EcoSalon reviews a new documentary about urban farming.

Do you feel overwhelmed by all the negative stuff happening in the world? Want to create sustainable change but aren’t sure how to tackle massive issues like social inequality, insufficient education, food deserts, consumption, waste, and unemployment? Yeah, me too. But those feelings fell away when I watched “Growing Cities,” a new documentary about urban farming by young filmmakers Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouquette.

The movie opens with short introductions by Susman and Monbouquette. Like many of us, they used college as an excuse to flee their hometown. Natives to Omaha, Nebraska, the pair fled to the coasts to find themselves, and others who wanted to change the world. After discovering their passion for sustainability, food, and film making, they decided to return home, but only long enough to gather supplies for their next adventure: a nationwide a road trip to meet the men and women who are challenging the way America grows and distributes its food.

Urban farming may seem like a cliche term batted about by people who can afford to shop at Whole Foods, but Susman and Monbouquette’s adventure proves that the reemergence of city-based farms is much more than a yuppie past-time. The film follows their journey to San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit Milwaukee, Boston, New York, Atlanta and back again. At each stop, they meet hardworking community members who’ve chosen to dig in (literally) rather than surrender their neighborhoods to blight, violence, or poverty.

Watching “Growing Cities” exposes the viewer to many different styles of urban farming. You’ll see folks growing food in vacant lots, front yards, on rooftops, and in abandoned buildings. Some of these urban farming operations are brand new while others are decades old, remnants of the Victory Garden era–a time when growing food was endorsed by the government and considered the most patriotic act one could perform, aside from enlisting.

As hungry as it will make you to see all the fresh fruits, veggies, herbs, and even eggs and fish growing on these urban farms, the food isn’t even the most inspiring part.

What I loved most about “Growing Cities” was the way that it demonstrates how urban farming can be the simple, sustainable answer to many of the problems plaguing our society. Cities that grow their own food are also growing economic security, healthier citizens, a stable job market, an educated and multi-skilled workforce, and perhaps more importantly, a sense of pride and accountability for the environment around us.

The film was released last fall at film festivals, and is beginning community screenings this spring. The creative team invites you to host-a-screening for Earth Day or to kickoff the gardening season. Doing so will share the “Growing Cities” journey with an America that believes in a more sustainable, just, and healthy future for all!

I highly encourage you to watch, but be warned: a side-effect of this movie is that you’ll immediately want to get your hands in the dirt.

Related on EcoSalon

5 Urban Farming Ideas for Your Own Backyard

Revitalizing Food Deserts: 3 Ways To Bring Healthy Food Where It’s Needed Most

Foodie Underground: Truck Farm

Images via Growing Cities

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Thanks to the UrbMat all you need to start growing vegetables is a thumb (and it doesn’t even have to be green!).

I know it’s freezing cold outside, but now is the time to starting thinking about growing vegetables. It’s extremely rewarding to cook a meal made with stuff grown in your own backyard. Unfortunately more than a few of us find home gardening confusing and often unsuccessful. And if you live in an urban area, good luck finding the space.

For us lazy gardeners, high tech tools for growing vegetables are extremely attractive, but few will take you from seed to sprout faster than the UrbMat from grow-it-yourself social food company UrbnEarth. This plug-and-play gardening system makes it possible for anyone to start growing vegetables immediately–so you can get past the “am I doing it right?” phase and on to the “look how awesome gardening is!” phase.

Designed for use by families, educators and kids (aka gardening novices), the 3′ x 2′ UrbMat looks like a miniature Twister mat. Only the colorful dots aren’t for your left arm or right leg–they’re for 12 different types of non-GMO herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Just roll it out on top of the soil or in a raised bed. Press the seedball starters (a mix of chili powder, compost, worm castings, clay, and non-GMO seeds) into the correct circle on the mat, and you’re done. The UrbMat has a weed-control layer and a hose-ready irrigation system for care of your growing vegetables.

Among the veggies and herbs, you’ll notice marigolds and catnip, which are included as natural pest repellents so your UrbMat can remain organic. “Marigolds and catnip not only look pretty, but are also some of nature’s best pest-control agents. Marigolds deter nematodes and worms that will feed on your plants roots. Catnip attracts lacewings, which feed on aphids and mites,” explains the UrbnEarth website.

And for every mat purchased, the company gives two meals to kids suffering from hunger in the U.S. Meals are donated in partnership with 2 Degrees Food and Feeding America.

Related on Ecosalon

10 Ideas for Sexy Urban Gardens

7 Items You Can Reuse To Improve Your Garden

The 10 Easiest Vegetables To Grow At Home

All images via UrbnEarth

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Growing your own food has gone from a retiree’s outdoor activity to the trendiest pastime and hobby for young and old alike in the last decade.

Urban gardens, CSAs, schoolyard farms, and gardens in nearly any available space, have been popping up all over the country. Work trade programs like WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms), Growfood.org and Work Away, have given eager volunteers the chance to learn about growing food, inspiring many of them to set up creative food growing operations of their own. In case you need any more convincing than tasting a homegrown cucumber, tomato or strawberry, consider the following 10 persuasive reasons to grow your own food:

1. Enjoy the unbeatable taste of homegrown, freshly picked veggies and fruits. Not only do organically grown foods from your yard or community garden taste better than pesticide-laden ones, they also contain more nutrients to keep you and your family healthy and happy.
2. Enjoy food free of chemicals. The EPA considers 90 percent of fungicides, 60 percent of herbicides, and 30 percent of insecticides carcinogenic, while the National Academy of Sciences considers pesticides to cause 4 million yearly cases of cancer, birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutations in the US. Yuck!
3. Enjoy the exercise that gardening tasks provide. Building raised beds, raking rows, weeding, planting, turning compost and moving dirt, are all very useful forms of exercise.
4. Enjoy the financial savings of growing your own food. Investing it the materials for a garden may take a chunk of money to start off, but will keep your food costs down in the long run. The valuable experiences gained through growing your own food and the added nutritional value cannot be measured in money.
5. Enjoy local food. Grown in your own yard or closest community garden or urban garden is as local as it gets.
6. Enjoy seasonal eating. Growing your own produce allows you to reconnect with the natural food year, eating more fresh produce when it is in season, and preserved produce in the winter.  
7. Enjoy creating a wildlife habitat. Gardening automatically sets up an environment that attracts beneficial wildlife such as pollinator insects, birds and in some cases even amphibians.
8. Prevent the loss of biodiversity and soil erosion. Corporate agriculture has become the epitome of mono-cropping and genetic modification in order to reap larger profits. The lack of plant diversity caused by these practices have left agricultural land lacking in minerals and nutrients, solved by administering chemical fertilizers. This has created pesticide-resistant insects and viruses that are affecting large amounts of single crops and cause extreme soil erosion. Growing your own food decreases the demand for the destructive practices of corporate agriculture. The health of the soil is demonstrated in the quality of the food grown in it.
9.  Protect our water resources. The EPA estimates that cancer-causing pesticides contaminate groundwater in 38 states, polluting the drinking water for more than half of our nation’s population. Growing your own food reduces that many pesticides from the water streams, while setting up your own irrigation systems does even more.
10. Enjoy reconnecting to your community and your roots through food. Gardening and growing food have been and integral part of our lives since humans first began to cultivate food. The simple act of growing your own food will bring you closer to your roots as a member of that natural world, allowing you to grow, care and share it with gratitude and respect.

Image: Myrtle Glen Farm

Sources: Environmental Protection Agency: Human Health Benchmarks for Pesticide
                National Academies Press
                Gaiam Life: All About Organic

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