Monday, August 23, 2010

Urban Farms

This summer we've been playing music, traveling, sitting in the river, and gardening.  Our sublet's backyard is a shared garden.  Fortunately we share it with our good friends so we've all been sharing in the maintenance and reward.  I had a productive garden years ago in Durango.  I've got a picture of me with hair down below my shoulders, a big scraggly beard, holding some carrots and other various produce, giving a thumbs up or some other equally stony symbol.

I've dabbled in gardening the last few summers but I'm away from it too much to really do it right.  I planted a grape vine that had a mind of it's own and is surely feeding the birds of Nashville as I write this.  This summer's garden is simple, but I was floored when I showed up at a friends house for a gig the other day and his dad has successfully converted his yard and several other neighbors yards into farms.  Literally a Neighborhood CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or NSA called the Flatiron Neighborhood Farm.  I started to do some research and discovered the guy who gets credit for inventing the idea, Kipp Nash of Community Roots Boulder.  I think the idea is brilliant:  Take grassy or otherwise landscaped yards and convert them into highly productive micro-farms then distribute food through a NSA.  The people who's yards are converted can eat out of their garden and on very small pieces of land there can be immense amounts of food grown.  It's fresh and doesn't require energy to transport, assuming the NSA members are truly in the neighborhood.  I think it's great.  Check it out.

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