Sustainable Agriculture Is Upstairs Down-Home Idea
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Living Green ~ A Top 'O the Roof Idea
Nothing captures my attention like a passion for sustainable agriculture that puts green living into practice to benefit others.
Ms. Annie Novak, a resident of Brooklyn, recently, and more than once, featured by those with a nose for news, proves we can all take a second look at available space to make living green a win-win way to insist on sustainable living.
Partnering up with Ben Flanner, the two are dazzling New Yorkers with an upstairs down-home solution for themselves and others.
Her rooftop farm is news on many frontiers. Environmental. Entrepreneurs. Energy conservation. Local business. Community. Friendship building. Education. The influence of Brooklyn's rooftop gardens may have only just begun.
The New York rooftop view is available at Art.com
Featured In Atlantic Monthly Magazine
Read Ms. Novak's blog at http://growingchefs.org
When I watched the CNN piece, I was captured by the sustainable living location being made in New York by the rooftop farm of Ms. Novak. School children, restaurant chefs and the economy of the city all are shown to benefit from the food-loving, ecological conscience of this living-green, farming enthusiast.
The Atlantic Magazine shows more biography of Ms. Novak and how she was motivated to create such a unique blend of hard work and do-goodism. Here's an Atlantic Magazine quote of Ms. Novak. Click on the above photo to link to the magazine source.
"At 20 years old, when I was a very susceptible young thinker, I read Wendell Berry's essay "The Pleasures of Eating." To this day, it remains the most powerful essay I've ever read about food.
"Beginning with the simple assertion that "Eating is an agricultural act," Berry deftly unfolds the tragedy of the modern American food system, then lays out a short charter of actions for the ecological eater. He ties our good health to food sovereignty: the ability to grow our own food, or at least understand where it comes from. He links food quality to healthy soil, healthy soil to good farming, and better farming stewardship to the sustainability of our watersheds, our country, and the planet. To eat well is as simple as maintaining a healthy curiosity about the connection between dirt and dinner."
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Environmental law defender Earthjustice, the top American ecological law firm, because the earth needs a good lawyer. Formerly Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.
Not Just A Tree ~
A Farm Grows In Brooklyn
Annie Novak is a farmer, a bee keeper, gardener and educator. She does all this from a New York rooftop.
A farm on a rooftop? Get real! Herbs. Chickens. Vegetables. Other livestock and their feeding. What about fertilizer? Heavy lifting? The neighbors? All these issues and more are a no-brainer for a young entrepreneur in New York City.
The smile on faces of her customers - restauranteurs and home-makers - are nearly as truth-telling as the youngsters who come to marvel at the "imported Italian bees" working away to supply honey for Brooklyn's rooftop bee keeper.
"Cherry Trees in Blossom" is available from Art.com
Donations Are Bread and Butter
When Charities Help Everyone By Increasing Green Living
EnviroCorps is a nonprofit organization that provides you with self-directed opportunities to serve your community close to your home. Litter free roads and parks in one of our objectives available to anyone, anywhere at any time.
Rooftop Farm in the news
Success with selling their farm produce is only part of this environmentally responsible business.
Plenty of news writers and photographers are quick to recognize so many angles to this story of a farm-loving entrepreneur. I got my first look at this amazing inner city farm on CNN, mid-June 2010, which showed Ms. Novak giving a tour for tweensters out on a field trip.
It was a "field trip" in both the traditional and very non-traditional sense. Some scenes of city kids looking at bees at work and tip-toeing around the chicken coop could have been done in the center of Kansas. Far from classic farm land, I wondered if they had ever seen a working farm before.
This isn't Kansas, Dorothy.
Your a subway ride from home or school. The view of Manhattan is over your shoulder.
Here's one of my favorite online features >>.
- Gotham Gigs: Farmer on the roof
- A few years later, that initial interest in agriculture led the 31-year-old Wisconsin native to leave his desk job and start one of the city's first rooftop farms. From there, he raised $200000 to create a much bigger operation, the Brooklyn Grange ...
- Urban Agriculture Takes Root in Brooklyn With Huge Rooftop Farm
- A rendering of the Liberty View Industrial Plaza with rooftop farm. Construction of the farm is expected to begin in late 2012. (Bright Farms) BROOKLYN ? Up to a million pounds of fresh, locally produced lettuce, tomatoes and herbs are expected to ...
- Into the Vaults, Onto the Rooftop
- The shows are mounted all over the place: from the Brooklyn Grange, a massive rooftop farm in Long Island City, to the Open Road Rooftop above the New Design High School on the Lower East Side, to the Dekalb Market in downtown Brooklyn (a new site this ...
- Lazy, Hazy Summer Days: A Guide
- 13 (6:30 pm, Arsenal Building at Central Park, 64th Street at Fifth Avenue, poets.org/rooftop; free). Williamsburg Park, a new concert space at Kent Avenue and North 12th Street in Brooklyn that will fit about 7000 people, opens this summer, ...
Kids Who Role Play About Eating Green
Help your children act out the gardening & eating habits you want to encourage
This "eating green" role-play toy is one of two winners in the "pretend/role-play" category for best toys of 2011 by American Specialty Toy Retailers Association.
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A great blog about rooftop farms
An idea that is catching on!
Here Are Some Of My Favorite Sites On Greener Living
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- Create colorful, resourceful household conveniences.
- What's To Decide About Choosing A Water Bottle?
- Quite a lot as it turns out. Heather shows how to make these choices.
Tools and Accessories for Rooftop Gardening
What Can Annie Novak Teach Us?
"You can still feel the warmth of the sun on these vegetables," overheard during a CNN feature of Brooklyn's Rooftop Garden
The novelty may wear off when recently developed rooftop gardening is no longer a fresh idea.
On the other hand, state-of-the-art tools, practices and innovations are the commonplace for Ms. Novak and her partners. I expect good old American ingenuity will take this idea and create a community of home folks and entrepreneurs who love city life as much as the taste of fresh vegetables.
"You can still feel the warmth of the sun on them," said one of the chef/customers in New York when Ms. Novak made a delivery. Wow! that's not something you hear often when produce is delivered to city restaurants.
Do you think the number of rooftop farms will increase rapidly?
In big cities, only.
I can see rooftop farms mushrooming all over the planet.
luvmyludwig says:
I'm optomistic that these rooftop gardens will gain popularity.
Bus_Stop_Toy_Shop says:
It's a great idea and I hope it does catch on across the planet!
Garden Flowers, Veggies, Chickens and Bees ~ We Love You!
Is New York Leading the World
This environmentally sensitive enterprise could foretell the future
Experienced Gardeners and Famous Farmers
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Is Farming-On-A-Rooftop Music To Your Ears?
| Track | Artist | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farmers Delight | Busy Kid | Barbecue Beets: Sunrise On a Rooftop In Brooklyn | |
| Annie | Sandy Faison, Dorothy Loudon, Andrea McArdle, Reid Shelton, Barbara Erwin, Laurie Beechman, Edie Cowan, Donald Craig, Orchestra, Penny Worth, Chorus, Robert Fitch, Raymond Thorne & Peter Howard | Annie (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | |
| New York | U2 | All That You Can't Leave Behind | |
| Theme from New York, New York | Frank Sinatra | Nothing But the Best - The Frank Sinatra Collection (Remastered) | |
| New York (Bonus Track) | LL Cool J | Exit 13 (Bonus Track Version) | |
| Sweet Farm Girl | "Harmonica" Frank Floyd | The Missing Link | |
| Farm Girl Blues | Carolina Tar Heels | Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid | |
| My Sweet Farm Girl | Clarence "Tom" Ashley | Greenback Dollar (1929-1933) | |
| Annie | Mat Kearney | City of Black & White | |
| New York State of Mind | Billy Joel | The Essential Billy Joel | |
| Englishman in New York | Sting | The Very Best of Sting & The Police |
Are you inspired to plant something?
If you can't - or won't - grow some of your own veggies, house some chickens, or keep a bee, tell what you think about the ones who do. ;->
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luvmyludwig
Sep 9, 2010 @ 10:18 am | delete
- I think cities would be much more appealing with rooftop farms, I only hope this idea gains more populatiry.
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LoKackl
Sep 9, 2010 @ 10:26 am | delete
- Thank you luvmyludwig! How right you are!
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