up next month.

It’s one day at a time. My medical to-do list. Prostate cancer radiation treatment. Check! …Hearing aids. Check! …New glasses. Check! … Weight loss. Check (lost 30 pounds through calorie reduction). ...New knees. Coming up after the first of the year. I look forward to pain-free walking in 2012 and really miss daily walks along the shore, camera in hand.

 

Welcome to Leadville, USA

This is from a collection of photos from a site survey being conducted in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge. Note the peeling paint just above the tomato plants. Is it lead based paint?

Note that this is a re-post in recognition that this is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. If not for my dysfunctional knees I would have extended this survey even further. Toxic metals contaminated soil is a very serious but under reported health issue. It is a particular threat to children. There will be more posts on the subject this week.

Leadville is a fictional neighborhood that could be in any city in the USA. The name is fictional but the photos are real. They are from an ongoing site survey of people’s efforts to grow edible plants in their urban yards. These are front yards in a city where toxic metals soil contamination is far more widespread than the public realizes.

Currently the walking tour site survey is ongoing in the middle class neighborhood of Bay Ridge Brooklyn where I live. I will survey other Brooklyn neighborhoods in the future. 

The survey, triggered by my long-standing interest in the challenges of urban food growing, started in the summer of 2008. I focus on personal efforts to grow food in the city rather than on community or public gardening. Personal food gardening is where the public health hazard resides due to insufficient consumer education about the problem of toxic metals soil contamination.

The photos demonstrate the often-feeble efforts that residents make to grow some edible plants in the concrete jungle of the built environment. The soil in most cases could hardly be termed tillable, arable or productive. Look closely. The soil is neither pretty nor very inviting for “dirty hands” devotees.

What you see in the photos is only the tip of the iceberg. The photos are all of front yard growing. The majority of edible plants of course are growing in backyards hidden from view.

This is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week ... Oct 23-29, 2011

Click icon

Thanks to a post on the Root Simple blog (formerly known as Homegrown Evolution), I learned that this is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

I have been diligently researching this subject over the past year. My finding demonstrates what I view as malfeasance on the part of NYC horticultural institutions and the USDA Extension program in failing to adequately alert the public to the widespread urban gardening problem of toxic metals soil contamination, lead in particular.

There is one clear message. For the safety of you and your children, do not grow edible plants in urban soil without first having the soil tested for toxic metals contamination.

Stay tuned. There is much more to come in a series of posts on the subject that will continue through the coming week. This is clearly a topic that deserves your Tweets and Facebook postings.

via www.rootsimple.com

It's been one hell of a week. First we find out, via a soil test, that our backyard may have high levels of lead and zinc. We'll write a lot more about this once I confirm the results--I've sent in another sample to a different lab. And my doctor has agreed to give me a blood test. Whatever the results, I want to help get out the word about this serious issue--ironically, next week is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.

Cornell U. » Soil Contamination Workshop on Ithaca Campus

While it's good to see this workshop on the subject of soil contamination why aren't their frequent workshops like this here in New York City?

The Cornell extension program now has very limited presence in the city and the botanic gardens are mute on this important subject.

Urban soil contamination is much more widespread than the public realizes.

The best advice is to test city soil for toxic metals contamination before growing edible plants. Better yet is to grow in sub-irrigated portable micro gardens, the safest, most hygienic and productive way to grow food in the city.

via blogs.cornell.edu

Interested in low-­‐cost management of contaminated soils?

Join students and faculty at Cornell’s Dilmun Hill Student Farm to share knowledge and experiences relevant to farming on compromised sites. Hands-­‐on workshops will empower gardeners and farmers to assess their soils for contaminants and to explore best management options for contaminated soil.