"Farm City" by Novella Carpenter...

[Al Publican]

I heard Novella Carpenter speak of her urban garden in Oakland, California last Sunday on the NPR show To The Best of Our Knowledge. Interesting story on how she took a vacant lot where a large apartment was destroyed by fire and turned it into a farm.

She said once the items from illegal dumping were removed from the lot that her crew discovered a concrete slab from the apartment building was in place. They then clean it off and laid two feet of dirt and compost for their farm.

The segment with Carpenter can be heard at ttbook.org

Curious if anyone has read her book. It just came out in paperback. I'm planning on reading it.

[Detroitus]

I haven't read her book but I've meet her and been to her place a couple times as one of my friends lives in her building in the lower unit. Novella done a lot of great work and her place is pretty cool but she lives a little bit to close to her animals for my taste. Her chickens are RIGHT outside her back door and her goats go in and out of her house. I prefer to keep my chickens in my agriculture area of my yard and keep an ornamental section closer to the house. It find it a over all much better for both sights and smells.