All the Dirt on Gardening

Rooftop garden Children's Hospital St. Louis MO Urban Harvest in St. Louis MO is building a demonstration garden for city dwellers who want to grow some of their own food. And, it's a food roof farm.  The idea is to connect citizens of the city with organic food at their fingertips. Rally Saint Louis is funding the initial project along with crowdsourcing. The first project will be on the 10,000 square-foot roof of a two story building at 14th and Convention Plaza a block from the City Museum. There will also be event and education spaces on the roof. Another community gardening group in St. Louis grows their food on the deck of an underused parking garage. What do you think? Could this work in your town? Urban Harvest says the benefits are -  GREEN ROOFS HAVE AN ISOLATING EFFECT, HELPING REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF ENERGY NEEDED TO HEAT A BUILDING IN WINTER AND COOL IT IN SUMMER. THEY ALSO RETAIN RAINWATER, THUS HELPING REDUCE PROBLEMS WITH RUNOFF, WHILE ENHANCIN...

Fighting Hunger … Feeding Hope is the slogan of the Oklahoma City Regional Food Bank - www.regionalfoodbank.org. The program distributed 36.5 million pounds of food during Fiscal Year 2009, through 450 agencies in 54 Central and Western Oklahoma counties. In addition to distributing donated and purchased food, the facility has a 3.5 acre working farm. Bruce Edwards, director of Urban Harvest, is the man behind the gardens. With one, half-time, employee and dedicated volunteers, the farm grows fruit, vegetables, and herbs for families. Edwards' job description barely covers the tasks and responsibilities to which he applies his creativity and energy. The program offers basic sustainable gardening classes to the public. Last spring a few hundred people attended and many grew their first gardens. Edwards taught raised bed gardening, organic pest control, container gardening, composting and worm composting. The classes are offered on a sliding scale of $5 to $25 and are free for those...