"101 creative and inspiring ideas to grow edible and decorative plants in urban environments"--

Profiles of sixteen innovative farms in major cities across America, plus basic how-to tips for composting, canning, beekeeping, growing vegetables, and more. Urban Farms takes readers on a journey across the country to sixteen established and emerging urban farm leaders, from Edible Schoolyard NYC in New York to Novella Carpenter’s Ghost Town Farm in California. Sarah C. Rich’s profiles about each farm, as well as her basic how-to tips on such activities as kitchen composting and beekeeping, offer insight and inspiration. Matthew Benson’s photographs, meanwhile, reveal the quirky individuality that is innate in these green spaces tucked among city buildings and empty lots. In addition, five essays by experts in the field examine a variety of roles that urban farms can play in our lives today. Praise for Urban Farms “These snapshots of urban farms reinforce the truth about farming in a city is one of the surest ways to build community, feed our children real food, become fiscally responsible, and support a sustainable future.” —Alice Walters, chef, author, and founder of the Edible Schoolyard “Rich’s handsome, intelligent Urban Farms . . . chronicles a movement to bring kale to the people, an effort that stretches across the country, from Brooklyn to Oakland. . . . Benson’s spirited photographs capture the joy and beauty of urban farming’s bounty.” —New York Times Book Review

Forget the 100-mile eat-local diet; try the 300-square-foot-diet &— grow squash on the windowsill, flowers in the planter box, or corn in a parking strip. Apartment Gardening details how to start a garden in the heart of the city. From building a window box to planting seeds in jars on the counter, every space is plantable, and this book reveals that the DIY future is now by providing hands-on, accessible advice. Amy Pennington's friendly voice paired with Kate Bingham-Burt's crafty illustrations make greener living an accessible reality, even if readers have only a few hundred square feet and two windowsills. Save money by planting the same things available at the grocery store, and create an eccentric garden right in the heart of any living space.

The easy way to succeed at urban gardening A townhouse yard, a balcony, a fire escape, a south-facing window—even a basement apartment can all be suitable locations to grow enough food to save a considerable amount of money and enjoy the freshest, healthiest produce possible. Urban Gardening For Dummies helps you make the most of limited space through the use of proven small-space gardening techniques that allow gardeners to maximize yield while minimizing space. Covers square-foot gardening and vertical and layered gardening Includes guidance on working with container gardening, succession gardening, and companion gardening Offers guidance on pest management, irrigation and rain barrels, and small-space composting If you're interested in starting an urban garden that makes maximum use of minimal space, Urban Gardening For Dummies has you covered.

While most of the existing literature on community gardens and urban agriculture share a tendency towards either an advocacy view or a rather dismissive approach on the grounds of the co-optation of food growing, self-help and voluntarism to the neoliberal agenda, this collection investigates and reflects on the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of these initiatives. It questions to what extent they address social inequality and injustice and interrogates them as forms of political agency that contest, transform and re-signify ‘the urban’. Claims for land access, the right to food, the social benefits of city greening/community conviviality, and insurgent forms of planning, are multiplying within policy, advocacy and academic literature; and are becoming increasingly manifested through the practice of urban gardening. These claims are symptomatic of the way issues of social reproduction intersect with the environment, as well as the fact that urban planning and the production of space remains a crucial point of an ever-evolving debate on equity and justice in the city. Amid a mushrooming over positive literature, this book explores the initiatives of urban gardening critically rather than apologetically. The contributors acknowledge that these initiatives are happening within neoliberal environments, which promote –among other things - urban competition, the dismantling of the welfare state, the erasure of public space and ongoing austerity. These initiatives, thus, can either be manifestation of new forms of solidarity, political agency and citizenship or new tools for enclosure, inequality and exclusion. In designing this book, the progressive stance of these initiatives has therefore been taken as a research question, rather than as an assumption. The result is a collection of chapters that explore potentials and limitations of political gardening as a practice to envision and implement a more sustainable and just city.

'Excellent book.' Nigella Lawson 'Charming, inspiring, uplifting... pure lovely.' Marian Keyes 'Read Rhapsody in Green. A novelist's beautiful, useful essays about her tiny garden.' India Knight 'Glorious...for anyone who loves fruit, vegetables, herbs and language. It makes you see them with new eyes.' Diana Henry 'A witty account of 'extreme allotmenteering' for all obsessive gardeners' Mail on Sunday 'An extremely entertaining and inspiring story of one woman's passionate transformation of a small, irregular shaped urban garden into a bountiful source of food.' Woman & Home 'A gardening book like no other, this is the author's 'love letter' to her garden. She relays warm and witty stories about the trials and tribulations throughout her gardening year.' Garden News '...this inspirational, funny book, written by someone who hankers after a homesteader's lifestyle, will make you look at even your window box in a new, more productive light.' The Simple Things 'Gardening is not a hobby but a passion: a mess of excitement and compulsion and urgency and desire. Those who practise it are botanists, evangelists, freedom fighters, midwives and saboteurs; we kill; we bleed. No, I can't drop everything to come in for dinner; it's a matter of life and death out here.' Novelist Charlotte Mendelson has a secret life. Despite owning only six square metres of urban soil and a few pots, she is an extreme gardener; the creator of a tiny but bountiful edible jungle. And like all enthusiasts, she will not rest until you share her obsession. This is the story of an amateur gardener's journey to addiction: her attempts to buy lion dung from London Zoo and to build her own cold frame; her disinhibited composting and creative approach to design; her prejudices (roses, purple flowers, people with orchards); and her passions: quinces, salad-leaves, herbs, Japanese greens and ancient British apples. It is a story of where fantasy meets reality, of the slow onset of a consuming love and, most of all, of how gardening, however peculiar, can save your life.

A comprehensive overview of edible landscapes complete with more than 300 full-color photos and illustrations Designing Urban Agriculture is about the intersection of ecology, design, and community. Showcasing projects and designers from around the world who are forging new paths to the sustainable city through urban agriculture landscapes, it creates a dialogue on the ways to invite food back into the city and pave a path to healthier communities and environments. This full-color guide begins with a foundation of ecological principles and the idea that the food shed is part of a city's urban systems network. It outlines a design process based on systems thinking and developed for a lifecycle or regenerative-based approach. It also presents strategies, tools, and guidelines that enable informed decisions on planning, designing, budgeting, constructing, maintaining, marketing, and increasing the sustainability of this re-invented cityscape. Case studies demonstrate the environmental, economic, and social value of these landscapes and reveal paths to a greener and healthier urban environment. This unique and indispensable guide: Details how to plan, design, fund, construct, and leverage the sustainability aspects of the edible landscape typology Covers over a dozen typologies including community gardens, urban farms, edible estates, green roofs and vertical walls, edible school yards, seed to table, food landscapes within parks, plazas, streetscapes and green infrastructure systems and more Explains how to design regenerative edible landscapes that benefit both community and ecology and explores the connections between food, policy, and planning that promote viable food shed systems for more resilient communities Examines the integration of management, maintenance, and operations issues Reveals how to create a business model enterprise that addresses a lifecycle approach