The Beer-Fueled Project That’s Prettifying Pittsburgh

What’s better at bringing people together than shared mugs of beer? In one Pennsylvania city, two drinking buddies think they might have an answer: hops.

At two sites in Pittsburgh — an unseemly roadside retaining wall in Stanton Heights and a recently shuttered YMCA in Hazelwood — hop plants are adding some much-needed greenery on their crawl up 10-foot-high trellis systems. Used to add a bitter, zesty flavor to beer, the leafy hop cones are being donated to three local craft breweries, who will then donate the proceeds from each batch of beer brewed back to community projects.

The seeds for Hops on Lots Pittsburgh (HOLP) were planted in Pete Bell’s mind during a community gardening class. A part-time trade-show coordinator, Bell loved the idea that those without backyards could share a plot with their neighbors. But he wondered if there was a better way for all the produce and herbs he was learning to grow to benefit the entire community, not, he says, just the people who are able to garden. One night, over drinks with friend Joe Chmielewski, an operational support assistant at the University of Pittsburgh library, the conversation turned to how the two men could find a project they’d enjoy that would, in turn, benefit others. The pals, who Bell confesses enjoy “a lot of beer,” decided on growing hops. They believed the urban agriculture could support the red-hot craft-brew scene while prettifying some of the city’s 27,000 vacant lots.

“There are so many little breweries everywhere. They’re popping up, it seems, by the month,” Bell says. And yet, “nobody in the area was growing any hops.” Microbreweries around town jumped at the offer of locally harvested hops. “They like the idea that they’re fresh, right off the vine,” says Bell. “They don’t have to get hops shipped in from the other side of the country.”

Bell waters the hops two or three times a week, with five-liter jugs he keeps in the back of his car. The plants at both sites have grown to full size, pleasing the guys who nurtured them from seedlings. Now, says Bell, he’s watering the Stanton Heights crop in a narrow two-foot space between the retaining wall and a busy road.

Seeing HOLP’s success, Bell’s already scoping out sites to grow more hops next season, and as ale aficionados contact him from other cities, he’s helping to spread the idea nationwide. He warns them to be patient in waiting for other people to get on board, but he promises the idea is a sure-fire win: “Throw them in the corner of a community garden, and you have a cash crop there,” he advises. Bell says he’s willing to take calls from any aspiring gardeners.

That is, after he recovers from yesterday’s party. On September 18th, HOLP held its first annual celebration to raise money for the Stanton Heights community. (The funds have yet to be allocated, but Bell says money will go to fixing playgrounds, renovating the firehouse, installing rain barrels, or whatever else residents want to see.) Revelers poured into Roundabout Brewery to try to the pale ale brewed from the local hops, eat pizza and dance to the strains of a bluegrass band. Amid the carousing, a toast was in order: Here’s to more beer next year!

The Zero-Energy Way to Produce Food, How to Build Hope in a Poisoned City and More

 
What’s Growing On at The Plant?, onEarth
On the southwest side of the Windy City, a former meatpacking plant is now the home of The Plant, an incubator of 16 food start-ups. Tenants work together in order to be as sustainable as possible — literally, one business’s trash is another’s storage container, recipe ingredient or energy source. The long-term plan for this urban agricultural experiment? Sprout numerous Plants across the nation.
Life as a Young Athlete in Flint, Michigan, Bleacher Report
In a city under siege by its poisoned public water system, hometown heroes are using basketball to raise awareness and kids’ spirits. Kenyada Dent, a guidance counselor and high school hoops coach, uses the game as a tool to motivate his players towards opportunities outside of the struggling city; another coach, Chris McLavish, organized a charity game featuring former collegiate and NBA players that grew up in Flint. The activity on the court doesn’t make the tap water drinkable or erase the damage already inflicted, but it does bring much-needed joy to a city overcome with despair.
Truancy, Suspension Rates Drop in Greater Los Angeles Area Schools, The Chronicle of Social Change
A suspension doesn’t just make a child miss out on a day of learning, it also increases the likelihood that he’ll go to prison. Because of this, many school districts in the Golden State now implement restorative justice practices — a strategy that uses reconciliation with victims as a means of rehabilitation — instead of traditional, punitive disciplinary measures. Suspension rates and truancy filings have decreased, but racial discrepancies still exist when analyzing discipline statistics.
MORE: Suspending Students Isn’t Effective. Here’s What Schools Should Do Instead

Is It Possible to Grow Something on Every Rooftop?

Urban farming innovations are cropping up throughout the country, but getting more people to grow their own greens is trickier than you think. That’s because personal farms take time, a lot of care and the right weather conditions.

But the California-based startup CityBlooms is looking to eliminate the fuss over urban agriculture and get more city-dwellers on board through its growbots — lightweight, hydroponic greenhouses that can fit into any odd-shaped rooftop or space. The modular unit uses cloud technology, so users can track their growth and control conditions such as irrigation, humidity and plant nutrition, Fast Company reports.

Aside from is ability to produce a large quantity of produce — think: tons of lettuce, not a baby tomato here and there — the growbots technology is incredibly mobile compared to other greenhouses. For example, some traditional systems may weight 50 pounds per square foot, whereas growbots are only between 15 to 17 pounds per square foot, making it much easier to outfit any rooftop.

“The modularity also gives us the ability to scale very easily,” says Nick Halmos, founder and CEO of Cityblooms.  “So we can size a farming installation appropriately to the demands and consumption patterns and profiles of the community that the farm is built to serve.”

CityBlooms’ technology also protects produce from exposure to air pollution and lead — which, as research has shown, is a problem with urban farming. A recent Cornell University study found unsafe levels of lead in nearly half of root vegetables and problems with air pollution, but Cityblooms’ system seals off the plants in a greenhouse and uses recirculated water.

The company contends it’s not trying to replace traditional farming, but contends that this version of farming could reduce food waste and keep produce closer to urban centers, while also freeing up farmland for other crops. The global population is anticipated to hit 9 billion by 2050, which means farmers will need to produce 70 percent more food while facing drought conditions and other costs, as Fast Company points out. As more city dwellers embrace urban farming, innovations like growbots could help alleviate some of that burden.

“We’ve tried to chart a course with our development that gives flexibility and ease of installation so we can get farming happening now,” Halmos says. “We’ve all seen the pictures of rooftop skyscrapers that grow food, and that’s a wonderful goal, but is that going to happen within the next 50 to 60 years? Maybe not. We’ve really been trying to identify the solutions that get us moving in the right direction.”

MORE: No Soil? Or Sun? This Urban Farm is Raising Fresh Food in a Whole New Way

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One in Five Baltimore Residents Lives in a Food Desert. These Neighbors Are Growing Their Own Produce

Boone St. Farm operates on two vacant plots in the center of East Baltimore Midway, one of dozens of neighborhoods in Baltimore identified as “food deserts.” Cheryl Carmona adopted the land in 2010 with two goals — that it serves as an urban farm that grows and provides fresh produce for its neighbors, and as a community garden where residents can learn about growing their own food.
Dozens of neighbors have pitched in and, four years later, Boone St. Farm has grown thousands of pounds of affordable produce. Residents on food stamps pay only $5-10 a bag. The community plots are used for gardening workshops and offer classes in nutrition to students at the nearby public school. As Boone St. Farm enters its fourth season, Carmona plans to include local cleanup initiatives and other projects aimed at making the farm an essential part of the neighborhood. 
 
 

How a San Francisco Mom Feeds Her Family With One Teeny, Tiny Farm

Urban farmer Heidi Kooy is proof that you can grow food anywhere—even bustling cities like San Francisco.
As TakePart reports, Kooy and her family dine on onions, tomatoes, lettuce and other fruits and vegetables grown right from the 250 square foot backyard of their Excelsior District home. They also eat eggs from their two chickens, Sweet Pea and Coco Puff, and drink milk from their miniature goats, Lucy and Ethel.
Kooy’s enthusiasm for urban farming all began after a frustrating trip to the grocery store to buy eggs. “I would stand in front of the egg case for 15 minutes trying to figure out which were the best or most healthy eggs to buy. With all the different kinds of labels—free range, cage free—I was just confused,” she says in the video below. “And if I was this confused, I didn’t know how I was going to make good choices for my daughter. So I became obsessed with getting my own chickens and raising our own food here in San Francisco.”
The most amazing part is that Kooy didn’t necessarily come from an agricultural background. While she grew up around farms in her hometown in Nebraska, she wrote in her blog that she’s never lived on one itself. She was also an anthropologist before her current job as a small crafting business owner. So while she might not exactly have farming in her blood, she’s willing to put in the extra effort it takes to feed her family fresh (chemical-and-GMO-free!) foods.
“My urban farm is the way I provide for my family, the way I contribute to my family,” Kooy says.
We mentioned before that the urban farming revolution is happily catching onto sprawling cities around the country, from New York City to Detroit. This agricultural movement giving us fresh, in-season and nutritious food as locally as possible. And if one busy San Francisco mom can farm right from her own backyard, maybe it’s not so hard for more of us join the revolution as well.
MORE: How to Feed Our Swelling Cities

Lettuce Think Differently About Farming in Cities

Despite having a reputation for consuming a lot of junk food, Americans actually eat a lot of lettuce: 30 pounds of it each year, in fact. Behind potatoes, lettuce is the second most popular fresh vegetable.
We’d never tell you to stop eating your veggies but it’s very likely that the leafy greens you find at your local supermarket or salad bar have traveled quite the distance to end up on your plate. In fact, 90 percent of lettuce comes from California or Arizona — and unless you live on that side of the country, that’s kind of a problem.
So what’s the solution? In Atlanta, Ga., 2,000 miles away from America’s lettuce hub, local company PodPonics is growing lettuce right in the city’s backyard. In fact, the sprouting heads are located near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
MORE: From Windowsills to Rooftops, Check Out the Rise of Urban Farming
You’d think Atlanta’s sweltering heat, heavy traffic and densely populated sprawl wouldn’t be optimal for fresh greens, but the company is proving that notion wrong. Thanks to the incredible technology of hydroponics, PodPonics is growing (pesticide-and-fertilizer free!) lettuce all year round.
We’ve previously mentioned the nifty technology of hydroponics (and its fishy cousin aquaponics). The beauty of this growing method is that it requires no sunlight, arable land or soil. This means it can be set up just about anywhere — from basements to fish tanks. As you can see in the video below, PodPonics grows their greens in recycled railroad shipping containers.
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The company told NationSwell that inside each of these containers — or “pods” — is a controlled environment (consisting of patented PVC-pipe hydroponic systems, fluorescent lights, virtual systems that control the temperature and nutrients) that allows the plants to flourish year round.
ALSO: Check Out the Largest Rooftop Farm in the World
Impressively, the company said that each pod produces the equivalent of more than an acre of crops. They also have a turnover of crops 26 times a year, compared to traditional farms that have four crop turns a year.
Since its launch in 2010, PodPonics has already expanded to hundreds of local grocery stores. Hydroponics is a serious contender for the future of farming, and it’s coming at an important time for drought-weary states in the American Southwest (yes, such as California and Arizona). While it can be expensive to set up, it pays off in dividends in the long run. It’s been said that hydroponic systems use only around 10 percent of the water used for soil-based crops. Companies like PodPonics are proving that we can grow fresh, sustainable crops anywhere — regardless of the weather.
DON’T MISS: The Silver Lining to California’s Terrible Drought

How Catfish Can Help Solve California’s Water Woes

At Ouroboros Farms in Pescadero, Calif., you will find vegetables growing year round thanks to surprising set of helpers — catfish. These aquatic farmers are part of Ouroboros’ aquaponics system that’s becoming an answer to California’s parched farms, Bloomberg News reports.
California’s record-breaking drought necessitates the need for new ways to grow food. Although it’s expensive to set up (the Ouroboros system cost $60,000), aquaponics saves money in the long run, and more importantly, the system conserves our precious natural resources. Aquaponics actually uses up to 90 percent less water than traditional farming. Another beauty of aquaponics is that less land is used and it can be set up indoors. This means urban environments can have access to fresh, organic produce without having it shipped from elsewhere in the country.
MORE: How One City Is Stepping Up to Help Solve Our Fresh Water Worries
You can check out the video above to see how aquaponics replicates the way plants and animals work together in nature. As the catfish create waste, the plants suck it up as nutrients; no soil, pesticides or other toxins required. These fish are also sold as a source of protein so nothing goes to waste. Now that sounds like a tasty — and sustainable — solution.

How to Feed Our Swelling Cities

By 2050, the United Nations predicts the world’s population will reach 9.6 billion people, 86 percent of whom will live in cities. With more mouths to feed in urban areas and less arable land, food shortages are a serious possibility. Enter vertical farming, which uses new technology to grow crops in vertically stacked racks. These urban greenhouses have been popping up all over the world, including in Scranton, Penn., New Scientist reports. The single story building being constructed right now by Green Spirit Farms will cover a mere 3.25 hectares, but will house about 17 million plants, including lettuce, spinach, kale, tomatoes, peppers, basil and strawberries. These plants are fed nutrients through hydroponic systems and grow year round because they sit in rotating racks that ensures exposure to light. Vertical farms have been heralded as the future of urban agriculture and a solution to farming in extreme weather. They also reduce the distance food has to travel to get to your plate, saving money and fuel. And because fresh fruits and vegetables would be so readily available, lower-income city dwellers would have greater access to nutritious foods. With vertical farming, the sky’s the limit.
MORE: A Big Break in the Mystery That’s Terrorizing Florida’s Citrus Crops