Local, Organic Garlic Available

Local, organic garlic is available from our friend Daniel Hoffman from the Cutting Veg. After all, our garlic won’t be ready until next spring though we’ve got a few Spanish and Italian varieties from Peter Wylie that most people haven’t heard of

7 Points for Fantastic Food and Cities

Dr. Wayne Roberts spoke on food policy and a new vision for cities at Toledo Library in the US. As always his witty humour is always a hit. The photos he uses in the presentation are also quite insightful. Dr. Roberts also proposes hopeful solutions and answers to fixing cities and the food system. If you want the quick written summary you can read it below.

WE ARE DIRT! BELIEVE IT!

Dirt makes your food. Dirt makes your plants. Dirt changes your weather. People mine dirt to get metals that make your iPhone. Dirt is linked to war, drought and climate change. Without dirt there’d be no life as we know it. So watch the movie, Dirt! Dirt has already won 3 awards and was featured at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival so you can’t go wrong and you’ll learn plenty too.

Gardening from Second Base

Natalia, a friend of FoodCycles and her sister Marcela are looking for volunteers to help develop a Community Garden Program at a homeless youth shelter in Scarborough (5 minutes from Kennedy subway station). Contact Marcela if you’re interested and read the details below.

Make Wine, Eat Dirt

Gary Vaynerchuk a famous wine critic gives his quick story about dirt — he actually eats it at every wine place he goes too. Australia, France, you name it — it comes with the job description. After all Gary’s got to know the wine’s like the back of his hand including how it was grown.

Fall for Garlic, Surprise Spring

Several beds of healthy, fantastic garlic will be ready for spring! Are you wondering how wonderful garlic is for you? Check out the resources below! When its fresh, local and organic you really focus all of the awesome good nutrients into it so that you need less of it to improve your health.

FoodCycles for “A” Soil Education

Vince McDermott did a short video on what FoodCycles does and gives you a pretty good tour of the grounds.

Making Opportunities for City Farming

There’s a city farming/urban agriculture conference called “Opportunities for Action: An Urban Agriculture Symposium” taking place in Guelph, Ontario on Friday, November 20, 2009. The event aims to inspire and find ways to move city farming forward. You can register at Backyard Bounty or contact Shannon Lee Stirling.

Sky Vegetables Take Roofs to New Heights

Sky Vegetables takes a slightly unique twist in rooftop gardening by covering all the administrative stuff, having others put in the equipment and make its money only from the sale of vegetables. What’s good is that it aims to use proven technologies like solar to help it take off. At the same time its pretty high up there on the technology needs and not very affordable for communities to implement without major government and business investment. That’s probably one of the big criticisms for vertical farming towers that Dickson Despommier envisions too.

New York Has 10,000 Acres of Farmland

Backyard farming – City of Toronto has 5000 ha (2500 acres) of rooftop space alone, Downsview Park has at least 500 acres – in Toronto there’s a huge amount of space to use – even using a bit would make TO a greener, more food secure place.