Category: Food & Ag
Growing a Rainbow in the Urban Dirt
Debbie Harris directs Urban Adamah, a Jewish urban farm in Northwest Berkeley. She is a farmer by trade but her role at Urban Adamah requires her to be “a horticulturalist, a plumber, a therapist, a teacher, an organizer.”
Food Forests Green Solano
This spring, Sustainable Solano hosted open gardens that they helped plan and plant, offering visitors a chance to discover these food forests: a garden layered like a natural forest that includes fruit-bearing trees and edible plants.
Reflecting on Resilience
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Leaders of the Local Grain Economy
While wheat accounts for just under 3% of California’s harvested cropland, a local grain economy has given the crop new significance.
Growing a Rainbow in the Urban Dirt
Debbie Harris directs Urban Adamah, a Jewish urban farm in Northwest Berkeley. She is a farmer by trade but her role at Urban Adamah requires her to be “a horticulturalist, a plumber, a therapist, a teacher, an organizer.”
Food Forests Green Solano
This spring, Sustainable Solano hosted open gardens that they helped plan and plant, offering visitors a chance to discover these food forests: a garden layered like a natural forest that includes fruit-bearing trees and edible plants.
Reflecting on Resilience
Share Your Story,
Add Your Quilt Square
Is Weed Greener Indoors or Out?
Although cannabis has a reputation as an environmentally-friendly plant, indoor cannabis cultivation demands significant energy to maintain precise light and temperature requirements. Last year, Colorado State researchers published the first study on the topic.
Mama Wanda Sows Resilience
After a career of school administration and community engagement, Wanda Stewart saw firsthand how schools can be a central space for activating people.
Portola Garden District Returns to Its Roots
Down a busy street overflowing with groceries, taquerias, Chinese medicine shops, and small businesses, an unassuming dead end is home to a thriving community garden, which also got greener during the pandemic.
Pandemic Spawns Local Foods Revival
Farmers markets drew people outside during the pandemic, while CSAs and produce boxes kept them eating in but supporting local food.
The Farm That Could
In 2019, Governor Newsom signed AB 1486 into law which connects developers interested in building more affordable homes with surplus public land suitable for housing. In the Bay Area, the housing crisis is nothing new. Using public land to create affordable housing is a step towards solving the crisis. However, taking Happy Lot Farm and Gardens land to service one need would also be squandering another need, in this case, urban farming in food deserts.
Apple-a-Day Driveway
Sally Dinwoodie, El Cerrito
Meatless & Happy
Ally Daly, Berkeley