Hasta La Ideas

Tools to help you build, maintain and manage growing in the city

by Kelly O’Reilly and Greg Stefano

With the emergence of a flourishing urban farming movement in recent years, the need for certain tools to maximize more limited natural resources has also arisen. As they lead the charge to shorten the distance from the farm to the table, commercial groups and individuals alike have demonstrated the possibility for fully functioning city-based farming and growing operations across the world, providing inspiration for other intrepid growers both professional and amateur. Whether you want to grow food indoors or outside, run a massive outfit or are just interested in becoming more sustainable, we found just a few essential tools to help you grow.

Urban Farming Tools

Design students Mirko Ihirg and Olli Hirvonen devised a starter kit concept of five hand tools for urban farming and a backpack to transport them. Combining the efficiency, compactness and mobility crucial to a city-dweller, the two larger tools—a shovel and a pitchfork—share one detachable handle that can strap onto the exterior of the stylish bag, and every piece will find its proper place inside. The simplicity of the set makes it a good place to begin an urban growing adventure, so we’d be keen to see the project become a reality.

Indoor Growing Tools

Whether you are just getting started or already have a thriving indoor farm, our friends at CityGrow offer a wide selection of great products for indoor growing using hydro and aeroponics. From the super simple to the extremely high-tech, the possibilities for indoor gardening can appeal to gardeners at all levels who lack space or just want to try something new. The Apollo 3 system is engineered to provide rapid plant growth with a small learning curve. The system has a double channel root chamber to give the plant roots space and uses atomized nutrients, letting the roots absorb them quickly. For something a little simpler there is the Aerojet Hydrogarden from Botanicare. This true aeroponic system sprays the roots directly, delivering high levels of nutrients and oxygen, allowing for rapid plant growth. The system is also modular so it can be expanded or shrunk to adjust to your space. For the more casual enthusiast there is the Turbo Garden, a compact growing machine that promises higher yields and speedy results. It provides seedlings with a multitude of nutrients and is great for propagating plants or just keeping a little garden around the house.

Build it Green!

Established in 2005 in partnership with the Community Environmental Center, Build it Green! is a non-profit that provides the New York City area with salvaged and surplus building materials. With everything from reclaimed bathroom stalls to salvaged lumber, Build it Green! has a surprising selection of eco-friendly building materials. This makes them the perfect jumping off point for anyone looking to build out a DIY urban farming platform, they provide almost all the materials you would need to build planters, beds, greenhouses and just about any other essential farming structure. You can view parts of their inventory on their online shop but you have to visit to see the full, ever-changing selection. Those outside the New York area can check out their list of similar organizations throughout the Northeast U.S., or contact them to see if they have advice for anyone in your locale.

Kitchen Composter

Those interested in committing to the farm-to-table movement would be wise to continue the cycle by composting what’s left on the table back into the ground—especially if they live in cities where garbage disposals aren’t allowed. Though it may seem like a daunting task to hold onto waste in small living quarters, the five-gallon, air-tight All Seasons Indoor Composter fits compactly under the sink and uses the Japanese method of Bokashi, an all-natural, odorless mixture packed with microorganisms to ferment waste in just 10 days, nearly half the time than traditional composting. Once planted, compost produces a rich topsoil in about a month, enriching the fertility of the soil, detoxifying chemicals in the soil and attracting helpful insects. The composter kit sells from Uncommon Goods for $48, with refills available for $12 a bag.

South Africa’s rural oasis offering a garden of earthly delights

Located about 40 miles outside Cape Town in the renowned wine region of Franschhoek, the lush 500-acre Babylonstoren feels more like a utopia than a farm. Originally cultivated by French Huguenot refugees in the late 1600s, today the former estate’s historic grounds house a staggeringly beautiful maze of gardens and vineyards populated by crisp, traditional Cape Dutch-style buildings.

As the name suggests, the ethereal landscape is inspired by “the mythical garden of Babylon”, as well as its geographic heritage as the halfway point for merchants traveling between Europe and Asia. Diverse vegetation containing more than 300 varieties of organically grown plants, including prickly pears, peach trees, indigenous passion fruit and water lilies, pumpkin and more, supplies Babylonstoren’s restaurant, Babel, which offers up a rustic menu of seasonal fare in its glass-enclosed dining room or outside on the lawn.

On a recent trip to Babylonstoren, we noshed on a feast of sausages, beef and fish, along with fruit, vegetables and wine, a vibrant spread that reflects what you’ll find walking around the functional “werf” (farmyard). Meanwhile, free range pigeons, turkeys and other birds roam around their whitewashed fowl house in a sunny courtyard.

If you walk past the petanque court and into the well-structured garden labrynth, you’ll also come across several of Porky Hefer‘s cocoon-like woven nests. The South African designer based the large-scale nests on those typical of the weaver bird, and climbing inside one gives you a bird’s eye view of the delicately towering flowers surrounding it.

Babylonstoren’s bucolic oasis is also home to 14 cottages among its restaurant and gardens. As a vacation destination, designer Karen Roos’ converted property goes well beyond traditional agritourism and instead offers visitors an unexpected retreat among the South African countryside.

Learn more about what Babylonstoren is growing on their blog and book a table at Babel or one of the Cape Dutch cottages on their website.

Photos by Karen Day

Farm to cone ice cream made with the finest Northwest ingredients

New to the foodie community in Portland, OR, Salt & Straw makes truly unusual, delicious ice cream with the finest locally grown ingredients. We were recently tasked with sampling a handful of the latest “farm to cone” flavors and—though the team was split over which varieties they preferred—Salt & Straw definitely won us over.

Each of the unexpected flavors remains refreshingly true to taste, rather than something concocted in a lab experiment. The Ninkasi Oatis Stout—made with craft beer from Eugene, OR-based Ninkasi brewery and laced with ribbons of fudge—trumped any doubts over the combination. The hoppy, oatmeal flavor, while perfectly suited to a sweet scoop of ice cream, was still reminiscent of the beloved local beer.

Salt & Straw collaborated with other NW neighbors, Stumptown Coffee and Woodblock Chocolate, blending Stumptown’s fair-trade beans with Woodblock’s freshly roasted cocoa nibs for a sophisticated version of classic coffee ice cream. Also made with Woodblock is the Ocumare single origin chocolate flavor we found to be more complex, and less overtly sweet than what we had as children.

Other flavors that had the CH HQ talking were Arbequina olive oil and pear with blue cheese. While the olive oil was a definite hit with its novel balance of savory and sweet, the pear and blue cheese was met with mixed reviews. For some, the blue cheese overpowered the subtle pear, but then again, anyone who opts for an ice cream accented with a stinky cheese is likely up for a flavor adventure.

Regardless of individual preferences, the fresh flavors remained consistently authentic across the board. Salt & Straw is sold online and at their scoop shop located in NE Portland’s Alberta neighborhood, where you’ll find a rotating selection of seasonally influenced flavors.

The USA’s first Animal Welfare-approved restaurant opens in a ’50s diner in Hudson, NY

To call the newly-opened Grazin’ diner in Hudson, NY farm fresh is an understatement. The first restaurant in the USA to be certified Animal Welfare Approved, everything served in the restaurant comes from family farms that raise livestock humanely outdoors and pasture feed the animals, and nearly everything comes from farms within an 11-mile radius. The restaurant opened on the first of this month in a shuttered 1950s diner in Hudson, NY, a town known for its farms and antique shops that draws regular crowds of NYC-based weekenders.

The diner’s centerpiece are the burgers from the owners’ own 2,000-acre, environmentally-friendly Black Angus cattle farm a few miles away. Grazin’ Angus Acres farm relies primarily on wind power, and Dan Gibson and his crew keep their entire process completely natural, beginning with the way they raise their livestock.

The cows, chickens and pigs roaming the farm graze on a natural pasture diet. Grazin’ abides by the scientific evidence that pasture-fed animals are healthier than those who eat corn, and the belief that grass-fed and finished meat tastes better, too. When it’s time to slaughter the animals, Grazin’ eschews industrial slaughterhouses, working instead with a local butcher.

Piled on buns baked by our friends at Hawthorne Valley, a neighboring biodynamic farm, and topped with cheese from Hawthorne Valley and Consider Bardwell Farm, a century-old grass-fed dairy nearby, these are locavore burgers through and through. Wash it down with a milkshake made with homemade ice cream and organic milk from Grazin’s neighbors at Milk Thistle Farm, or homemade organic soda pulled from their old-fashioned fountain.

The Grazin’ Angus Acres farm is located in Ghent, NY and welcomes visitors, but because of their sustainable focus they don’t ship any products. For people in the NYC area, Grazin’ meats can also be found at several greenmarkets.

Grazin’ Diner
717 Warren Street
Hudson, NY 12534
Telephone: (518) 822-9323

Here is the first of three proposals by Dutch designers Tjep. for self-sufficient farms that provide inhabitants with everything they require, including energy, heat, oxygen, food and waste management. (more…)