Category: farms

Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Want to grow 400 heads of lettuce a week?  Freight Farms is a new solution for growing food in any geographic location, all within a 40’x  8’ freight container.  The units are equipped with growing equipment and the latest harvest technology necessary for commercial scale agriculture.   The setup provides efficient, year-round growing and will help reduce transportation costs.

The systems uses soilless agriculture setups, and uses solar energy.  Freight containers are a water-tight, weather-proof structure that is capable of withstanding the most extreme weather conditions. Their size and structure provide a versatile, durable and cost effective way to grow food.  Freight farms use less water than traditional agriculture and eliminate the need for pesticides or herbicides.

The company behind the units call them “A local solution for the next generation of global food supply.”The units are designed to be used by a wide variety of users, including institutional foodservice providers, schools, restaurants, farmers, grocery stores, disaster relief efforts, wholesale produce distributors and developing communities.

You can read more about their different units and even order one today if you want to get growing at freightfarms.com
Image Source:
freightfarms.com

Links:

freightfarms.com

 

 

Lisa Ma:  Speculative Design and “Farmification”

Lisa Ma: Speculative Design and “Farmification”

Lately everyone has been sending me interesting links about food and art.  This week a colleague of mine sent a link to an upcoming conference entitled “Molecular Cuisine: The Politics of Taste” which will be held on October 19-21 in New York.  The conference focuses on the topic of taste from various perspectives including the culinary arts, sociology, art history, and science.  I checked out the conference website, and was interested by the work of one of the presenters, Lisa Ma.

Lisa Ma is a speculative designer who does research that she describes as “ creating platforms of engagement between the mainstream and the fringe.”  One of the research techniques that she has used includes something  called “extreme use,” which is when you give someone a tool who would not usually use a tool, observe them, and use this information to create alternative solutions to situations.  Some of her recent research has included looking at structures, relationships, and how to create more sustainable communities.

Ma recently was involved in a project where she spent time in a Chinese factory outside the city of Shenzhen that built videogame controllers.  As part of her research, she worked, ate,  made friends, and watched soap operas with the factory workers.

One concern of this factory and many others in China, is that the factory was making only one type of product, the video controller, which already are diminishing in sales, and will eventually not be used.  Ma wondered what would happen to this community when the factory closes in the future, and if another revenue source could be generated.

Many of the factory workers came from a farming background,  so she proposed to the factory owners that they provide opportunities for the workers to do parttime farming to generate another stream of revenue.  She called this experiment “Farmification,” and that this effort could have a positive effect on the community now and in the future.

Videos, pictures, and information about the project can be seen on Ma’s website.

Image Source:
Lisa Ma – Website
Links:

Video – Lisa Ma Talking about “Farmification”

“Farmification – Video

Lisa Ma – Website

 

 

 

Food Font @ The Green Corps Fairfax Farm Making Food Alphabets

Food Font @ The Green Corps Fairfax Farm Making Food Alphabets

Green Corps is a work/study program supported by the Cleveland Botanical Garden.  For the program, high school students work to transform vacant lots in the city into urban farms. The students are paid for their work and they develop work skills, leadership, and help build a healthier, greener community for themselves and their neighbors.  Green Corps students work 16–20 hours a week in their “home base” neighborhood farm.  They spend time planting, weeding, pruning, harvesting, and preparing crops for market.  Each week, students take turns selling the produce at farmers markets.

Today I worked with 13 Green Corps students from the ½ acre Fairfax Learning Farm which is located in a once vacant lot on E79th at Amos Ave. in Cleveland.  The students worked in teams to create 3 food alphabets for the Food Font project.

When I arrived, two students gave me a tour of the farm.  Rainbow Swiss chard, kale, eggplant, okra, radishes, watermelon, cucumbers and other vegetables were growing in the farm.  There were also herbs such as basil, rosemary, and thyme.  The student showed me their personal square foot garden boxes which are the size of an average backyard garden that each student maintains.

I gave an overview of the Food Font project, and each team worked together to make letters out of the Farm Food.  The first group worked with okra, peppers, and a few squash to make a vegetable letterset that had a fun, flirty feel to it due to the curly shape of the peppers.  The next group got creative with the rainbow Swiss chard and made the “Swissy” alphabet.   The last group worked with full and sliced potatoes to make a lowercase alphabet called “Potato Patato” with potatoes that were harvested yesterday.

When the Food Font tool is built, these Fairfax Farm Green Corps alphabets will be in the Food Font tool so we can all write things in Swiss chard, potatoes, peppers, and okra.  Thanks to everyone that participated and to Alex the team leader who worked with me to plan for the activity.

Image Source:
Kristen Baumlier

Links:

Green Corps – Cleveland Botanical Garden

 

 

Beautiful Possibility Elixir Social at the West Side Market

Beautiful Possibility Elixir Social at the West Side Market

Do you feel worried about the future?   Do you experience depression, insomnia, exhaustion, or anxiety?  No – this is not an advertisement for a new drug, but an art project that explores “Americanitis.”  “Americanitis” is a condition that was first diagnosed in 1869 as a nervous condition resulting from rapid modernization.  This condition was later exploited by medicine shows that peddled “Americanitis Elixirs” that claimed that they would relieve stress and calm the nerves.

Artist Alison Pebworth is bringing awareness to Americanitis with her cross-country tour of her project Beautiful Possibility.  The show is a traveling exhibition in the form of the 19th century American Traveling Show.  The project’s goal is to engage people about what it means to be American.   For each tour stop, Pebworth creates a display of hand-painted posters that are in the style of Side Show/Wild West posters to re-tell American history. She also is interviewing people across America on their thoughts about “Americanitis.”

For the Elixir Social event, Pebworth partnered with some local farms in Cleveland including farmers from City Rising Farm, Erie’s Edge Farm, Gather ‘Round Farm, Let It Bee Gardens and the Possibilitarian Garden Project.  Each farm made a special “Cleveland Elixir.”    The elixirs were being served from 10 am until 6 at the West Side Market, with different farms serving their elixirs throughout the day.

I stopped by the Beautiful Possibility Elixir Social event in the afternoon and found the show and Elixir social setup in a stall at the end of the produce section of the market.

At the outside of the market, I was greeted by the first Possibilitarian garden and puppet theater, which had setup a full sensory elixir.    There was a cardboard structure, shaped kind of like an old-school phone booth, which you were invited to enter once you drank their elixir.

I was given a tiny handmade ceramic cup, which was filled with a pinkish drink that looked like juice.  I was directed to try it with a rose petal and to enter the booth.  The elixir tasted kind of like and herb flavored cherry juice, and it was slightly sweet.  I entered the booth to find some pictures and dried herbs attached to the walls.  I could hear some music that sounded like a piano that was far away.   I have to say – I felt different when I exited.

I talked to Diana and Daniel, the farmers from Possibilitairan garden, who had made the full sensory elixir.  Diana said in making it, they were thinking about the Americanitis project and wanted to use some calming herbs such as sweet woodruff in the drink. The elixir was made of many ingredients, which included kombucha, mulberry juice, lemon balm, sweet woodruff, clover, nettles, spinach, strawberries catnip, thyme, and other herbs.  She told me that eating the rose petal and drinking the elixir made a thick cinnamon flavor.

Diana and Daniel have a farm and puppet theatre in the Buckeye neighborhood in Cleveland.  I really liked the booth that they made, and I learned that the music I heard was from a small music box that someone cranked and made work while I was inside.  Lots of people at the market were interested in trying the elixir, and many would talk with the farmers about the elixir and project.

After experiencing this elixir, I entered the vegetable market area, where there were some of the posters hanging from the Americanitis project.  Some of the full color tour posters were hanging, and there was pleated red, white, and blue fabric on the tables. One of the posters that I liked featured a cowgirl trying to balance two baskets.  One basket held Dick Cheney, and the other held an Indian.  Over the image “Dangling Man, the American Challenge.  CLAIM YOUR DEMONS”  was written.   The posters and setup gave it a world fair/ sideshow look and feel.

There was another farm serving elixirs, and I met members from Let It Bee Garden who had made a Community Service Berry Potent Potion, and also had several other elixirs.  I was given another small ceramic cup, and tried the Community Service Berry Potent Potion, which tasted like berries and tea.  The label on the elixir said that it was made with passion and love, and was made for patient possibilities.  Julia, who is one of the farmers, was wearing a great hat that had various flower petals that covered the hat.

There were lots of people that stopped by to look at the posters, try the elixirs, and talk to the farmers and the artist who was there with the Americanitis surveys.  These opinion surveys were available for people to fill out.  Some of the questions include, “ Although the term has fallen out of use, do you think Americanitis still exists today? Are there new causes that may contribute to contemporary Americanitis?  Who in American society do you think suffers most and least from Americanitis?”  There also were sections where you could circle the causes that you believe may still contribute to Americanitis, and what symptoms might still stem from the condition, which listed anxiety, poor digestion, exhaustion, insomnia, and others.

I talked to Pebworth for a few minutes, and she told me about the other elixirs that had been served earlier in the day.  Earlier in the day, young people from City Rising farm had created a Mulberry Thyme” elixir, which was a thyme and mint sun tea. They added fresh mulberries as they served it, which made for a lively (and messy) elixir event.

To start the elixir social, Erie’s Edge Farm had served a Stretch Your Roots Sunrise Elixir from 8-9 am that was made from roots.  They had been weeding their gardens, and had found lots of roots from carrots, beet, and other veggies. They pulled these out, dried them, roasted them, and then ground this into a fine powder.   The hot elixir that they served had a chicory/ coffee like taste

Do I feel any different from the elixir event?    I think so.  It was really great to meet the farmers and to see so many people trying the elixirs and interacting with each other, with the artist, and with the farmers.  It is also nice to know that others are thinking about the stresses of life, and our pace of life today.

Alison Pebworth is in town through June 23, 2012.  Check out SPACES gallery website to learn more about the project, and the times that you can see the exhibition.

Image Source:
Kristen Baumlier

Links:

www.beautifulpossibilitytour.com

www.spacesgallery.org

 

 

Crop Mobs – In Your Town and Mine

Crop Mobs – In Your Town and Mine

Recreational farming has been on the rise, with more and more individuals spending weekends and free time working on farms.  Crop Mobs, sometimes called Farm Mobs, offer the experience of sustainable community farming to those who don’t have land.  Crop Mob groups have popped up all over the U.S. including Chapel Hill, Atlanta, Cleveland, and other cities and have helped many smaller and younger farms in growing and harvesting food.

Generally a monthly word-of-mouth (and Web) event, volunteer head out to a farm to help mulch, build greenhouses and pull rocks out of fields. Participants are usually in their 20s or 30s, college educated, and usually work in the office during the week. Usually no previous experience is required, and bringing your own shovels and hoes is encouraged.  Sometimes lunch is served in exchange for work.

A first group called Crop Mob began in the Chapel Hill area in North Carolina in 2008 when a group of 19 farmers, some apprentices, and other volunteers met at Piedmont Biofarm in Pittsboro, NC to harvest sweet potatoes.  Each year since, the crop mob returns to the farm every October for the sweet potato harvest. Today there are over 50 people who show up to the Crob Mob events.

Since that first Crop Mob, there have been more than 50 groups that have popped up. Much of the rapid growth is attributed to an article in the  New York Times that was published in 2010.

Want to get your hands in the dirt and work on the farm?  Check out the cropmob website where you can get connected and learn about what opportunities for Crop Mobbing are happening near your neighborhood.
Image Source:
cropmob.org/

Links:
cropmob.org/

Field Report: Plow Shares – New York Times Article