Metropolitan Gardening

O h man! - Veggie Dumplings at North Dumpling in Chinatown! Inexpensive and tasty??? $2.50  gets you a steamed plate of 8 hand rolled mixed greens (spinich, bok choy some chive with a little fresh chopped ginger is what I taste). The front window has 50# bags of flour piled up so you know that the dumplings are from scratch.

  A lec Baxt discusses soil amendments for growing vegetables in the rooftop environment. Particularly we explore his experimental use of "Bio-Char" which may be a ground breaking idea for mixing with roof light to potentially create a nutritious and fertile growing medium. Alec is the Founding Farmer of Farming up.org in Brooklyn, NYC There is another longer video of this interview forthcoming that delves deeper into the details of the subject.

E veryone has a plant vocabulary. We all have favorite plants that linger in our ears, eyes and on our tongues and lips. What plants are on your mind? These are some for designing, for eating, for removing, for climbing, for just looking at to enjoy. Most on this list tumbled out in this order-  then some grew in that were on the tip of the tongue. Making a plant list can get you thinking in new ways about the plants you want to focus on - sort of a internal plant inventory. It's fun to think how they might be personally organized or related.

M etropolitan Gardening has received approval for inclusion in this reputable and extremely useful listing of green websites. Green Maven is a green search engine that requires a submission procedure and human approval to become a part of. Take a look at our new listing there and be sure to browse the amazing company we have been included in. Finding a cache of green information like this on the web makes everything else in life seem a little easier.

T here's nothing like planting a spring vegetable window box - here's four easy steps. 1) This is the secret : Choose seedlings for immediate reinforcement. Planting from seeds is awesome - but it takes a few weeks - buying new plants from a nursery or local garden center gets them a good solid start and feels great right from the get go. They have had a head start in a green house in optimum conditions. Urban window sills are full of dangers to young seeds finding a solid germination. So for an instant garden try this to make your hard work easy. 2)  Measure the space in your window box - then pick a planting container to fit it. Getting a planter box that is too big for your window will create frustration and a return trip.Make sure your containers have holes in the bottom . If you are above the first floor make sure no one can get water on them from below - if so make sure you have a drainage plate under your planter and be careful when you water not to "pee on you

T he Bowery Mission has began a Rooftop Farming Project to augment their kitchen's vegetable source. This garden was just planted this last few weeks and uses a light weight soil with mulch in plastic beds with gravel. The goals of the roof top farm are to provide mission residents an opportunity to develop care for the plants and an understanding  of the responsibility that it takes to grow food. Self sufficiency and and sustainability are the vision. In the coming weeks we hope to get more information on the materials and development of the garden. Our visit included a tour of the Bowery Mission facilities and a history of the venerable and respected institution. The staff was kind and had opened it's doors to participate in the street fair for the Festival of Ideas for the New City .

Dr. Chaoui. being interviewed on CSI-liveby "youandmedia", website of the Center for Social Innovation. (photo supplied by UFO ) U rban Farms Organic, Inc. is essentially research and development conducted by Hala Chaoui, PhD who is the Principal and an Agricultural Engineer. The work has focused on an alternative to composting that could solve enormous problems in the disposal of food waste as well as create a fantastic resource for gardening. There's a good UFO blog link for the gist of the material but I wanted to get more clarity about what the product was that was being developed. Also because the Center for Social Innovation interview was streamed live I couldn't find the video link to download it. The story is a bit hard to grasp but worth the read. Technically speaking concepts are moderately complex. On a related note Dr. Chaoui's doctoral thesis was on removing earthworms from vermicast aided by an electric field. She is an innovator in vermicast