We Can Grow All Our Own Food in the City (3 videos)

By Cris Popenoe~CARE2

Photo credit: Ryan Somma

Without deliveries, New York City would run out of produce in two days. But there is enough rooftop space to supply the entire city with all the fresh produce it can eat. And there are also windows.

These 3 videos demonstrate what’s possible and how it works. Video 1, The Science Barge, tells you all about hydroponics. The video on page 2 focuses on window gardens, and the one on page 3 is on rooftop gardens.

The Amazing Science Barge

This first video takes us to the Science Barge, anchored in the Hudson River. The Barge is a demonstration station which shows school children and city dwellers how to grow vegetables easily and cheaply using any available space.

The Barge is a small scale farm which uses a variety of hydroponic systems and only alternative energy. Its goal is to teach city dwellers about sustainability of food, water, energy, and waste.

You’ll be amazed to see how everything gets recycled on the barge.

CLICK HERE: Urban Farming: Hydroponics in the City from Dawn Productions on Vimeo.

Grow it in the Window

Photo credit: ivaneska

A pair of Brooklyn artists attended an artists residency where their project was to develop an inexpensive and environmentally sound way of growing vegetables in an inner city apartment. Their solution uses recycled plastic bottles along with a few items they bought which hang in front of a window. They call it Windowfarms.

Their idea has caught on and people around the world are building their own window gardens, often with their own unique ideas. It’s called R&D-I-Y: research and develop it yourself.

The video shows several examples of these window gardens, and how people are helping each other.  CLICK HERE:VIDEO!

Photo credit: Yomi 955

Grow it on the Roof

Nowadays rooftop gardens are sprouting up all over New York City, and rooftop beekeeping is too. Perhaps the most exciting example is Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn, started in the spring of 2009 on a 6,000 square foot roof.

This video, taken later that year, shows a wide variety of delicious vegetables growing, about half of which were sold to local restaurants and the rest to the public.

Those folk are real locavores. Watch it; you’ll be inspired. Now aren’t you sorry you don’t have a flat roof?