Resources

Grow Biointensive Videos

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Gardening, Resources, Vegetable Gardening
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I’ve often threatened that our next book would adapt the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders into a vegetable gardening guide. Obsessive/compulsive? Here’s how you plant radishes . . .

Wherever I fall in the diagnostic manual, the vegetable gardening method I’ve used for the past few years has been based on John Jeavon’s “Biointensive” method as described in his book How to Grow More Vegetables. This past weekend I made the pilgrimage to Jeavon’s Willits, California headquarters to drink the Kool-Aid at the foot of the master and take a three day Biointensive workshop.

The Biointensive method involves growing compost crops, double digging and tight spacing. Jeavons aims to produce a complete diet in as little space as possible while maintaining soil fertility with few outside inputs. Unlike most garden gurus Jeavons backs up his ideas with meticulous research which draws on his background in workplace efficiency.

He’s also generous and “open source” with his techniques. The workshop was reasonably priced for three full days of instruction. Should you not be able to get to Willits, Jeavon’s non-profit Ecology Action has produced a well made series of instructional videos that you can view online here. I’ve created a playlist of the complete set of these videos below:

Now, I’m so fired up from the workshop I’ve got to get away from this computer and out into the garden!

Update: Women’s Land Army

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Resources
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Last December, we posted about The Women’s Land Army. Christina Habberjam just left a comment on that post, pointing us to the resource page she’s compiled on that topic. It’s too nice a thing to be buried in the comments, so we’re posting the link to that page here. Also, her grandmother, Veronica Rattray, who was a “Land Girl”, wrote a book about her experience called My Land Girl Years, 1939-1948.

Urban Farm Magazine

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Events, Resources, Urban Farming
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We have a article on urban farmers across America in the premiere issue of a magazine bound to appeal to readers of this blog, Urban Farm. Our article, Where Urban Meets Farm, profiles the efforts of our friends the Green Roof Growers of Chicago, Em Jacoby of Detroit and Kelly Yrarrazaval of Orange County. All of these fine folks have repurposed urban and suburban spaces to grow impressive amounts of food, a common sense trend popular enough to have spawned this new magazine.

Editor Karen Keb Acevedo says, “Urban Farm is here to shed a little light on the things we can all do to change our lifestyles, in ways we think are monumental as a whole, yet at the same time, barely noticeable on their own.” The first issue has practical articles on goats, bees and chickens as well as how to get rid of your lawn. There’s also a nice article by John Jeavons, who developed the Grow Biointensive method, and wrote the seminal book How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits.

Check your local newsstand for Urban Farm or pick up a copy of the premiere issue here.

Author and Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter Rocks Los Angeles

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Resources, Urban Farming
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Yesterday, Homegrown Evolution had the great privilege of meeting urban farmer and author Novella Carpenter who was in Los Angeles to deliver a lecture and sign her new book Farm City. She’s a phenomenal speaker, both hilarious and inspiring. What we like most about Carpenter is her honesty in describing the ups and downs of raising pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and more on squatted land next to her apartment in Oakland. As she put it, “I don’t like to sugarcoat things.” As owners of a garden that is often a little rough around the edges, we were inspired by this photo of her squated garden that she showed during her lecture. We could have listened for hours to her stories of dumpster diving for pig feed, gardening in a neighborhood where “crack zombies” and prostitutes come out at night and how the local Yemeni liquor store owner came over to show her how to slaughter her mean goat. If you have a chance to hear her speak, make sure to go!

We’ve read excerpts from Farm City and Carpenter is a terrific writer. In addition to her books and articles she blogs at ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com and offers workshops on raising and slaughtering animals for meat in the city. And like Carpenter, we also fantasize about trading the bicycle for a mule. Time to print up the “one less bike” saddle stickers . . .