Food Forests for a Future

11/25/2020

"One per cent of the world’s farms operate 70% of crop fields, ranches and orchards, according to a report that highlights the impact of land inequality on the climate and nature crises.

Since the 1980s, researchers found control over the land has become far more concentrated both directly through ownership and indirectly through contract farming, which results in more destructive monocultures and fewer carefully tended smallholdings.

Taking the rising value of property and the growth of landless populations into account for the first time, the report calculates land inequality is 41% higher than previously believed."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/24/farmland-inequality-is-rising-around-the-world-finds-report

03/22/2019

The offer: A city crew will plant one fruit tree — lime, lemon, orange, peach, pomegranate or avocado — in the front yard of interested Long Beach residents, with a priority going to yards in the western, central and northern parts of the community. Renters can apply, but the property owner will need to sign off on the project.

The city’s Office of Sustainability sees it as a win-win, with new trees providing shade and food in neighborhoods with the greatest need, and income for the youths hired to assist with planting.

Several jurisdictions and nonprofits in Southern California have tree programs, but Long Beach's appears to be the only one that offers to plant fruit trees. Call your city hall to see what’s available in your community.

02/13/2019

Look southwards for what will thrive in your children's and grandchildren's gardens and urban foodsheds

In one generation, the climate experienced in many North American cities is projected to change to that of locations hundreds of miles away—or to a new climate unlike any found in North America today.

02/12/2019

Don't judge a tree by its cover

This image reinforces the well known idiom "Don't judge a book by its cover". This Douglas-fir tree with a diameter just larger than a nickel is an astounding 103 years old! In some forests, trees can grow in the understory of more dominant trees for years without ever growing to a mature height or size. It isn't until the canopy structure changes, allowing more light, that this little tree could start putting on rapid annual growth. A good reminder that while that sapling tree might make great firewood, it could easily be older than you! This image is from Robert Van Pelt's "Identifying Old Trees and Forests", a fascinating guide if you are interested in old trees and all their unique characteristics!

01/15/2019

The age of galactic food forestry may have just begun.

A small cotton shoot is growing onboard Chang’e 4 lunar lander, scientists confirm

01/13/2019

So much food crop biodiversity to marvel at and conserve!

10/24/2018

Which block would you rather live on? (It's the same block! And you can do this to your own.)

Richard Hood sent us these before-and-after photos of the 300 block of Lexington Street in San Francisco's Mission neighborhood, where he and his wife have lived since 1991. In the 1970s, as shown at top (image from OpenSFHistory), trees are nowhere to be seen. What a difference!

04/22/2018

Props to the tree nuts at the Bloomington Community Orchard!

05/31/2017

01/26/2017

Perennial crops ensure that there are living roots in the soil 100% of the time. This prevents soil erosion, reduces compaction, feeds the soil food web, and pushes the soil profile lower.

Further reading: http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/15/digging-deep-reveals-the-intricate-world-of-roots/

06/06/2016

What's your limit?

11/25/2015

Highway to forest-boulevard conversion? A provocative image indeed...

The vision of community advocates that the asphalt moat could be replaced by a landscaped boulevard connecting downtown to residential West Oakland — lined with a diverse mix of housing, perhaps with BART underneath — might be a naive mirage.

[...] how do we thread new pathways, or rethink old ones, through places where the ways people live and work continue to evolve?

The idea takes cues from San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, where the Central Freeway was rolled back after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the neighborhood has blossomed.

On a quite different track, Richmond’s Christopher Flynn pointed out that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission studied the idea of an additional east-west bridge in the early 2000s at the behest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Back then it was estimated that such a connection between Hayward and San Bruno would have a price tag of at least $8 billion, Flynn concedes, but costs “are always less today than tomorrow.”

More to the point, he argued, “for redundancy and enhancement of both BART and vehicle traffic, the entire greater Bay Area needs the Southern Crossing.”

Berkeley attorney Antonio Rossmann touted this as a way to get the ground-level virtues while avoiding a fight over unplugging I-980, which he described as “an important connector — for example, for the entire Highway 24 corridor to gain fast access to Oakland airport” from Contra Costa County.

Bicycles are the mode of choice as never before, yet bike lanes often lead to peril.

They grasp that a boulevard seems like a change that could pay benefits on various fronts, mending a gash while still being an easily navigated path from east to west.

[...] as regional politicians get serious about looking into an expansion of BART, this could be a route that makes sense without being off the charts in terms of price.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission recently launched what it calls a “core capacity transit study,” aimed at finding ways to take what we have and make the existing pieces work more smoothly.