Yesterday we wrote about ‘super-micro farming’ as a trend emerging in response to possible threats to our food supplies.
There’s further evidence of the trend in the San Fransisco Chronicle’s most recent ‘Home and Garden’ section. In a multi-page cover feature, the paper does a nice job of surveying current efforts in the city to turn vacant urban spaces into ‘organic-food producing’ gardens. And it makes the point that this is one way for a ‘metropolis that can feed itself.’ Of over 1,000 vacant lots in the city, at least 600 are farmable, landscaper Kevin Bayuk tells the Chronicle.
It also ties in nicely to invocations by the likes of Michael Pollan, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon to eat (mostly) locally-sourced plants, (mostly) in season.
While it’s perhaps unrealistic to think urban gardens could ever feed an entire city’s population (the main complaint made by people commenting on the articles), they can reduce the need for food to be shipped in from elsewhere. And they can provide city dwellers with a direct (and, for many, uplifting) connection with the food that sustains them.
But in times when much of the rural landscape is turned over to monocultures enforced by the heavy use of pesticides and fertilzers, let’s spare a thought for some of the weeds, bugs and larger plants and animals that would otherwise occupy these vacant lots. Sure, rats and mosquitoes don’t have many fans, but many formerly common native birds, reptiles, pollinating insects and small mammals are losing space to development and intensive agriculture.
If we’re to reclaim abandoned lots for ourselves, perhaps we could be sure to put a good number of them aside as sanctuaries for the plants and animals we’ve managed to threaten so harshly elsewhere.
EarthQuaker 
They’ve done this in New York. Urban gardening is very successful there. I’m starting an Urban Homestead on my little quarter acre. I’m not only sick and tired of the cost of fresh veggies, I’m tired of not knowing what they were grown in and what was sprayed on them.
I haven’t quite started getting into the veggie growing yet, due to one life disaster after another, the latest being surgery last week, but I’m actually further along than I thought I was, after doing a bit of cataloguing last week. I think I’ll be successful, and I’ll do it all online so that everyone can see what’s possible.
I’m sure that they are having to consider wildlife conservation laws when reclaiming these lots. I have plenty of trees in my yard, and plant a lot of stuff just for the wildlife, yet I see myself as being able to grow at least 80 of what I eat in the next 5 years. It’s possible, without really harming the wildlife, you know.
Hooray for San Francisco!
Great take! I also urge you to think about the ecosystems that are harmed by shipping food 3,000 miles to get to the plate. I totally understand where you’re coming from and I too believe that some places need to be “off-limits.” But at this stage, I think I’d prefer a bunch of micro-farms feeding a few thousand people, than shipping that food in, to be honest.
I guess in this time of rapid population growth, we have to come to the conclusion that their will be some trade-offs. How about this thought: Roof gardens! We could keep the ground space for wildlife sanctuaries, and start using all of our wasted roof space. It would keep our cooling/heating bills in check, help with waste water run-off, and provide local food. (Ok so it seems like a pipe dream – but it could happen. Someone has to dream, right?)
[…] 31, 2008 by Simon Sure, we have reservations about turning vacant urban lots into vegetable gardens designed purely for the benefit of humans. […]