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.
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).
Note that apples don’t grow true to seed, so if you planted a seed from a Mackintosh apple you won’t get a tree that produces Mackintosh apples.
Jon Kohler takes us through a food forest garden just outside of Portland, Oregon.
Jeremiah “Jere” Gettle, the founder of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds talks about his seed bank in Petaluma, California, seed saving, heirloom seeds and biodiversity.
Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust talks about the Forest Garden he planted at Schumacher College, Dartington, South Devon, United Kingdom over 14 years ago.
Forest gardening is an interesting (and new to me) concept – that in temperate climates uses a young forest as a model. Martin explains that in conventional farming/gardening we use a lot of energy just to keep the land from going to back to the wild state it wants to get back to. Using the forest model, he says that very little energy goes into that kind of policing and so forest gardening ends up being much more low-maintenance than other forms of farming.
Forest gardens allow you to grow a mix of food and medicinal plants (for example, nut trees, fruit trees, herbs, vegetables, etc.). He says you may grow up to 200 species of plants in any one forest garden.
Here is a closer look at a food forest garden planted by Robert Hart in the UK.
Biochar is charcoal created from natural materials in a low/no oxygen environment (also called “carbon black”). It is apparently a great way of renewing the soil and increasing your crop yields.
Here, John Rogers, who has a 2-acre farm in Florida, talks biochar and shows us how he makes it.
MrTerrym1964 shows us how he makes compost tea.
An intro to several motivated farmers who farm in Vancouver, Canada – their motivations, the rewards and the impact they hope it will have for their community.
Meet your Urban Farmer (trailer) from Fire and Light Media Group on Vimeo.
The Real Know How 