Published by City Farmer, Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture

City Farmer's Urban Agriculture Survey Results No. 2

In this second survey of one hundred readers, 20 countries were represented: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Cameroon, Canada (24 responses), China, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Portugal, Tanzania, Thailand, USA (44 responses), UK and Zambia.

Again interesting information was found in the answers to questions 3 and 17: "What is your interest in Urban Agriculture?" and "Please tell us more about your experience producing food in the city."

The responses to both questions are posted below.
Responses to: "What is your interest in Urban Agriculture?"
Respondents tell us more about their experience producing food in the city.

91 of the 100 people who responded to the survey consider themselves urban.

Of the 91 urban people, 79 grow food and are therefore city farmers.

Most of the city farmers who responded grow vegetables(77) and herbs(67). Half of them grow fruit(43) and legumes(23). A few produce eggs(6), grain(6), edible flowers(2), nuts(7), honey(4), meat(3), fish, mushrooms, dairy, jams, preserves, edible cactus, aloe, Chinese herbal medicines and wine.

64 of the city farmers produce their food at home, 17 in a community garden. Food was produced on window sills(13), and balconies(10). Food was also grown in containers, pots, cloches, patio, school garden, city parks, abandoned lots, farm land, and rooftops.

Most of the city farmers have small(48) [0-100 sq ft] or medium(15) [100-1000 sq ft]growing areas. A few people reported large(12) [1000-10,000sq.ft.] and very large(2) [more than 10,000sq.ft.] gardens.

Most people said they enjoyed the activity of growing food, the flavour of the food and the fact that growing it relieves stress. Also of importance was that home-grown food was better for the environment, was safer to eat than store bought food, and saved them money.

14 people said they sold some food at farmer's markets, retail and wholesale, a coop, restaurants and caterers, traded food for services or other food, reinvested income back to an organization, sold eggs at work and to neighbours and friends.

48 people have produced food for 0-5 years. 15 from 5-10 years. 11 from 10-15 years. 4 longer.

25 males and 51 females were recorded ranging in age from 15 to 73 (average age was 37).

Not enough space and not enough time were the reasons most often given by people for not growing more food. Other reasons included: don't know how to produce food, landlord won't allow it, and too expensive.

The cities represented included: Adelaide, Ajax, Akron, Albuquerque, Ashland, Ashtabula, Bangkok, Berkeley, Birmingham, Boise, Bridgeport, Bryan, Cagayan de Oro, Calgary, Cambridge, Canberra, Chicago, Cleveland, Coffeyville, Columbus, Courtenay, Delta, Denver, Detroit, Douala, Edmonton, Fredericton, Ft.Collins, Hamilton, Hartford, Huddersfield, Independence, Ingersoll, Grove Heights, Kingston, Lafayette, Louisiana, Lagos, Las Vegas, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Minneapolis, Montreal, New Orleans, New Plymouth, Newmarket, Newton, Norfolk, Long Island, Ojai, Palo Alto, Pasadena, Perth, Pocatello, Riverside, San Angelo, Silver Spring, South Carolina, Spokane, Timaru, Toronto, Trivandrum, Vancouver, Wageningen, Waterloo, Wellington, York.

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Responses to: "What is your interest in Urban Agriculture?"

• Urban Farmer Association

• There is a lot to say and I have little time, so I just want to submit this without details sorry. Permaculture, urban non timber forestry products etc.

• 1.Reaserch on urban dairying: Attitudes and awareness of farmers on enviromental degradation that can be caused raising dairy cattle in urban areas -A case study of Tanga Municipality. Msc Thesis 2.Promoting sustainable dairy cattle keeping in urban areas - As an extension officer

• I used to enjoy gardening when I lived in a house with a yard. I am also an urban studies student and I plan to continue to get a Masters in Urban Planning. I am considering volunteering for a community garden project in Toronto this spring.

• I'am a student Geography at the university in Leuven (KUL). I'm in my last year and my final treaty is about urban agriculture in Brussels. So I'd like all kind of information about urban agriculture in general.

• I am a gardener in the suburbs of Washington, DC and have begun looking into different types of composters. With your experience, what design seems most useful to you? In the past I've had compost heaps, but they seem to attract animals and take a long time to produce useable compost. I am now looking for something that can sit at my back door that will turn out compost fairly efficiently. Thanks for considering this question. I look forward to hearing from you.

• I have a plot in a community garden and personally am just really into gardening. Beyond that, I am interested in community food security issues and as an environmental studies student at the University of Waterloo, am devoting some of my studies to that topic.

• We live on a small section in a suburb of a Provincial New Zealand city (pop. about 50.000). We use permaculture ideas (inspiration) to grow edible crops from vegetables to fruit such as grapes, tamarillos, kiwifruit, passionfruit etc.

• Currently transforming 1 acre site in old 'traditional' part of city, I'm learning dry land organic urban lifestyle.Pathways define boundries which are stabilised by vetiver grass interplanted with aloe vera ....essential oil & root products [vetiver], stabilised aloe gel, solar oven dehydrated leaf {aloe].Interested in heliostat-steam -electricity....glad to find others interested

• Less dependent on commercial food sources. Self-reliance.

• I don't know, so I want to know.

• I am interested in using urban agriculture as a context for working for social justice.

• I would like to work. I am a farmer.

• I want to grow an edible landscape that provides me with nuts, fruits, medicines, herbs, vegatables and stays in a good balance with out retreeting from the city for now.

• Recycling and city gardening

• I grow a 26 x 15 foot garden in the back yard of my rented apartment. I also compost and grow flowers. I would like to see urban garden space given an acknowledged priority, not considered a fringe movement. I am lucky to have space, but most apartment dwellers do not.

• I became an organic gardener 2 years ago and so glad I did.There is such an improvement on my place.No diseases, hardly any insect pests, and overall health of my soil and plants.Basicly all I do is not use any chemicals and use compost that I make.I subcribed to Organic Gardening magazine and read a lot of books and surf the net on the subject of gardening.So my interest is to learn all I can.

• I am interested in creating a better environment by getting urban residents into gardening.

• I am a horticultural student at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. I am researching for a community outreach programme here at Kew. As a horticulturist, I activley support anyone any where who plants anything ( well within reason!). I am most interested in people's basic need to farm, and this need being so fundemental and important, that it will happen no matter how difficult the situation. I also teach basic prunning and grafting for fruit trees. And if anyone is reading this is london and wants some fruit tree prunning lesson, contact me (I don't charge, a.fowler@rbgkew.org.uk)

• Eating fresh food that is not sprayed, waxed, or coloured and I just generally like growing things.

• Growing organic food for my family. Enjoying the flavours of properly ripened produce. I also like to read about how others are doing this at home and in other places

• I want to improve the soil, grow veggies and fruit and native plants. I see vacant lots around town - real eyesores - which could be put to productive use, and worry that poor elders who could be growing healthy veggies in pots do not remember how to do so.

• Saving money, food last longer is left on the plant (eg lettuce, harvest a couple leaves at a time. Most supermarkets here have a minimum purchse amount, which is more than we can eat before the vegetables perish. Also, it tastes so much better

• I like to gather information about agriculture of South Africa.

• I am going to start growing fruit & veg in my teensie garden for a number of reasons: - This is the 3rd garden started from scratch in 12 years, and I'm sick of buying the same perennials and roses. Been there, done that. It's going to be native flowers, shrubs and food plants this time. - I want some real apples for eating. I can get decent cooking apples most of the year, but eating apples are just awful, even during the season when they should have just been harvested. It really bugs me to have to buy waxed artifically ripened and reddened apples that are rotten in the middle.

• I am willing to share the crop with my flock of overeager urban birds on the condition they also eat bad bugs. The deal is, I feed them all winter, they eat bugs all summer. I am an organic gardener with concerns about spraying any fruit trees I plant. I don't usually have bug problems as I compost, etc. and the flock gets the rest. - This neighbourhood has pretty gardens, but doesn't have the mix of plants required to support urban wildlife. I intend to add some. - I need to add some water, but it will have to be small and accessible to birds, squirrels and whatever else shows up. Not just for display.

• Hobbyist in - Composting, organic vegetable gardening, crop rotation, city gardening in a confined space.

• My mother has an allotment, as has my boyfriend I am interested in any way of improving sustainability and quality of life and green spaces within cities

• Community garden coordinator.

• I'm an Urban and Regional Planner. I'd like to stay posted on this subject matter.

• Fruit, flower, vegtable gardening. I love to watch songbirds, hummingbirds and butterflies in my small East Vancouver garden. I would like to improve our compost this year. Also I am intrested in Honey Bees and Mason Bees.

• Composting and permaculture

• Information would be use to update the underpriviledged ones who do not have acess to the Internet who are member to our NGO.

• My interests in Urban Ag are varied. I believe in the necessity of feeling connected to your food whether you grow it yourself or not. Communities need to value how and where food is grown. It is important that cities recognize the need for providing green spaces and garden spaces for its citizens who are landless or lack enough land to grow the food and flowers they desire. Community gardens, backyard plots, rooftops, porches, windowsills, any space that can grow food should be made accessible to people who want to do that. Gardens enrich our lives, provide opportunity for personal fulfillment, the chance to create and share with others the fruits of our labors.

• To find info

• I participate in the Neighborgardens program and enjoy growing my own herbs.

• Treasurer of local Community & Heritage Farm

• We want to buy a set of facilities for our indoor agriculture garden, which we'll invest US$25million. If it's avilable in your company, please give us your best quotation in respective items.

• I'd like to do it, and am researching as much as possible beforehand. (We live in rented accomodation with few windows.)

• I LOVE gardening and I LOVE children. I believe that the young people living in my community, which is in the city of Riverside, California, could reap many rewards as a result of working with the land. My grandmother was born and raised in rural Oklahoma. Through the years she has taught me so much about gardening and about recycling in the form of composting. Most everything she's taught me is based on good old-fashioned common sense. I'm afraid that many of the young people in my community haven't had the opportunity to learn these type of lessons and the people and the land suffer. My main interest in Urban Agriculture is to get cities and city kids involved in giving back to the earth by preparing the soil, planting seeds and caring for all plants as they grow. As the plants grow, so do we. In a busy city such as this one, it is a relief to get in touch with the earth without the bother of technology, electricity and politics. I have found that young people are much more eager to eat healthy foods when they have grown the food themselves.

• Organic gardening, minimisation of urban wastes, vermiculture, composting.

• Presently I am working as a job coach with the Casa Colina Horticulture Vocational Training Program. My co workers are differently abled people of all ages. Since the rehabilitation hospital is expanding, we in the horticulture area are looking at changing roles. For the last two years we have had a farm area where we grew herbs and a few vegetables, now we will be concentrating on growing a more limited array of plants. We are situated in a semi-urban area in the valleys of the San Gabriel Mts. I personally, am excited and over-joyed to find this web site. The information will certainly help with future organization and focus in our program at Casa Colina.

• I have a very small garden in which I grow organic vegetables: I would like to know more about setting up allotments on abandoned & unused lots.

• Small livestock, gardening

• I like planting fruits, every summer me and my grandparents plant tomatoes, beans, hot peppers, etc.

• Using urban agriculture as a part of sustainable living. Studied urban farming while doing my degree.

• Self-sustaining in an urban area. Low income, homeschooling mom. I gave up job to home school and we live on one income and cooking from scratch, baking bread, I own ducks, for eggs and so a city person who has never lived in the country can learn slowly about small animals and organic garderning can try to save money. and live easy on the earth until we can save money to move to some acres!

• Stumbled upon the site

• I have always enjoyed gardening. For the first time since I moved to the North seven years ago, I finally live in a place where I can garden. On the rooftop of my loft apartment. It imposes constraints that I have had to deal with before but gardening has so many rewards that it is worth it.

• Own and operate a Urban Agri landscaping company in the Comox Valley

• I like to grow vegetables & flowers. We have a piece of property up north that we want to cultivate with natural plants.

• Window planters for the garden-space challenged.

• I am employed by the New Zealand Heart Foundation as a Local Health Promotion Coordinator. This role may include local initiatives if they are well researched, planned, implemented, evaluated, and above all, contribute in a sustainable way to public health. I hope to support local Community and School (edible) gardens as a means of enhancing better nutrition and developing good eating preferences and habits. Partners in the work will be Community Health dieticians and nurses, the Permaculture Trust, the City Council and Regional Sport Trust. The Permaculture Trust has established the first Community Garden and is expanding slowly. I hope to facilitate faster and stronger development.

• The interest I personally have in Urban Agriculture is to expose my students to a field that offeres numerous and fulfilling job opportunities, which most inner city youth are not aware of. Also, I'm interested in having greater community involvement at my school, which can be accomplished through gardening for most of us would like to learn or help others in learning the various aspects of the field. In-addition, we are located in an economically depressed area of Connecticut, but are very close to S.W. CT where many inviduals have the disposable income to plant trees, shrubs, and perennials in their yards. There is definitely a need for skilled indiviuals for the green industry here, which is a very important aspect in revitializing our community.

• satisfaction and contentment in daily life(strongest interest), environmental issues, scientific interest, fun!

• I grow organic Goldeseal.Use compost .

• Vericomposting, solar composting, small home vegetable and herb garden

• Currently, container gardening of vegetables, and fruits. Eventually edible landscaping of my property.

• I am the coordinator of the BOSS Urban Gardening Institute in Berkeley, California. We have a multifaceted strategy for urban agriculture, from the individual to policy levels. We are active with the city in writing a comprehensive Food Policy that will advocate for local organic food among other related issues. We offer free educational forums to the community. We enroll homeless clients of BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency), stipend their training in horticulture and encourage horticultural therapy. We also develop market garden microenterprises for our graduates. We have a weekly presence at the Farmer's Market where we sell plant starts. Overall we do our best to promote urban gardening as a vital form of environmental activism. I am also one of Berkeley's Parks and Recreation Commissioners; As well as a graduate student at UC Berkeley in City and Regional Planning, with an emphasis on Ecological Sustainability.

• I live in an apartment in Colorado. I have a 3ft. wooden windowbox that last year I grew 4 different kinds of peppers. I also put flowers in it in order to keep off the bugs. I would like more information on a differnt variety of veg. plants that I can grew when I have filtered sunlight with only 4 hours of full sunlight.

• Undergraduate degree in Urban Horticulture at Texas A&M University

• Just very interested in general.

• Environmental polluton.

• I am doing a school project on farming and I am interesting in urban agriculture.

• I have an organic backyard garden and two chickens. I also have an organic community garden plot.

• Starting Community gardens, Working with youth, Organic Gardening, Vacant land restoration

• Advancing the cause of Urban Ag in the City of Detroit.

• Growing anything, but especially food, is good for the psyche, the body and the environment.

• To produce eggs and meat.

• Hobby

• I am the coordinator of the Earth Tribe Community Garden in Ashland, Oregon. This is a 75 by 75 foot project between Southern Oregon University and the Ecology Center of the Siskiyous (The environmental resource center of the university). I took over the project for my senior practicum experience, and oversaw the move into a brand new site on campus. I have just graduated, and will continue to oversee the site through many seasons.

• I plan on putting in a roof garden in the next year

• Organics, food, feeding people, greening the city, community. gardening and research.

• I took a hands-on course on permaculture and now we have a little garden on the McGill University grounds smack in the middle of Montreal. I want to learn how to grow my own food mostly.

• Have a vegetable/herb/flower garden on my concrete patio because it is the only sunny growing space around our building. I have started a small garden at my son's school. I volunteer one day a week at a community garden connected to a catholic worker house/shelter. This is all in inner city Chicago.

• Want to know more about gardeniing, growing vegetables and herbs and vermiculture.

• We created a non profit organization and have leased 128 acres of Albuquerque city owned open space land to demonstrate a variety of projects related to food security. We sponsor a school garden, a community garden, a native peoples project, grow food for the local foodbanks, and try to run a market garden and corn maze to supplement our budget.

• Container gardening

• Decorative plants and kitchen gardening at home

• My husband and I both grew up on rural family farms, and I have a deep love of that way of life. We're now city-dwellers, and I want to keep a strong connection with the source of my food by raising my own food, buying from growers I know and from farmers' markets.

• Xavier Univeristy College of Agriculture has a research and extension focus on urban agriculture.

• I have chickens and an organic vegitable garden in the city. I have an on going battle with the city over the chickens.

• Organic farming and posibility of paying you a visit.

• Considering I inhabit a dwelling located very close to the city I find that anyway I can improve efficiency of food production and minimise impact in general living practices is where my interests are - if that makes sense - it doesn't quite make grammatical sense but the ideas there!!

• I love gardening. I would live on a farm if I could, but presonal economy prevents it, so I do what I can in the city to make it bearable.

• I'd love to see more people, especially in poorer neighborhoods, raise their own food, learn how it comes to be, become interested in healthy food and healthy environment. It's great escapism, stress reduction, etc., to create a thriving, productive, beautiful environment in which to live, especially where housing may not be so beautiful. Real self-sufficiency is a far-off mega-goal, but that a little bit can be achieved is pretty rewarding. "I made this!" "I grew this!"

• I am a Canadian student studying my MSc in Ecological Agriculture at the University of Wageningen. I'm planning to write my thesis on a topic within urban agriculture as I believe it to be one of the most sustainable and environmentally friendly methods to grow food.

• Watershed Stewardship Program recently introduced a local Community Supported Agriculture farm. I presented it in a Toastmasters speech and am now sharing the idea with peers in an environmental training program for a seminar discussion. I will lead the discussion and it is my hope to cover as many environmentally healthful aspects as possible. Land use planning, lower emissions from less transportation, no pesticides, integrated pest control, recharge area, sustainable agriculture. Looking for more to add to list.

• I live in town and garden.. am very interested in self suffiency.

• We are going to the Reading, PA city council on Wednesday to try and sell our plans for the construction of an Urban Garden neighboring the Lauer's Park Elementary school. It is the most distressd area of Reading and has the greatest diversity of any other area in PA. We have a grant in for a greenhouse, zoning permission for a fence, landscapers, etc, but we still have a ways to go. However, coming to this site makes me see how worthwhile the work is, there is so much to do for empowering and educating the members of a community.

• Reuse of wastewater in urban agriculture.

• Community gardens, conversion of lawnspace to native bush re-vegetation and vege patches, education about real food and nutrition, waste management and recycling, letting kids get their hands dirty and living life with the seasons,

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Respondents tell us more about their experience producing food in the city.

• There is enormous potential to use more city-grown food ie: Fruit Tree Project
  
  
  

• I grow vegetables for use in our home and enjoy doing so. I really enjoy planting things and watching them sprout into wonderful things to eat.

• I've grown up learning from my mom's backyard garden.. and when I came to university I wanted to be growing my own food too. There is something lacking from my life when I can't walk out to the garden to nibble (which is why I prefer backyard gardens in some ways) but I also appreciate the community that grows around more public gardens such as community gardens. Yum!

• We use a rotating 'chook dome' made from locally grown bamboo which has the chickens (3) preparing the soil after which we plant vegetable seedlings into when it is moved to the next plot. We also use a bamboo arbor to grow grapes and passionfruit over a large section of 'dead' concrete which becomes so easily greened, shades us from some of the UV light we receive down here and is wonderfully productive as well. We are lucky to live in a place where much can be grown, warm year around and generous rainfall (usually, that is)

• Confronting preconceived ideas about the appropriate use of a front 'lawn' and merging the Urban organic dry garden with established antiques business ....inner smiles /outer tears......& shade birds lizards insect songs cleaner air quiet aromas dry wood {occasional cookout)& more.

• I've had to work around city ordinances to keep chickens. I keep them as "pets". Don't keep roosters though.

• I work for the Home Gardening Project, working with low-income families to build free raised-bed gardens, plant seeds and transplants, and utilize the harvest.

• I have had both good times and bad. The worst I have had is kids/adults stealing and destroying garden produce. The best I had was a 10'4 and a 10'3 (two different beds ) plus alongside of a small standard house. (NO feince their need neighbors left the plots alone except to pilfer the ocasional rose or tomato. (also kept the rose bushes on neighbors (with his blessing) kept up and picked (apr 12 rosebushes). In that area I grew tomatoes , peppers, herbs (also up on the 6'10ft patio (alonge the edges. hubbys wheelchair had to fit up their too), basil , sage, rosemary , pepprmint, applemint and choulatemint, rose geranim, regular geranuime, honney suckel, johny jump ups,canna lillies, potatoes, sweet potateos , garlic, onion, prim roses, roses, aleo, phildendrions(about 5 different kinds) mother in law toung, bleeding hearts, ivy, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, catnip, parsley, I forget what else. boy I loved that garden.. worked full time out of the house, but if I rembered to water the garden I ate like a queen.

• I don't know if Boise is technically considered an urban area, but our open space and farmland is dissappearing very rapidly with subdivisions representing the bulk of new development and growth.

• I'm a mother of a four year old and she's already learning about oganic gardening. At least there will be one other person besides me to not use chemicals.I can't even find organic anything for the garden at Wal-Mart.They have over a whole Isle dedicated to chemicals and it grows every year.So I just make my compost and shovel manure instead.Besides it's free.I love gettig my hands in the dirt and pulling weeds.It is so satisfying to see the results and feed them to my family.I get a twinge of paranoia when I eat something from the store.I wish I could produce enough to feed us all year.

• One incredible benefit of gardening in the city - no pests! While my suburban and rural gardening friends complain bitterly about crop damage from deer, rabbits, and woodchucks I have only lost the occasional strawberry to a squirel.

• I have gardened in three different cities, London, New York and Toronto in all three at some point I have grown food. In New York I obsessivley spent my time in a community garden. Back in London I have had an allotment and also used any available space to grow food.

• My father alway grew veges and fruit. My mother grew herbs. It was natural for me to do so too. Although never a heavy user of artificial sprays and fertiliser I have now become quite disenchanted with them and prefer to find natural ways of raising food. We have a good summer garden and store for the winter. More and more I am learning which winter veges I can grow in our frost-prone area. We still also buy fruit and veges.

• I have always lived in single family dwellings with yards, and was always in larger cities. This very small city is in an agricultural valley. People look at my genetic dwarf fruit trees as if they were from Mars! But the fruit is superb.

• Started with buying hydroponic letuces at supermarket, then I realised that since the roots were still attached I could plant them, and they'd last longer than just leaving in the fridge. I moved onto tomatoes (they're expensive there) and herbs (can't get fresh here) and now I grow every thing I need except potatoes (theyr'e so cheap, no need) and some fruit. (no room for a tree)

• We haven't grown more than tomatos and chives and the odd
• herb to date. I've been learning about espalier fruit trees, have planted raspberry canes, blackberry bushes, and asparagus for starters. I need a pergola and the fence fixed before I can get the grapes going - and a tree tunnel for the espalied apples and pears. I need to know about keeping an apricot tree small enough for this very small garden. The last garden was large, but with huge old maples which left not much area without roots and dry shade. This garden has very little to no shade at all. Am trying to get other half to let me grow a grape over the front door as it's south facing without shade. This is going to be fun! And backbreaking, but so what.

• I have had good success overall with a few great experiences and a few disasters. I have experienced relatively low pest and disease problems. What I have experienced are cabbage worms/moths and tomato blight. I am sometimes challenged to find time to garden even though I love it. It is also a challenge to achieve crop rotation in a small urban plot (150 sq ft). Finally, it is even harder narrowing down the list of things to grow in such a small plot.

• I don't really have much time but when I am older I would like to spend a lot more time and energy gardening.

• I decided that even though I lived in an appartment building that I needed to garden. Now I have a small garden 4X8' and a new mulched garden 12X2', two composters and a world of fun. I have been inspired to start a community garden in my neighborhood. City Hall proposal is almost complete.

• The slugs eat many of the plants before I get a chance. Grapes, strawberries, Figs and Plums grow very well. The fig trees grow like weeds and I have a diffucult time pruning them. Most of my garden books come from eastern Canada or the British Isles where the climate is very different. Also fighting the starlings for ripe figs can be very frustrating. Many people place nets over their trees. We did this one year (it was very hard) and the next spring I found many bird remains inside the net. This made me very sad. I don't want to kill the birds, I just want to eat the juicy fruit. I love eating tomatoes and now grow them under cover to avoid the blight. Several years ago the blight hit my garden very hard. I had built a cover for the tomatoes but it blew off in a wind storm. The plants were 5ft tall and started to rot. I cried when tore them down. I didn't grow them for a few years. Herbs like oregeno, thyme and rosemary do very well also.

• It is a wonderfull exeperence producing food in the city because sacacity of land .

• My wife and I purchased a home in the summer of 1999 and started a garden. Previously, we started a small garden at our apartment. It has been getting bigger each year and this year it will have grown to its limit. The soil is not the best, so we are trying to make as much compost as we can to improve the growing conditions for our plants. Our garden is half transplants and half seed starts. About half our transplants we start and the other half we purchase from an organic farmer friend. This year we will try and start everything ourselves as we hope to build a little growing space in our basement with growing racks and lamps. I've worked on farms most of my early years and I carried this desire to grow food to the city. I am now working as a member of the board of Spokane Tilth to work on a more secure community food system in Spokane. We are in the process of collaborating with other community groups and city officials to create and sustainable garden.

• Everything dies in the fall. I'm not very good at it, yet. :}

• I started out growing tomatoes and then slowly added more and more vegies to my garden. The soil in my yard at that time was very poor, mostly granite with chunks of cement and trash and broken glass like it was some horrid construction dump site! I learned to amend the soil. I started planting in raised beds. When I was shopping for a new-used home, I checked the dirt as much as I checked the contruction of the homes. I found a great place to live here in the city where I grow my own vegies and fruit. I try to garden all year. This is a great zone for gardening, although it does get pretty hot during the summer and I'm reluctant to get outside and work as much as I should. I grow all the standards i.e.,cucs, zuchs, tomatoes and peppers. I grow peas, beans and potatoes. I grow eggplant, okra, radishes,turnips and edible flowers in addition to herbs. My apricot tree is young but already producing sweet fruit. I share with my neighbors, family, co-workers.

• My apricot tree is young but already producing sweet fruit. I share with my neighbors, family, co-workers and friends. Many of the urban dwellers I work with think it's strange and too time-consuming to garden. I can't imagine living any other way than this. And I'm very thankful for my grandma!

• Essentially vegetables (tomatoes, etc) and herbs. I generate my own compost from deciduous leaves, lawn clippings and sawdust and also have a worm farm for kitchen wastes. I use no artificial fertiliser or pesticides.

• I presently live in an apartment but have direct access to the common ground of the apartment block. It was originally covered with thick juniper but I have cleared it, improved the soil and divided it into vegetable and flower beds. I produce many kinds of greens (salad and cooking), squash, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and teas. I also collect olives from the many olive trees in the neighborhood, and cure them myself each year. The garden now attracts not only a wide diversity of birds, but also 2 kinds of salamander, tree frogs, spiders, butterflies and native bees (we have a dreadful paucity of honey bees because of mite disease). Best of all, it attracts our neighbors, and we have made many friends as everyone loves to sit in the beautiful little space which is like an oasis in the midst of apartment hell.

• I used books and organic gardening magazine. I have a square foot garden. I have rasberrys, strawberrys, 1 blueberry bush. I have 1 bay tree, 1 rosemary bush (large)
• and 9 4ft by 4ft garden squares, Also 2 ducks (1hen). I have sold excess sage tarragon and assorted herbs to the coop. when they don't have a reliable supplier in the summer.

• Previously just grew herbs in the window, now have a big balcony I can cover with pots to grow vegetables too!

• This will be my first year to grow vegetables in the city. I decided to do this for many reasons including not being able to get decent produce in the markets, preference for heirloom varieties, preference for clean pesticide-free food and also to grow varieties that I had as a child but aren't easily found here such as bitter melon.

• I love it. My greatest hurdle right now is to try to change the by-laws about owning chickens in urban areas.

• Seasonal variations and abnormalities in weather during the last 3 years have produced inconsistent results. Growing from seed can be very disappointing with unpredictable rain and wind. Well-established fruit trees seems to be the most consistent producers. Incorrect use of spray (for weeds in lawns and driveways) has had disastrous effects on my own and my neighbours' garden - it's hard to convince the offender in a neighbourly way. Poor drainage - high water table - lack of adequate provision by past councils effects our whole area in winter (wet) season.

• This is a recently established program, which has the potential to have a very large impact upon the community, both economically and environmentally. I personally have a B.S. in Biology and twelve years experience in the fields of agriculture and horticulture, which most recently I've been able to emphasize and understand the importance behind promoting organic gardening practices.

• I live in a converted building, formerly an elemrntry school, but now "loft" space for producing artists. I have one wall of windows, facing south, getting good sunlight for the area. I plant only ornamentals outside, as the ground is contaminated with lead from paint and maybe lots else from industry, I only know about the lead for sure. Also, I live in what people call the "hood", a low income neighborhood, and people have tried outdoor gardens in the past, only to have them destroyed by niave destructive children when they are ready to harvest. However, I should add, some people in our community do have outdoor gardens, albeit fenced in, and do grow anything and everything imaginable, even corn! I grow in window boxes and under HID lights, and under fluroescents in the window. I hope to have a rooftop garden soon, but our landlord is pessimestic, and only sees the idea in terms of his problems. However, many more tennents are bewcoming interested, and he may change his mind.

• I grow goldenseal. I love being the only grower in this section of Ohio

• I started with square foot gardening in wooden frames on the ground. Eventually went from there to container gardening. I feel that the containers I currently use are more effecient water wise than the frames and the buckets I used to use. I'm currently using rubbermaid 10 gallon storage containers filled with a peatlite mix and a single drain hole about 1 to 2 inches above the base. That leaves a resevoir of liquid in the bottom for the plants to live on for a couple of days. Here in the Mojave desert the heat and the dryness are some of the largest obsticals we deal with.

• I have also tried growing tomatoes, but I don't have enough space to bring them to complete harvest. So the vegetables came out small and didn't taste good. I have also tried my hand at strawberries in a container. I have tried 2 years in a row and they were very small. I have to either hang my containers or use boxes because if I set them on my patio one of my neighbors walks off with it. At first I did things my ways, disragarding rules of Horticulture. After a while I had to realize that there wasn't enough light for the veggies I wanted, the soil should have been corrected BEFORE I planted everything, and that the neighbors will really steal the food out of my garden. At the time I was in an apartment complex gardening in the bit of land under the stairway. After three years I discovered herbs worked in that space. I am moving now and eager to discover how to grow things in the sun.

• Neighbors are great about fruit and vegies but you need a lot of diplomacy when you get small livestock

• I have no experience

• New Orleans has a long history of urban agriculture, esp. backyard kitchen gardens. Soil is rich. Many elder locals like to offer advice.

• I completed a master gardener class through the Wayne County Cooperative Extension Program in the mid or late 90s. First produced food in 1994 through 1997 at Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village as part of the Village presentation at The Mattox House, the home of a family of
• African Americans in 1929-1932 that was transported from Savannah, Georgia by Henry Ford. The food's grown were consistent with what the Mattox family would have grown; turnip greens, mustard greens, radishes, corn, peppers - hot and sweet, heirloom tomatoes, cow peas, etc. I first successfully grew herbs in my home garden two years ago.

• I have about 150 square feet of garden space behind the garage where the former owners stored the garbage cans. I built raised beds and have supplemented the local sandy soil with home made compost and rabbit manure. The mild sunny climate allows me to grow all year. My current "problem" is that my plants get so big and bear so much I can only handle one tomato, one eggplant plant, etc, at a time. I am truly blessed!

• It is easier because it is closer to the farm store and and more people will buy them. My experience is in a suburb, close to the city. The biggest obstacle I have is with availlable sunlight. My only obvious solution would be to place the garden in plain site of the road..I can only muster 4hrs of direct sunlight a day in the shaded backyard. A rainy wet cold summer leaves me with immature plants at the end of the growing season. I boost my odds for success by starting my plants indoors under lights and hardening them off before I plant them outside. I have found the greenhouse raised plants are usually started too early and are not hardened off in the appropriate manner for our long cool spring(season). I have also considered mounting a reflective wall on the north and west side of the beds to increase the intensity and duration of the daylight.

• I have used a home garden, sun deck with pots and bins, narrow plots and now a patio/balcony in a co-op and back to pots.

• We started this year and our garden is wicked. It cost us a hell of a lot of labor to dig up the grass and the rocks where it is and we found all sorts of stuff in the ground (coal, seashells (!) and wood) and there was a big mama rock right in the middle of the area so we left her as the stepping stone. We made a snake-shaped pile that twists around two keyholes and covered the whole thing with wet newspaper, worm compost and straw. Then we planted a real mish-mash of organic seeds of all sorts according to some companionship rules when possible. Everything is going wild and now the Mcgill School of Environment is interested in us extending it up and over the hill nearby. Perhaps a demonstration garden one day !

• I have enjoyed beginning to grow food in the city, I find that there are very few resources available with regards to urban soil quality and hazards, maximum development of urban space for food production, specific suggestions/examples of containers adequate for sufficency level food production on patio/rooftops. Most of what I have done has been experimentation with found/recycled containers. I hope to expand my experience in a way that provides food production at sufficency level for my family and provides a positive enviornmental impact on my inner city neighborhood

• The basic problem is pests and the damage they cause. We believe in organic farming and use neem oil as insecticide. We do not have enough information on insect and pest control. Which are the good pests and which the destructive ones.

• This year I'm working with 60 square feet on the side yard of our two-flat. I'm growing the following plants: several varieties of lettuce, snap peas, pole beans, radishes, carrots, several varieties of peppers, cucumbers, cherry and grape tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, rosemary, nasturtium, marigolds, morning glory and cornflower. I'm thrilled with the whole experience. For the past few years I've grown a few vegetables in pots with limited success. This is much easier and more satisfying for me. I do have some concerns about the quality of the soil. The plants are doing well in it, but I may have it tested for toxicity next year. I also wonder if I should do more to shield the garden from car exhaust. It's about 20 feet from the street. I like having it out where people can see it. I was worried about the neighborhood kids getting into it, but it hasn't been much of a problem.

• I am constantly harrassed by the city about my chickens. They are key to my garden making every thing thrive by providing fertilizer and eating bugs.

• Very interesting.

• I have only done one season and left the bed to regenerate over winter and hopefully preparation that occurred over winter will yield an excellent crop as I plant for spring. Generally it is really fun. I also use composted human waste around the garden not for vegies though, mainly fruit trees and other things. This is because I read a really inspiring book on human manure and it made a hell of a lot of sense and besides what kind of person can't deal with their own s#!t!!!

• I have had more trouble with theft than any animal or insect problems.

• Suburban food gardening, "forest gardening", bird and insect habitat, small layer flock (10 hens). I'm rather casual, do not have a model garden, have lots of failures and some successes, the latter usually of veggies I'm not so wild about like eggplant. I started out by moving most plants around the yard and forming beds via mulch, in order to cut down on laborious mowing (very uneven ground). Here when I started 10 years ago were a fig tree and a persimmon tree (Japanese). I now have loquat (often called Japanese plum), Satsuma, Meyer lemon, Ruby Red grapefruit, Santa Rosa plum, a pear tree, and a volunteer-seedling peach tree. Lots of common bird activity keeps insects down pretty well. This is my first year keeping hens. I now have four raised beds 4x16 feet each, two with concrete re-inforcement wire trellises for beans, cucumbers, etc., and a 10x20 foot area I'm working on "raising" in which I attempted melons and winter squash with a few successes.

• I only have a few vegetables and herbs in pots on the windowsill of my room. I live in a student residence and therefore do not have a balcony. I tried to grow them out on the communal balcony but it is also a fire escape route and therefore was told to remove the plants. I hope to increase the number of plants that I have and am currently installing hanging baskets from my windows.

• I garden organicaly, with the goal of providing my family with homegrown produce the year round. I am gathering materials for a cold greenhouse to grow salad vegetables through the winter. I want to develop an edible landscape but have found little information for my zone. I grow a large variety of vegetables and herbs. Now I'm trying to find fruits that will grow here. I have become very interested in heirloom seeds in the last couple of years.

• Getting really positive feedback from members of the community, some neighbours have come to ask for help in setting up their own vegie plots after seeing ours taking up our front garden. If you want difficulty in gardening come to Perth for the world's sandiest and oldest soil!

• In that area I grew tomatoes , peppers, herbs (also up on the 6'10ft patio (alonge the edges. hubbys wheelchair had to fit up their too), basil , sage, rosemary , pepprmint, applemint and choulatemint, rose geranim, regular geranuime, honey suckel, johny jump ups, canna lillies, potatoes, sweet potateos , garlic, onion, prim roses, roses, aleo, phildendrions(about 5 different kinds) mother in law toung, bleeding hearts, ivy, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, catnip, parsley, I forget what else. boy I loved that garden... worked full time out of the house, but if I rembered to water the garden I ate like a queen.

• I grow tomatoes, basil, radishes, and many lettuces indoors. I grow sunflowers, morning glories, ferns, and bulbs outside for fun and decoration.

• I also have a personal project I choose to call "horticultural graffiti", by which I mean I leave my horticurtural mark on places I visit. Let me explain... I keep a box of random assorted varieties of bulbs in the trunk of my car. I also have planting tools and some decent topsoil and compost, plus polymer crystals, which hold water. When I am out and about, I pick the most desolate, poluted areas, and pland hyacinths, or crocus, or dafoidills. Then, a year later, in spring, I see this bloom, a positive print or stamp I have made on an otherwise maimed space. I have seen my crocus blooming in industrial wasteland, amongst oxydising metals and drums of 'I don't want to konw what' leaking into the soil.

• I'm down in the hot, humid lower south, great for gardens, not so great for heat-sensitive gardeners. Harvests are kinda uncertain. Last year I had about 80 dozen satsumas, the first such large crop, from my one tree; this year maybe a couple of dozen. Last year many dozen persimmons, this year about 1.5 dozen. And so it goes. I gave nearly half of last year's satsumas to a food kitchen here, which I was proud to be able to do. Mostly I produce supplemental veggies for myself and friends.










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