Backyard Roots: Lessons on Living Local From 35 Urban Farmers

259 Pages·2013·25.67 MB·English

by  Lori Eanes

backyard roots

backyard roots
lessons on living local from
urban farmers
Copyright © 2013 by Lori Eanes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skipstone, an imprint of The Mountaineers Books
Printed in China
First printing 2013
16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1
Copy Editor: Sherri Schultz
Design: Jane Jeszeck / www.jigsawseattle.com
Cover photograph: Lori Eanes
All photographs by the author unless otherwise noted Page 2: Tara Hui in her San Francisco backyard;
pages 4–5: Chef Leather Storrs in his restaurant’s rooftop garden in Portland, Oregon; page 6: Freshly
harvested raspberries from Farm Saeturn’s P-Patch plot in Seattle, Washington ISBN (paperback): 978-1-
59485-711-9
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-712-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
Skipstone books may be purchased for corporate, educational, or other promotional sales. For special
discounts and information, contact our sales department at 800-553-4453 or
[email protected].
Skipstone
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Contents
introduction: finding backyard inspiration
acknowledgments
1. greywater guerrilla: laura allen
2. urban rooftop beekeeping: lindsay dault
3. goats, gardens, and gratification: kitty sharkey
4. acres of potential: maya blow and nevada cross
5. a northwest garden blogger: erica strauss
6. tierra soul urban farm and guesthouse: krista and david arias
7. from a laotian jungle to a city garden: farm saeturn
8. backyard permaculture: christopher shein
9. chicken revolution: barbara palermo
10 from cancer to a community garden: jonathan chen
11. building a neighborhood by raising food: people’s grocery garden at the
california hotel
12. toward a community-supported restaurant: stacey givens
13. the dirt on seeds: birgitt evans
14. a family adventure in urban farming: melissa and tom clauson
15. bringing fruit trees back to the city: tara hui
16. from a weed-filled lot to an urban farm: kenya spiegel and seth brown
17. a rooftop farm for a community kitchen: ted cathcart
18. city foraging: rebecca lerner
19. a neighborhood csa: gray oron
20. duck keeping 101: bj hedahl
21. medicinal herbs for folk remedies: rachel freifelder
22. city art farm: joan engelmeyer and steve irish
23. defending the right to raise animals for food: esperanza pallana
24. inspiring travelers at a downtown hostel: lee kindell
25. legalizing backyard goats: jennie grant
26. backyard aquaponics: jodi peters
27. a restaurant’s rooftop garden: noble rot
28. a chicken coop co-op: jake harris and emma klein
29. a cob oven for backyard cooking: stephen osserman
30. fighting for a farm: little city gardens
31. backyard believers: rebecca hazard and lori vail
32. giving up the grocery store: rachel hoff and tom ferguson
33. a cooperative adventure in goat keeping: going goaty
34. a hobby mushrooms into a farm: alex winstead
35. itty-bitty farm in the city: heidi kooy
Kenya Spiegel and Seth Brown built their goat barn almost entirely from recycled materials. The siding, for
example, was made from old flooring that a Portland neighbor was throwing away.
introduction
finding backyard inspiration
AS A FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER, I’ve taken pictures of all kinds of foods:
drippy, sugary, grilled, sautéed, tossed, and frozen. Whatever the subject, my job
is always the same: to make it look delicious. It’s got to jump off the page and
stop you in your tracks. I spend so much time looking at food that I can’t help
but be a little obsessed about it. I wonder what’s in it, where it came from, how it
was grown, and even who grew it.
Curious about the food industry, I started reading books about it, such as
Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Food Politics. They opened
my eyes to the ugly side of pretty food. I read about animals kept in horrible
conditions, poisonous pesticides, and monoculture on a massive scale. The state
of industrial agriculture depressed me, and it seemed a growing number of
people felt the same way I did. The idea of eating foods grown locally and
without pesticides was taking root, and some people were taking it a step further
—turning their yards into backyard farms.
The project that eventually grew into this book started with an idea: find
these urban farmers and see what they were up to. I had just read Farm City,
Novella Carpenter’s adventure in urban farming, and I had heard about other
urban farmers. I was curious. I wondered who these people were and how they
did it. How did they grow their own food and raise farm animals in the city?
I started in my own backyard: the Bay Area. In San Francisco, houses are
packed together and space is a rarity, yet still I found farmers. As I worked my
way up the West Coast to Vancouver, British Columbia, I found the movement
wasn’t limited to where I live. All kinds of people are involved with urban
farming, from scrappy fighters willing to take on outdated legislation, to a young
cancer survivor working with elderly immigrants at a community garden, to a