Pop! There it is

By Dagmar Hoogland 

This post is about an intiative a dear friend from Capetown is involved in. It’s called Greenpop and is so simple and so great!

This is how it works:

You donate a tree (or ten) and Greenpop will plant it in under-greened schools, creches and community centres.

Or, if you like to be more actively involved, you sign up as a volunteer, meet up one free morning, put on your gloves and start digging. Then planting. Then stepping back and voila, another tree is planted on the South African needy grounds.

The chosen sites have local people who will care for the trees, especially in their early years so they can get well established and flourish.

Call it  a TREEVOLUTION; In three months Greenpop has planted almost 2000 trees in under-greened schools around Cape Town, and they are continuing. Urban greening is positively linked to community upliftment and improved pride of place. Through beau-tree-fication and community involvement, South Africa’s grey areas can get greener.

Check out their site here to see how it works and all the different sorts of trees you can choose from. Do you fancy Wild Olive, Wild Peach or what about a Camphor Bush? Besides all the information needed to take part or make your donation there is a list with facts. I especially like fact nr. 15:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is NOW”

‘Nuff Said

Bounty castle

By Chris Speirs (photo Vanessa)

It’s 6pm, and I’m getting ready for my weekly cycle home from London’s Kings Cross. Black cloud and horizontal rain streak across the glassed building opposite, reminding me to once again stow my paddle and goggles. Then I remember… it’s Thursday! I leap from my seat. I have bounty awaiting me at the castle.

The castle is a magnificent Victorian water pumping station in Hackney, now home to a climbing centre, and the bounty is our weekly organic veg box that Growing Communities, earlier that day, have hidden away in the ramparts of the castle.

Growing Communities established the first box scheme in London, with the “aim of creating a more sustainable, re-localised food system - changing what we eat, how we eat and how it’s farmed.” The scheme harnesses the local communities’ collective buying power to source food locally, and support small farmers. And has accomplished something truly special with it’s ‘urban market gardens’. These community-focused gardens are springing up all over Hackney, including the grounds of the castle itself. They offer volunteers training, apprenticeships and employment in organic gardening, and supply the very salad that members collect and feast on throughout the growing season.

This week I arrive at the foot of the castle looking like I have completed a lap of the moat. I peel off my goggles and enter the secret code to the door. As it swings open I snag my bag of veg, cross our order off the list and sneak a quick peak. I find some familiar friends, and some acquaintances I have yet to meet. With the organic bounty safely slung across my pannier rack, I slip back onto Green Lanes and paddle home.

The bag comes complete with news from the scheme, veg identification and recipes.  This week my new edible friends are crown prince pumpkin and jerusalem artichokes. The latter of which, they explain, is a relative of the sunflower. It can be eaten raw, roasted or fried, and tastes deliciously like water chestnuts.

All under one roof

By Julian Broadhead

Feeding the population of a major city is no mean feat, requiring production and logistical organisation on an industrial scale, and thereby extending the influence of urban centres far beyond their physical boundaries. 

Judging by the number of times  it crops up as a theme here on VivaCity though, this is clearly a situation that makes many people uneasy, prompting questions about where our food comes from, how it is produced and our relationship to it. For those concerned with such matters, the immediate solution appears to be bringing food cultivation into the urban environment and taking personal control, ranging from keeping chickens in your back garden to planting orchards in train stations.

The latest and slightly different addition to this list of food activists is particularly exciting. FARM:shop is an initiative founded by the ‘eco-social design practice’, Something and Son.  

Based in a formerly disused shop in Dalston, London, it is a farm, shop, cafe, exhibition and meeting space all rolled into one. More than all this though, FARM:shop is an experiment in urban food production, with the expressed aim of combining the best of traditional and modern techniques to grow as much food as possible in this limited space.  In practice, this means chickens on the roof and poly-tunnels for vegetables in the garden, whilst indoors there is hydroponic growing, aquaponic fish farming and mushroom cultivation.

So, could FARM:shop represent the shape of things to come? Its founders certainly think so, as this project is merely the beginning of a larger FARM:London initiative, designed to encourage the production of food (and other materials)  in the greater London area, both recreationally and commercially. For us at VivaCity, it is this ambition that makes FARM:shop so exciting and inspiring, and no doubt we will not be alone in following its progress in the coming months with some interest.

VivaCity birthday honours list - part 2

By Julian Broadhead, Dagmar Hoogland, Andy Marks and Shane Solanki

Welcome to the second instalment of the VivaCity birthday honours list, where we select our favourite movements which are changing the way we see and use cities for the better. Feel free to surf, bowl, bomb, flash, plant, eat, discuss, inspire and honour in your neighbourhood…

Ghost Bikes 
Showing the difficulties of a rising bike culture in a car driven world, this initiative is daring and controversial, as its not always appreciated to point out the painful reality. Deserves credit as it takes a difficult subject head on, in a beautiful haunting way. Dagmar

Couch Surfing 
Your sofa isn’t just a place to plonk your butt and zone out to an episode of Lost / Madmen / The Wire / Desperate Housewives (delete as appropriate). It is a place for folk from around the world to seek shelter, be entertained, entertain, share food and life stories. Andy

TED 
The worlds most exciting platform for discussion and new ideas that’s bringing free knowledge and inspiration to the global community. From some of the world’s most inspired thinkers - believing that the power of ideas are the start of any change, TED’s the place to be. Dagmar

Seed Bombs 
One of the most ubiquitous instruments of conflict, reinvented as a means by which to enhance and bring a little bit of nature back to those neglected areas of the urban landscape. Julian

Flash Mobs 
The flash mob is not that new but this spontaneous action shows the collective fun of a crowd, it shows guts, action, and surprise turning to delight. Our example starting on the beach by an enthusiastic boy in red speedo’s embodies the VivaCity spirit. Dagmar

Urban vegetable gardens 
Transforming the way we relate to energy, consumption, food and public space, planting stuff (be it vegetables, fruit or flowers) in the city is the most blatant example of how grassroots movements are spearheading the changes that will affect all of us city dwellers through this century. Shane

Speakeasies 
Underground dining or Speakeasies - no rules, no sky high bills and no time slots, this is a private affair for foodies who love to meet people and welcome each other into their most private part of life: their home. It reflects a playful and social attitude towards food and food sharing. Dagmar

Midnight Cricket 
This most formal of games played spontaneously under the yellow glow of street lights.  What’s not to love? Julian
 

VivaCity birthday honours list - part 1

By Julian Broadhead, Dagmar Hoogland, Andy Marks and Shane Solanki

A year older and hopefully a year street, junction, underpass and ring road wiser. Looking back over the last year, we have selected our favourite grassroots movements which are changing the way we see and use cities for the better.

Afro Reggae
Trading guns, drugs and brutal violence in Rio’s favelas for an electrifying mix of rhythms, dance, theatre and martial arts; a spellbinding platform for young people to get their lives back on track. See them at London’s Southbank this weekend. Andy

Yarn bombing
Hilariously named knitting ‘crews’; a form of civil disobedience few could fail to appreciate and a fantastic way to bring a little bit of colour and creativity to our public spaces. Julian

The art of street art
Colombia recently almost elected a president who, as mayor of Bogota, successfully replaced the corrupt traffic police with a team of mime artists. Urban street art encourages us to be playful with the world that we live in, claiming it back from advertising hoardings and the long arm of the law. Shane

Hidden Park
Turning a screen obsessed culture on it’s head – off the sofa and in to the park with your smart phone to find magical creatures and beasties lurking, roaming and entrancing. Andy

Random huggers
The smallest of things can brighten your day and change your outlook. A hug, even from a stranger, could be just that thing. Julian

Holes in walls 
Sugata Mitra’s famous experiment, where he put a computer into a hole in the  wall in a slum in Delhi, was remarkable for demonstrating that if you give  people the means, they’ll learn, create and improvise. If you haven’t quite  curbed your urge to fly to hot places, then on your next trip, take the bus  out to a slum, make some friends, give them your old laptop (you know, the  one that’s been sitting under your desk unused for the last two years), and  watch what happens! Shane

Growing fruit trees at train stations
Concrete, charmless, chilly, colourless train stations. Planting, tending and harvesting apples, redcurrants, blackcurrants and blackberries means I for one will never look at a train station the same way ever again. Andy

Bags of hope
Recycling, dealing with ever increasing mountains of plastic in a constructive way, providing employment and income for people below the poverty line, making something beautiful - Conserve India makes fashion items out of rubbish collected on the  streets of Delhi. The perfect VivaCity movement. Shane

Blue sky thinking

By Shane Solanki

This is the most exciting time we have ever known. In such a short space of time, the world has changed completely. And it’s only just started; we’re hurtling towards a future that will look radically different from the one we knew even twenty years ago.

Can we pool our wisdom and imagination to create a future for all of the planet’s creatures that is rich and positive?

Hopefully we’ll remember that we all came from the same place. That we’re all related. There’s so much to be done; we need to work to find real solutions to the problems that face us all. VivaCity attempts to find such solutions, especially ones that help us to negotiate the mediated and often controlled public spaces to be found in cities.

In 1996, the British organisation Reclaim The Streets became infamous for their impromptu parties organised on roads, reclaiming the streets from cars (which offer speed and comfort to their users, whilst other road users pay the price through fear, injury, pollution and congestion). One of their most celebrated festivals was the M41 street party, where for nine hours 8,000 people took control of the M41 motorway in West London, partied and generally enjoyed themselves, whilst some dug up the tarmac with jack-hammers and in its place planted trees (trees that had been rescued from the construction path of the M11 link road campaign, which led to the loss of homes, loss of quality of life and community fragmentation).

These days, some activists are looking to be a little bit more playful and less confrontational in their approach to reclaiming the streets; take the pothole gardener, who saves cyclists from the perils of the pothole and simultaneously scores a goal back for nature in the match against tarmac.

Activism doesn’t have to be militant, subversive and illegal; Brighton Council (home of the UK’s recently elected first Green MP) commissioned artist Stig Evans to paint blue skies across the boarded-up windows of a derelict pub in one of Brighton’s most rundown estates. Since then, residents claim there’s been a marked decrease in problem behaviour there.

In London, artists Fugitive Images were concerned with the lack of identity which residents of their soon-to-be-demolished council estate had, amongst faceless new builds and endless property developments. So they put up life-size pictures of residents on the windows, allowing the personality of their community to breathe life into their ‘hood. 

Look at these interventions as graffiti for the 21st century; signposts to a way of life which is richer with meaning, looking to enhance the quality of our lives and make us feel happier about the places we inhabit. Seed the future; paint the sky; reclaim the streets. Make them yours. It could be through poetry, guerrilla gardening, bike rides or many of the other ways we’ve documented on VivaCity. Together, like slacktivist guerillas in the midst, we can resist the grizzly grist of the corporate fist…

The tree on platform one is…

By Andy Marks

Growing food in the city. A good idea which ever way you look at it. Guaranteed fresh food. Cutting food miles and packaging. Showing off to your friends and family, even recruiting them to muck in with planting.

But many a city dweller may ask, where can we grow? With space at such a premium and high-rise living often the norm. Well, inspiration can be found in the most unlikely of places.

Take Londoner Laura Laker. A frequent commuter, drudging through railway stations in and around the city. Grey platforms, grey walls, grey skies, and forlorn planters sparked a rather beautiful idea. Emboldened by her friends at Transition Towns, Laura approached the management at her local railway station, Haringey Green Lanes, and suggested a planting and growing scheme on land at the station.

Now you might think the powers that be in areas such as public transport and land management would be both un-enthused and slow to respond, but in fact they welcomed the idea, and got all excited about community projects. Hurrah!

With help from local residents, other Transitioners, and our friends at conservation charity BTCV, Laura realised her ambition to show passers-by that it is possible to grow food even in unlikely places. Given the conditions, it was decided that fruit trees would be a good choice, specifically three apple trees, three redcurrant bushes, blackcurrants and blackberries. Station staff even volunteered to water them.

If further inspiration were necessary, get a copy of The Carbon Army’s Grow Your Own Food guide from BTCV, which is full of handy tips and delicious recipes. Do share your cultivation successes with fellow VivaCity types below…
 

Bomb tha hood

By Dagmar Hoogland

Spring is that time of the year when there is a certain excitement in the air.

Nature is waking up and you can almost feel the burst of energy of things that are about to pop open. You may not always be so in tune with the rhythm of our planet, being busy with everyday life, but there is always that moment waiting for a bus or picking up a paper in the morning that you notice something good is about to happen. Now, groups of people have picked up on an idea to become part of the thrill of Spring by creating something called seed bombs.

The idea isn’t new. In 1973 Liz Christy created seed grenades when she started the “Green Guerrillas”. The first seed grenades were made from condoms filled with local wildflower seeds, water and fertilizer. They were tossed over fences onto empty lots in New York City in order to make the neighborhoods look better. In the last couple of years, seed bombs have become an increasingly popular means of combating the many forgotten grey spaces we encounter everyday, from sidewalk cracks to vacant lots and parking medians.

As well as organising routes around town which you can “bomb” together, Vanessa Harden has some fantastic methods of bombing.

There are several tutorial videos spread around on how to make one yourself. But if you don’t like to get your hands dirty, seed bombs are for sale. They come in all sorts and shapes; as balls, balloons, pills and at Kabloom Seed Bombs you can buy seed bombs in the shape of hand grenades in a colorful packet of 6.  And you can follow them on Facebook.

At the common studio, Daniel Philips and Kim Karlsrud even came up with  a seed bomb vending machine  called The Greenaid Dispensary, creating a free-standing, coin-operated device to purchase your own bomb.

Seed bombs are easy to make (or buy), fun to plant and will make you go that extra block around the neighborhood to watch your bomb explode into a colourful patch. So, go and throw your bit of spring!

Don’t hurry that curry

By Andy Marks

The hustle, bustle and grime of inner city London is an unlikely place to find a farm, let alone a wide range of delicious Bangladeshi vegetables growing in abundance. But a visit to the Spitalfields City Farm will reveal something quite special.

The farm is home to the Coriander Club, which provides the space and know-how for local women to grow organic vegetables for their families, and the opportunity to participate in healthy cooking classes.  Using local ingredients, vegetable curry, dahl and pilau rice are just some of the treats rustled up in their Bengali food masterclass, but there is more to this spice oasis than meets the eye.

The Coriander Club is the brainchild of Luftun Hussain, who is the farm’s Healthy Living Project coordinator. Luftun grew up growing fruit and vegetables on her father’s land in Bangladesh, before moving to Britain in 1969. Once in the cooler climes of London, she set herself the challenge  of growing Bangladeshi vegetables in her backyard in London’s Tower Hamlets. Luftun then set up the Coriander Club in 2000, to allow Bangladeshi women to grow vegetables, socialize and exercise whilst cultivating some very special veggies.

Luftun sees the club as playing an important social and cultural role in the community, and cites promoting ethnic diversity, cultural exchange, inclusion, organic horticulture and healthy living in society as objectives for the club.

Such is the success of the club that Luftun has been appointed as one of fifteen London Leaders, by the London Sustainable Development Commission. And not only that, to spread the word on Bangladeshi culinary delights, Luftun has now written The Corinader Club Cookbook, with proceeds from the sale of the book going back in to the farm and the Coriander Club.

Share your spicy secret recipes, your favorite curry house, or any tips for growing hot stuff in the city, below, and we may thank you. 

Honey makes the world go round

By Shane Solanki

Apparently, Einstein said something like “Dudes – if the bees go, we’ll soon follow.” Like bee=mc², this quote has never been proved. But one thing is true; the bees are dying, and we aren’t sure why. Could it be a virus? Mobile phones? Insectides? Global warming? We don’t know… but do not fear! The 21^st century is here! Locate a problem, and a grass roots movement will follow…

Perhaps we are closer to bees, and ants, than we care to admit; perhaps we are one of the planet’s many engineering communities; “There’s a problem with the machine, cap’n. Let’s tweak a few knobs and see if we can restore equilibrium.” Perhaps that’s one reason why there are so many urban beekeepers springing up around the globe; the British Beekeepers Association tells us that this year, more bees were working in city hives than in country hives. Or perhaps the reason we’re all getting buzzed up could be something to do with honey…

A commentator on Vergil’s Georgics Volume 4, which tells of honeybees and lost love, remarked that only four things withstand time; gold, sunlight, amber and honey. The ancient Greeks anticipated cryogenic freezing by mummifying their dead in honey. Whilst sugar is synthetic, causes decay of teeth as well as society, has teamed up with Playstation to speed up the demise of civilisation, and was built on the backbone of slavery, honey is a sweet, sticky, completely natural food which – wait for it – is made from flowers (possibly the planet’s most intelligent species, drinking in sunlight and water, putting out nuttin’ but colour, scent and pollen) by bees, who drink flower nectar, and provide us with a substance that tastes like the food of the gods! It’s a no brainer! So perhaps it isn’t a surprise that the amount of beekeepers are on the rise…

Meet Cameo Wood, viola-playing proprietrix and Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper. Cameo has brought beekeeping to the American masses by opening HMSB in San Francisco in 2009. The shop is not only an homage to bees and honey, but a one stop shop for anyone interested in beekeeping and honey making. Don’t quote us on this, but we’re sure Cameo waxed lyrical about a state-funded initiative to green roofs all over the city of SF, where ‘juveniles’ would tend to hives. What better solution for angry young men than have them deal with bees to make honey? Now that’s poetry.

And, like any good virus, the news is spreading quickly; suddenly, across the planet, the thought of rooftop gardens is fast becoming a reality as urban planners wake up to the fact that while we fight for every square inch in our rapidly developing cities, rather a large amount of space is available on the top of buildings. Such environments are perfect for bees, who unlike humans (and more specifically children prone to anaphylactic shock) can, of course, fly. Check out the hives atop of London’s famous Fortnum and Mason…

So there it is, folks; reasons to bee cheerful – 1,2,3;
1)    Save the bees
2)    Save humanity
3)    Procure food of the gods

We at VivaCity cannot help but notice that lots of people around the planet are visiting our site, but the shy folk that you are, you’re leaving without relieving yourselves. So we’d like you to make a deposit! Please leave a comment below, telling us about any urban beekeeping projects you know in your local ‘hood. We’d love to know. Perhaps, if we get enough comments in, we can use the Ushahidi engine to create a worldwide map of urban honey heros…