Inside Urban Green

SIP Salad Bowls » A Small Business Opportunity

via www.youtube.com

This video from Cooking Up a Story is right on target except for one thing and you probably know what it is. Of course, these salad bowls should be sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). They will be far more productive and built-in water reservoirs will significantly reduce the risk of drying out.

Small planters like these salad bowls are high risk for fatal desiccation. I see wilted plants in drain hole planters all over my neighborhood here in Brooklyn. There are wilted plants everywhere. It is a sorry sight in the heat of the summer.

The video reminds me of an old expression in my sales career and it is; “every disadvantage, an advantage”. It’s about flipping negatives into positives. There is a small business opportunity here created by the ultra conservative mindset of the garden center industry.

A SIP salad bowl business could be a home based business or one that is associated with an existing retail business such as a florist or hardware store. It would not take much of an investment to start a business like this. It could be a door-to-door business run by high school teenagers or college students.

Singapore » Investing in Urban Food Production Technology

Singapore invests in urban food production technology (March 2011 unemployment rate 1.9%) while New York City invests in urban dirt farming. With the exception of Gotham Greens, that's where the grant money is going. (May 2011 NYC unemployment rate 7.9%, U.S. 9.2% June 2011)

via www.soshiok.com

A local inventor has come up with a way, in land-scarce S’pore, to increase the supply of leafy vegetables.

You could call it a veggie-go-round.

And it is the brainchild of local inventor Jack Ng, 48, of privately owned DJ Engineering.

With the help of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), he has come up with a solution to make vegetable farming yield five times more produce than it normally can with the same amount of land.

He has done this with minimal resources by coming up with vertical contraptions known as tower farms.

The six metre-tall structures are energy-efficient as they are easy and cheap to maintain.

The tower uses only 1kW of electricity per hour for its water pump which distributes 1kg of water to rotate 22 racks.

It costs $10,000 to set up one tower.

The prototype farm, which consists of 19 towers, occupies 1,000 sq m of land at Sembawang Research Centre.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, who visited the farm at its launch on Jan 28, was pleased at the prospect of spreading the idea to all the local vegetable farms.

“Farming leafy vegetables tends to be very land-intensive so innovative systems like this can improve the productivity of local farms,” Mr Mah said.

Mr Ng has started a company called Sky Greens. The $1 million project aims to produce vegetables on a commercial scale by year-end and to market vertical farming.

FARM:shop » Under Construction

The FARM:shop in London is open now. Here is what it looked like under construction. More to come about the FARM:shop. Stay tuned. 

Prior post about the FARM:shop.

via www.youtube.com

At The Farm:Shop Something & Son are converting a derelict shop into an urban food 'Hub', cafe and arts venue complete with mini 'aquaponic' fish farms, rooftop chicken coops, indoor allotments and polytunnel.

Sub-irrigateed Planters (SIPs): A Backyard Tomato Garden Or Business

Here is a look at our tomatoes in EarthBoxes this spring, well, almost summer

via www.facebook.com

It would be interesting to know the fresh vegetable production (and street value) of this back yard garden, excuse me farm. What we see here could well be a family small business selling both vegetables and ready-to-grow sub-irrigated planter (SIP) gardens. Read about someone already doing it. 

Think about all the unemployed teenagers and college students we have in America who could produce some significant fresh food and income over a summer if they knew how. 

The key is education about modern methods of urban food production that does not require tilling scarce and often-contaminated land. Currently this information is not available and that is a national disgrace. Third world countries get better information (micro gardening for example) from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) than we do.

The USDA is not funded or mandated to teach you as an urban or suburban citizen how to grow your own food using the most modern productive methods. It is funded by tax dollars and supported by lobbyists whose sole interest is in promoting corporate agriculture. That does not include you.

Instead of modern up to date consumer information, the USDA through its Extension and Master Gardener programs spreads outdated information about dirt and drain hole gardening. Sadly, urban foodie and dirt hugger bloggers and writers drink their cool-aid and spit it out all over the Internet. The blind end up leading the blind.

Almost every day I see photos like this one about job training. Well intentioned perhaps but dumb and dumber. Working in a MacDonald's or Starbuck's is probably a better job than this. The expression "dirt cheap" isn't just about the dirt; it's also about dirt-cheap jobs that lead nowhere. 

U.S. Green Dreams Pricked By Tough International Realities

Green jobs? From what I observe here in New York City, most of what are being called green jobs are more brown, as in pick and shovel jobs. It may be work, but it is low paying work and no better than fast food jobs.

Dirt farming in the city has a place but surely doesn't qualify as a significant source of green jobs. In my view, nuevo victory gardeners and fantasy farmers are living in a dream world of a bygone America. 

There are some interesting points about green job hype raised in this post. I found it worth reading and agree that without a national manufacturing strategy, we have a very tough row to hoe.

via tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com

I don't know the figure myself but someone should compute how much of every federal $ committed to non-agricultural, non-nuclear renewable energy sticks inside the U.S. vs. how much leaks out to Germany, China, India, and Scandinavia.

Future jobs: What Might You Be Doing? « Science So What

There have been hundreds of articles about so-called green jobs, or green collar jobs that are supposedly just over the horizon.

They usually involve solar panel installing, weatherization or urban farming (as in digging dirt). There is no future in dirt.

This is the most interesting projection of future new job ideas that I have seen. These are really cool jobs in my opinion. They aren't vaporware ideas like so many I've read. The list comes from a very progressive website in the U.K. called Science So What.

Note Dream Job No. 8. In my opinion it should be broadened to include sub-irrigated planter (SIP) systems and home hydroponic and aquaponic systems. This field of consumer food production systems has enormous potential. It probably justifies its own separate category.

8. Vertical farmers Vertical farms growing in skyscrapers in the middle or our cities could dramatically increase food supply by 2020. Vertical farmers will need skills in a range of scientific disciplines, engineering and commerce.

via sciencesowhat.direct.gov.uk

With the help of the team at Fast Future Research, Science: [So what? So everything] has looked at potential developments in science and technology over the next 20 years and identified 20 jobs we could be doing as a result of these advances.

What would you like to do?

My Hope Is That The Fat Lady Hasn't Sung

Tom Friedman who perhaps speaks for me more than any other journalist thinks the fat lady has already sung. I hope he is wrong, but am fearful he has it right.

My life spans the period of time he talks about in his op-ed piece of February 20. My emotional immaturity as a teenager led to a very untimely pregnancy while still in high school. Yes, I know it is quite common today, but not at that time.

Thanks to an evening school training program by Grumman Aircraft, I became a machinist while earning my degree at Hofstra evening school. I bought a house at nineteen and had three children by the time I was twenty-one. Try doing that today.

Thanks to our post-WWII manufacturing economy, I was able to survive and eventually prosper. I think often today about the reality that I would not be able to do what I did then in today's America.

Two Dog Organic Nursery Teaches Too

Ready to go EarthBoxes at Two Dog Organic Nursery

Two Dog Organic Nursery not only offers fully planted EarthBoxes to go, they also teach about them. It's an excellent way to market a business and do some social good too by freeing people from dirt and drain hole bondage.

Based on my knowledge of how little is offered on this subject here in New York City, this could be a full time business. The two major botanic gardens offer nothing on the subject. Amazing, but true!

Via their blog: 2dog-blog.blogspot.com

Two Dog Organic Nursery announces Monthly EarthBox Planting Classes!

A Guide for a Certificate Program in Urban Greenscaping

Click on the photo to read the guide

We Need an Urban Greenscaping Community College Certificate Program

The Rooftop Garden Project in Montreal produced what many believe is the definitive guide to edible rooftop gardens. It is by no means just a rooftop guide. It is applicable for any urban garden whether rooftop or surface level. Scan through it and you will quickly see that it is a professional document.

This dedicated and focused non-profit group has done an amazing job of advancing urban greenscaping through the use of modern sub-irrigation methods. They are continually testing, modifying and improving their methods. My plan is to use their work as the teaching guide for a community college certificate program in urban greenscaping.

An urban greenscaping certificate program would teach all aspects of greenscaping in the city including edible, decorative and flowering plants. It is much more than just plants however. Urban greenscaping also includes subjects such as rainwater harvesting, composting, recycling, reusing, fabricating and solar power. There are many elements of construction work involved with urban greenscaping.

Make Your Own Green Collar Job

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

This is a photo from the front page of the New York Times this morning. Although I'm having a problem envisioning a $25,000 jellyfish tank, the message of the story is spot on. There are self-made jobs to be had right now if you have some entrepreneurial spirit. 

There is no doubt in my mind that there are new jobs involved with fresh food production. I avoid using the terms farmer and gardener because you do not have to be either to help urbanites grow fresh food in the city. This is not about tilling the soil. 

There is a need for people to build, supply and install sub-irrigated boxes, beds and buckets. Thanks to our education system there is little public knowledge about how to produce fresh food on pavements, balconies and rooftops without need for tilled earth. This lack opens the door for entrepreneurial creativity and initiative. 

This presents an opportunity to turn a disadvantage into an advantage, to turn a negative into a positive, to fill a void.

With little investment, you could start making sub-irrigated planters from the waste stream that includes food-grade buckets, boxes and lumber. The planters are easy to make for anyone with reasonable do-it-yourself skills. You could do a lot with just a power drill. 

An urban greenscaping service could deliver and install pre-planted planters to order, much like delivering boxes of fresh produce. The product in this case is a box of vegetable plants (or flowers) rather than a box of vegetables. 

As you can envision, this is a service business rather than a sweat labor business. You don’t need shovels and hoes. 

The need is there. I have seen it right here in my own neighborhood.