fastcompany:

“Edel was interested in ways of bringing back manufacturing jobs to the city,” explains Melanie Hoekstra, director of operations at The Plant. The building is uniquely suited to food production; it contains food-grade materials (these allow for legal and safe food preparation) because of its meatpacking history. Instead of combining farming with other types of manufacturing, The Plant is sticking entirely to food—and lots of it.

A Meatpacking Plant Transformed Into A Vertical Farm

❤

(via npr)

smarterplanet:

‘Film farming’ uses no soil and just one-tenth the water

With water efficiency in mind, Dubai-based Agricel recently launched a farming system that uses a film-like material instead of soil and allows farmers to use 90 percent less water.

via emergentfutures

Interesting, water-saving farming system being pioneered in Dubai

(via urbangreens)

youbroketheinternet:

truth

plantedcity:

From The Vancouver Sun:

Companion planting has been around for centuries, a method that many organic gardeners use to try to protect certain vulnerable crops from insect predation, for instance, using marigolds to deter beetles and carrot fly.

Or — less believably — to improve the flavours of certain vegetables, such as planting basil among tomatoes.

But you can use an amped-up form of companion planting — succession interplanting — to double the output of each of your garden beds by pairing up plants that will grow together in close quarters without interfering with each other and then following with a full second crop for fall and winter. It is possible to get as many as four crops per bed in a single growing season.

You won’t end up with nice rows of identical plants like you see in magazines, those mini-mono-crops. But the esthetic loss is diversity’s gain and it’s not so hard on your soil.

If you have a lot of space, try some or all of these mixed bed plans. If space is tight, try one to start and see how it works for you.

There are no tomatoes in this plan. Grow them in a separate bed with plenty of space around them. Some plants can’t be crowded and few are more likely to disappoint when things don’t go their way than tomatoes.

Check out the rest of the article here and Wikipedia for a list of companion plants.

(Infographic credit: New Scientist via SeaCoast Eat Local)

Some notes on companion planting

nprmusic:

Juggling violin, beatboxing and both English and Japanese vocals, Kishi Bashi is a one-man orchestra who blends a mess of ingredients into a symphony of loop-pedaled wonders. Watch him build his music one melody at a time at the 9:30 Club, live in concert in Washington D.C.

Photos: John Rose/NPR

Kishi Bashi!

(via npr)

millionsmillions:

Are eReaders Really Green? by Nick Moran

vitalwaves:

What is wrong with our food systems?

Easy-to-digest diagram of the breakdown of our food system

(via verticaltheory)

mothernaturenetwork:

2012 weddings will be greener, less expensive and more intimate
Maybe it was one too many in-your-face episodes of “Bridezillas,” or maybe it was Kim Kardashian (she’s such a great scapegoat, isn’t she?).
 
Whatever the precipiating factor(s), after a decade of damn-the-budget, over-the-top, weddings-as-competition, the trend for weddings in the coming year seems to be the opposite: Budget-appropriate, classy and (maybe because Americans are marrying later and later every year) even a bit more mature.
Read more from our lifestyle blogger.

It’s about time, weddings.

(via philphys-deactivated20120616)

etsy:

(via Brain Print by ValeroDoval on Etsy)

Ecopsychological profile