Judy Alexander in Port Townsend, Washington (a city of 9,000 people about 40 miles north of Seattle) talks about how and what she’s been growing and gives us a tour. I found the rainwater/rain barrel irrigation system she and her brother rigged really interesting.
Joanne in Northeast Seattle (she gets some help from the community) converts her front lawn into a food-growing garden. She talks about and shows us the various steps in the process.
“Rob Torcellini bought a $700 greenhouse kit to grow more vegetables in his backyard. Then he added fish to get rid of a mosquito problem and before long he was a committed aquaponic gardener. Now his 10 by 12 foot greenhouse is filled with not only vegetables, but fish. And the best part is: the poo from that fish is what fertilizes his garden.”
A look at the Lundberg Family Farms’ rice growing operation in California. I had no idea that they sow rice from the air.
On the Isbell Family Rice Farm in Arkansas they grow a Japanese variety of rice called Koshihikari for export to that country.
Christian Richard, a rice farmer in Louisiana balances growing rice and raising crayfish.
This video has us meeting the Simonsens, in Nebraska, who grow sorghum. They use no-till rotational planting. They mill sorghum flour themselves and sell it direct through mail order. The grit left over from the milling gets fed to their livestock.
This video follows Greg Willerer of Detroit Dirt and Brother Nature Produce in Detroit who is trying to help build a viable food system in Detroit. As part of those efforts he’s trying to create a local compost network (he’s involved breweries, coffee houses and even the Detroit Zoo — all of whom give the project their waste).
Geoff Lawton demonstrates what swales do.
Will Allen walks us through the Growing Power farm operation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They use vertical growing techniques to maximize yields and growing space for vegetables and mushrooms and they also produce tilapia (in heated tanks) and yellow perch (a lake fish that can no longer be fished for in many places because of contamination) in unheated tanks. The greenhouse producing all of this food is heated by compost.
“Milwaukee’s Growing Power, a community-based urban food center, is using plants as natural water filters for raising yellow perch. Fred Binkowski, an aquaculture specialist with the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, provides technical advice on the experimental effort.”
The Real Know How 