With a little help from my friends....

In search of answering my question about sharing the benefits of our gardens I turned to my good friend Scott Volmer of Great Valley Design www.grtvalley.com in Davis. Scott has been at the forefront of integrating residential farms into our greater communities and is passionate about the urban farming - sustainable food growing revolucion! Scott was quick to send me links. I will follow these blogs and I hope you check them out too.
http://www.foodnotlawns.net/
http://opengardenproject.blogspot.com/

Contemporary Skyline...

Green all the roofs!!!...that don’t have solar panels (them too)!

Think about the day when we can go to the city and see plants, lots of plants. Sure there will still be grey steel and concrete buildings, hard concrete or paver sidewalks and until a new paving or mode of transport, black asphalt roads BUT the day of seeing lots of green plants in the city is not too far off. Contemporary Landscape Architecture has decided to not be held back any longer or limited to the street and pocket park. Roofs, walls…complete sides of buildings are now providing the garden. The completely planted facade of an office building or five star hotel is just around the corner….Welcome to the green revolution, right! I mean really, really green like living green.


Our ability to accomplish things we only dreamed of years ago is here and obtainable. Contemporary landscape and the opening up of our collective awareness of who we are, where we live , what we do and how that all causes and effects each other and the planet has allowed us to create new solutions to the problems of the built environment. Green roofs solve many problems from insulation, water quality, heat island effect, screening roof top equipment (like heating air ducts or HVAC) to simply beautifying our built world. I can wait until all our cities and towns are more contemporary.

I was in Vancouver this past weekend and visited the Olympic torch and new water front convention hall. As we passed through the city I saw many different types of buildings with green roofs. Vancouver is a fantastic example of how Contemporary Landscape Architecture can solve many of our human built habitat issues while improving and beautifying our environment.

Planning the garden.... and thinking about the big picture

"If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast."

Steven L. Hopp (from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver)

It's raining and cold so I am glad I held off on the rushing to plant the veggie garden BUT that hasn't stopped me thinking about the garden. I came across the quote above while researching another thought I had while thinking about the garden...How can we share the food we go? I have heard about urban farming networks but what I am talking about is sharing all that extra zucchini, tomatos, herbs that we all have when we grow our own food. I am looking into it and will report back with what I find but what a great way to help our community while helpinhg the planet.