Metropolitan Gardening

The show trailer has a great host - covers pesto made from basil grown on a rooftop farm. Whats not to like? Jeanne Sparrow Dig n Dine's host is "every woman". She's your mom - she's your wife - she's your best girlfriend. Jeanne's pleasant and has a really easy to listen to voice. Her presentation is enthusiastic without being dramatic and her interest in those she interviews seems genuine. The editorial of the show is professional and the story moves quickly - but not so fast that you can't follow the key points - It's sort of a cooking and urban gardening show all in one. Perfect!

Princeton News: A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain . Merely  ranting about this for years has been bad form - these folks are making the argument in an authoritative and well researched manner.

Metropolitan Gardening is looking for reader input. Send in your awesome garden photo for our reader photo contest - the best pictures get posted with an article about the photographer / urban gardener. Check out our  submission process here .

The City Gardener's Handbook  by Linda Yang is a  through  reference written with warm pithy wit and  seasoned wisdom. The book's content is broken into "chunks" or paragraphs within chapter topics. Each paragraph having a short descriptive blurb in the margin that make it easy to scan. This organization makes it perfect to read on the subway or while riding the bus because you can easily find your place if you have to scurry to get a seat at a stop or fold a page over while making a transfer to another train.  Each chapter provides a part of the complete story of how to garden in a city. From containers to soil to when and what to plant to pests and how to plan a garden space around the light that shines into it though the buildings surrounding.  The lists of plants are not so extensive as to overwhelm but rather are the crib notes of a master gardener who though trial and error has provided a solid "plant vocabulary" with which to work. Each plant listing

FYI: farmers markets have grown 16% this past year according to the recent USDA announcement ! Wait this is a bad time for the economy how is this even happening??!??! Unless maybe people are reinventing their food consumption habits in a response to the economic crisis. Here's a couple ways to actively support with low low effort your fave farmers market(s). The bestest link for a friggen amazing user generated pictures of farmers markets . Just enter your locale and see the market where you can shop in real time. You can see a sample of the Union Square Farmers Market posted above as a slideshow widget. Join the Food Revolution and Vote for Your Favorite Farmers’ Market  VOTE  HERE  Here's the USDA link to info on farmers markets for faith based and neighborhood partnerships.This is a cool chart showing how much of our food is grown on urban fringe areas . 

The JUST FOOD mission is to unite local farms and city residents... If you are in NYC and you want to shop for produce grown in the city here is a fantastic list - Just Food brings the thunder and the rain of solid info regarding where to go to market. And if it's food fests you like - get your tickets for " Let Us Eat Local " the tasting event features over 2 dozen fooderies at the South Street Seaport on September 16, 2010 and celebrates locally grown food. (If you have information on locally grown food in your city please leave your web address and/or email in the comments section here so we can post about the growing local food movement in american urban culture. -BTO)

Gas mileage? A diesel? - but a1958 Mercedes is now on the  ♥  list. Sparkle green surrounded by hollyhocks and sunflowers??? This is the epitome of  pimpin horticultural style.

Heavy Petal = Now harvesting: mid-August Heavy Petal is the hardcore west coast nougat center. This most recent photo collection of potato babies catches the eye - and then the information and knowledge is thick and chewy.   Heavy Petal  is a Creative Commons Blog so this photo is shared with attribution. . .

Herb Garden Weekend - Brooklyn Botanic Garden The Brooklyn Botanic's website is sooo fresh! For 100 years old they keep coming up roses. The cherry blossom fest in spring is a great fave but this brand new herb garden looks to define putting the herb in urban.

Eagle Street Rooftop Farm | A Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint Brooklyn Because of a continuing adoration for rooftop farming the topic inevitably gets airtime- recently an engineer friend brought up the weight of snow to  in a discussion about rooftop farming, green building and the ever increasing burden of code. Additionally the weight of the produce, planting tools ect might be considered - anyone have links to structural engineering and rooftop gardening?

Where did this bonsai come from!!?!?!? Recently an area man reported a mystical bonsai tree that appeared in a local garden center. When asked to describe what happened the plant lover whispered in a low voice, "One day the plant was all brown and shabby and then the next it was re-potted and appeared as this healthy and vibrant bonsai - it was almost like magic..." Other observers first noticed that the tree was potted without those little pebbles seen here in this picture. A few days later the pebbles appeared as mysteriously as the little tree. No one can say for sure what this all means - if anything.

I mentioned the interest I had in DIY hydroponic apartment farming to a few people. The responses I got varied from "How much food can you really grow?" to "Didn't you know that has a negative connotation?" UMMMM... WOW! Regardless of the bigoted rap hydroponics is suffering - IMHO anything that starts a worldwide movement to grow food in apartment windows rawks!

Bowery Mission Rooftop Farm R ooftop farming is simply the most brave use of the endless square footage of vacant space created by cities. From the sprawling acreage of the Brooklyn Grange to the experimental tomatoes of Alec Baxt to the tiny rooftop demo garden on a shed roof  to the Bowery Mission Rooftop Farm Metropolitan Gardening is making a tour for you to examine leading personalities, locations and technique in urban farming and rooftop gardens.