I have been enjoying my first harvests from my Backyard Harvest garden. Grayce has been doing a wonderful job ! Here are a few pics of how the garden looked a week ago:

( More pics and stuff )

Here:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/07/01/urban_farming/

Alas, the sound file is a .swf file. I'll see what I can do about getting it in a more compatible format from MPR.

The interivew with MPR on urban farming will be broadcast today, June 30th, during a regional segment of All Things Considered at either 4:50, 5:20 or 5:50 pm this afternoon and on the Web at minnesotapublicradio.org.

I'll put a direct link to the interview when I get it.

I just got back from being interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio (in the person of Dan Olson) about aquaponics and Backyard Harvest - Urban Farming is the topic. This will be a human interest story in their regional section of "Morning Edition," or possibly "All Things Considered."

It'll be a 4-5 minute piece, and Dan is interviewing 3-4 other people about various aspects of urban farming, so it's not like I'm soon to be a star or anything =) but I had a great time. I'm getting surprisingly good at the Aquaponics patter, especially after giving the presentation at at the Resource Fair awhile back. And I remembered to talk slowly and I even controlled my stutter a bit.

After, we went down to the corner pub and had a beer, and talked about all sorts of things. SInce I come from a Minnesota Olson line, we had a lot to talk about, and we covered everything from Peak Oil to "Angels and Demons" (which, oddly, he thinks I would like.)

The story will probably be broadcast next Wed or Thurs (July 1st or 2nd) and I'll link to the podcast when it goes online.

I had a really good time! I was kinda dreading this. Dan Olson is a true gentleman, and was very good at putting me at my ease.

I feel more than a tad guilty that I was the one being interviewed, when there are so many more worthy people who have been in this movement longer. But I pointed Dan to some of the other sources, and I think the aquaponics caught his ear (AFAIK, I'm the only active APer in Minnesota right now, although that won't be true for long).

He was careful to emphasise that I was only one voice in a multiple voice story, and that 4 minutes isn't that long, but as I told him, I listen to MPR all the dang time, I knew what I was getting in to!

And now I have the hiccups, Jones is passed out next to me, and it's time for sleep.

From Dirt Garden

From Aquaponics

Spring has sprung, and that means I've fired up my front porch aquaponics setup! I've been fiddling with it for a week or so now, but I finally got all the equipment I needed (specifically, a checkvalve) and got the loop siphons working reliably. Now it's cycling, and after a few days (and after the nights warm up just a tad more) I'll start adding fish from my inside tanks.

From Aquaponics

(clicking on the "from Aquaponics" link just above will take you to the Aquaponics album on Picasaweb, where there are more pics)

Some of the tilapia are getting pretty big! The largest are 8-10 inches long now, I think. In the album is a pic of one that committed suicide (jumped out of the tank) with a ruler for scale.

From Aquaponics

My backyard harvest farmer planted yesterday! Carrots, radishes, beets, leeks, (green?) onions, cauliflower and cabbage, I think.

From Dirt Garden

From Dirt Garden

Backyard harvest now has a blog over at Wordpress, and I'll be posting more details there. But when I do, I'll put a link here so anyone (?) following this project can keep up. My first post over there hasn't been approved yet, but in a few days, this link should work.

In other news, life continues...

Here's a brilliant idea:

Using Veggie Trader is free and easy. It works like classified advertising. You post a listing describing the excess produce you have and what you'd like in return, and then you wait for a response...

Or, if you're looking for local produce, you simply enter your zip code and see what your neighbors have available. You can also post specific produce you’re looking for in our Wanted section and see which of your neighbors answers your request.

I've signed up, and it looks like I'm the first with active listings from the Twin Cities. This site is brand new, I think it's only been up a week or so. It's run out of California, and while they're working on Canada, right now it's only the USA.

(Veggie Trader via Homegrown Evolution)

All I know is below:

---

*Rain Barrel and Compost Bin SALE*

*Save GREEN GO GREEN!*

*Order now to pick up at the Living Green Expo State Fair Grounds Grandstand May 2-3!*

*Accepting orders until March 27, 2009**. *

*Additional information:*
Compost Bin Reg. Price: $79.99 * **Sale** Price: $ 47.00*
Rain Barrel Reg Price $115.00 * **Sale** Price: $ 65.00*

For more info: http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=698345

from e-mail:

Backyard Harvest Informational Open House7pm, Wednesday, March 11
Butter Bakery & Cafe, 3544 Grand Ave, Minneapolis

Backyard Harvest provides both garden fresh food and garden education
for homeowners, renters and neighborhoods, as well as entrepreneurial
and small-scale food production training for our farmers. Our farmers
contract with homeowners, renters and communities to create gardens in
their backyards, maintain the gardens and harvest all of the produce weekly for each family.

Come learn how you can participate as a customer or volunteer with this community-building program in urban permaculture. Tonight we will be
welcomed by Dan Swenson-Klatt & his staff at Butter Bakery & Cafe.
Butter takes pride in using local, organic ingredients & being a
friendly place to meet in Kingfield neighborhood. Thanks to Butter for
their support!

More info at www.pricoldclimate.org/backyard_harvest_customers. Backyard
Harvest is a program of the nonprofit Permaculture Research
Institute-Cold Climate.

Saturday afternoon, hungermtngirl and I went to a growing in winter greenhouses presentation put on by the Land Stewardship Project and Carol Ford and Chuck Waibel, Garden Goddess CSA. They run a winter CSA out of their greenhouse in western Minnesota, providing fresh greens for 18 families all through the winter.

Oh, wow! We came out of the session so enthused. So many ideas! And I introduced hungermtngirl to one of her neighbors. =) They put their heads together and came up with some great ideas on local food in Powderhorn Park.

Interestingly enough, I knew most of the physical details for building a 4-season greenhouse, but there were some great tips from those who have gone before. The second part of the presentation was about the business, and local farming in general. There I learned a lot, and really, for the first time, thought that I might be able to make a run at an AP business. Especially in winter.

It was a wonderful day. I got in a plug for aquaponics, and more than a few people were interested in the idea, and so I told them (and now I'm telling you) that

I'm presenting Aquaponics 101 at the
2009 Community Garden Spring Resource Fair.
On March 28th, 2009.

The presentation time is 75 minutes, and I'll show pics of systems around the world (if we get a screen/projector), have a small working AP system to demo, and answer any questions I can.

This is going to be a great fair. There will be presentations on composting, uban chickens (and goats?) and many other things I don't even know about yet. I think the keynote is going to be by one of the organizers of Backyard Harvest, about which I posted the other day.

It's all coming together...

Now that the seed catalogs are starting to arrive, would any other Twin Cities folk be interested in pooling our resources to buy seeds (and trade the seeds we already have)?

I'm mostly a food-seed person, but am also interested in various companion plants and soil builders.

I'd be happy to organize...

Help us build a sustainable (& delicious) local food
system one backyard at a time!

Tonight I went to an organizational meeting for the new startup backyard garden-based CSA in town. Way cool. They create the garden beds, and farm it, and you get the produce. Since it's a CSA, the landowner pays, of course, but once it gets started, I'm sure it'll be comparable to a "normal" CSA (startup will be more expensive).

They're actively looking for customers. They'd like a 10'x10' (size, not necessarily shape) spot in a yard with 6 hours of sunlight, but I'm sure they're flexible.

See the link above for more info, including a PDF flyer.

I can answer a few questions, but they, obviously, are the best source of info!

Please, pass it on.

From "Why Cityfarming? Because It’s Fair"

The last decade has seen sustainability principles begin to redefine the way we do business - as the success of Somerton Tanks proves, even growing food in the city can be profitable.
...
No doubt, the inner city could use a farm or two. Gentrification may have transformed much of the urban landscape into a sea of Starbucks and lofts, but many neighborhoods remain ignored by creative-class types and municipal services alike. In these areas, decades-long patterns of disinvestment have led to the creation of “food deserts”: where the only sustenance around comes from overpriced corner stores and unhealthy fast-food chains."

Plans within plans within plans...

dlandon pointed out a few weeks ago, at mmerriam's Dreamhaven reading, that I hadn't actually posted content to this journal in a Very Long Time. Sorry 'bout that. Looking back, it looks like the last real content I put up here was back in early June. Wow...

So what have I been doing? Aquaponics. And gardening. And basically doing research on going more green. You can tell by looking at what I've bought at Amazon recently:

Four-Season Harvest
Food Not Lawns
The Urban Homestead
Toolbox for Sustainable City Living
*cough* Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America *cough*
How to Build Your Own Greenhouse
All New Square Foot Gardening
Cubed Foot Gardening
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Introduction to Permaculture

I'm sensing a theme...

( Fish, gardens and crawdads )