"Is all this effort doing the planet good?"

In the New York Times: Urban Composting: A New Can of Worms. The article explains some of the unique circumstances we city folk have to deal with when it comes to composting. There are some funny stories in there. The article also asks how much good does composting do. It is no where near as helpful as recycling. That is the single best thing we can do. But it does keep trash out of landfills and finished compost is great for plants. 

For us, yes, it is a bit of work to manage Kimberly (our composter); chopping everything up, making sure there's a good balance of material we put in there, turning it…just add it to the list. But it's fun. She is our own little science experiment. 

Article written by Mireya Navarro.

NYTimes.com also has an entire section about composting.

Petition: Food Democracy Now!

Help encourage President Obama to fill the Department of Agriculture with individuals who believe in sustainability and are motivated to change our food chain for the better. Sign the petition… read about the nominees and just hope they've paid their taxes.

Infarmation: Garlic 101

Farmer no. 1 recently purchased garlic at a local corner store and noticed the words "GROWN IN CHINA" on the label. Think of all the pesticides, soil conditions and pollution in China....alarmed by this thought, the garlic was immediately thrown away. We started checking the garlic at all the local grocery stores and found "GROWN IN CHINA" at every store. Why are our local grocery stores selling something that can easily be grown locally?

Very upset by this discovery, we immediately went to the farmers market to purchase locally grown product. The subject was discussed with a local farmer and he said that most garlic in U.S. grocery stores is grown in China, and what is currently in stores was harvested last year!

The Brooklyn Farm will now officially begin growing garlic...and you might consider planting a few bulbs too. It is very easy to grow and Fall is the ideal time to plant garlic for the optimum bulb and shoot development.

We will order our bulbs now and plant in October. Check out the Garlic Store in Ft. Collins, CO. to purchase organic, USA grown bulbs available in lots of interesting varieties. By Spring, we'll have fresh, organic garlic. In the meantime, we recommend buying garlic solely from the farmers market.

For more information on growing garlic, click here.

Infarmation: Skyscraper Farming

Interesting article in the NY Times today about creating "verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food." It seems a bit strange to have a farm behind glass and 20 stories high...this is taking the idea of eating local to the extremes.
Check it out and tell us what you think.

Photos by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mithun and SOA Architects.

Update: Kimberly the Composter

Kimberly, our fat little composting bin, has been hard at work since March 1. The compost should be ready but it has been a learning process on how to get the balance right between green (living/nitrogen) and brown matter (dead/carbon). Right now, between the farm waste and kitchen scraps there is so much more green waste than brown so we've been using shredded newspaper as the carbon source.
Farmer No. 2 cuts up the expired broccoli to feed to Kimberly. Chopping up the waste speeds up the process by exposing more surface area to micro-organisms. 

Kimberly the Composter

Brooklyn Farm is composting now. Kitchen scraps, yard waste, anything organic can be thrown in there.