[Community_garden] Community Growers Marries Urban Artisans w. Urban Agriculture Movement

[James Godsil]

Dear All,

The arrival  in Milwaukee of the Community Growers network of artisans,
artists, urban agrarians, and sustainability theorists/activists suggests
serious consideration be given to projects that aim to connect the urban
agriculture movement with the restoration artisans and their informal guilds
in our big cities.

See the front page story of this welcome development at...

 http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/Main/HomePage

          Urban Restoration Carpenter's "Victory Garden" Atop Commercial
Building


Complementarity of "Talented 10%" of Restoration Trades and Urban
Agriculture Movement

The "talented 10%" of our big city restoration carpenters, roofers, metal
smiths, masons, and painters are predisposed to seriously consider and
succeed in urban agriculture these days for many reasons.

Resources Already Possessed by Restoration Trades

*trucks and other equipment able to move lots of material, e.g. soil,
composting leaves and wood chips from dumps, mountains of veggie wastes,
etc.

*time--lots of down time in the restoration trades throughout the year and
even during the weeks and days of the normal work season, e.g. rain days

*prodigious work ethic and quite often enormous physical stamina and power

*competence in "small is beautiful" technological innovations and "yankee
ingenuity"

*backyards, empty neighborhood lots,  and roof tops available for intensive
growing,e .g. Milwaukee is ready to give 220 lots away gratis if our
movement can demonstrate capacity

*high tolerance for handling "yucky stuff" like compost breaking down

*recent farming backgrounds in many artisanal extended families

Opportunities for "Mighty Collaborations" Right At Your Front Door!

Many of the key theorists and practitioners of the urban agriculture
movement own old houses that will require them to connect with members of
the restoration trades.  Consider spending some time with your roofer,
carpenter, mason, painter, etc., explaining and showing them the
possibilities of intensive soil development with composting and worms and
the high yields for use and market such rich soil in small places will
afford.

Many members of the artisan class these days are migrants from rural
backgrounds with farm skills yet in extended families from down south,
Mexico and other Latin American countries, eastern European and Eurasian
migration streams.  Urban farming has great promise to fill otherwise empty
time as well as offer family members of your artisan classes a means of new
use and exchange value.

Connect Your Tradesmen w. Joe Jenkins, Josh Fraundorf, and Erik Lindberg

Joe Jenkins,  author of "Humanure," is the nation's foremost authority on
slate roofs, i.e. also author of "Slate Roof Bible."  Two of the founders of
Milwaukee's Community Growers, Josh Fraundorf and Erik Lindberg,  will
combine for a couple of million of restoration projects in 2008.  All three
of these leaders of the trades are deeply committed to connecting their
fellow artisans with the urban and organic family farm movements.

Consider suggesting your favorite artisans send an e-mail to
UrbanArtisanFarmExperiments at milwaukeerenaissance.com to initiate a
conversation that might serve them and your community greatly.

Also consider developing some grant proposals aimed directly at doing what
is needed to marry the urban restoration trades with the food security
movement.  A number of Milwaukeeans in this effort would very much enjoy
brainstorming this vision with you!

The Marriage That Made Your City Some Kind of Holy Place

Your city will  start feeling like some kind of Holy City, when
On cold winter or rainy spring or hot summer days
Laid off construction workers
And retired young elders will gather veggie wastes
>From every neighborhood's food and cafe co-ops,
Brewers yeast from the finest micro breweries,
Wood chips from the city yard,
Coffee grounds from Alterra roasters all over town.

They'll deliver this precious cargo of potency
To neighborhood gardens, edible school yards,
And emerging at-home city farms and kitchen gardens,
For composting food for a myriad of city worm ranches
And neighborhood year round food growers.

The kids in the hood will gather buckets of compost material
>From just about all the neighbors,
And simultaneously deliver their block's newsletters
Filled with images and information to promote and defend
Their increasingly connected neighbors,
On higher and higher planes.
Viva, the marriage of urban restoration artisans and the urban agrarian
movement!

Godsil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20080527/271c3225/attachment.html