Revitalizing Detroit with Urban Agriculture

Great read:

http://inhabitat.com/2010/11/19/turning-downtrodden-detroit-into-a-farm-town-could-revitalize-it/

Turnkey Acquaponics Kit

Just one more notch in the Acquaponics belt! More over at Treehugger:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/fishy-farm-aquaponics-kits.php

A Brief History of Agrarian Urbanism

http://places.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=15518

An excellent history! Must read for those interested in the movement.

Parkour....ParCow!!!

Very entertaining video over on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnc3neGaYI

Guys running around doing parkour dressed in cow suits. It's for a good, agriculture related cause. Friends of the Earth has started a campaign "Join the Moovement." Get more details here:

http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/biodiversity/press_for_change/parcow_25701.html

SRI: More Rice, Less Water

In the last eight years, a new system of planting rice, known as SRI, has gained a small following in south east asia. The process increases yields by 10-50% while using 50% less water. It doesn't require any special seeds, fertilizer, or equipment either! Read more about it here:

http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_freshwater/freshwater_resources/?114460/More-Rice-with-Less-Water-SRI-System-of-Rice-Intensification

Reforestation 1.0

Two great links to get this category started.

First, 70,000 people in Senegal will plant an estimated 60,000,000 (that's million) mangrove trees by the end of this year. Mangroves facilitate lush ecosystems and store massive amounts of carbon. See more over at Treehugger

Second, a Dutch inventor by the name of Pieter Hoff has come up with a device that he calls The Waterboxx. This simple plastic device has an ingenious trick up its sleeve: the plastic cover changes temperature at a different rate than the surrounding air. As a result, condensation forms on the cover of the box which is funneled inward toward the seed/sapling. This process helps a tree get through the critical development phase in arid climates. The device is reusable and quite ingenious. See more over at Treehugger

Chicken Coop With a Green Roof

Just as the title says. What a great idea! The green roof is a great place to plant your veggies plus it provides the coop with some insulation that I'm sure your chickens will appreciate!

See it @ Inhabitat

Headline: 40% of Kids' Diets Candy

Well, to be more precise, 40% of the calories that children and teenagers in the United States consume are "empty calories": cookies, candy, soda, and their counterparts. The study was done by the National Cancer Institute and more details can be found at the link below:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_DietAndFitness/junk-food-makes-half-kids-calories/story?id=11767886&page=1

What Happens When Fences Come Down?

What happens when fences come down in suburban Portland? Backyards and driveways become gardens and garages turn into chicken coops! Enjoy the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/v/LHtJlYbOe4k?fs=1&hl=en_US

Food Packaging 1.0

Here's a homemade system on youtube that sucks air out with a shark vacuum and then fills the bag up with nitrogen using rudimentary equipment. Perhaps it's not sustainable (use of plastic bags) but it certainly is practical and far less energy intense than wasting food or using cold storage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg5rob9sBF8&feature=related

This website is an excellent primer on food storage that includes a list of tools and "baby steps" that guide you to packaging your own food: http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/

This is a great primer on calculating how much food you'll need in the event of a societal collapse: http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/4980

Here are some of the most popular off the shelf systems:
http://www.sealameal.com/
http://www.foodsaver.com/Index.aspx
http://www.pump-n-seal.com/

Hydroponics 1.0

Almost all of my information is gathered from miscellaneous resources around the web. I only seek to aggregate. If you find a link, send it in!

Here's an overview of the hydroponic gardens at Disney by Inhabitat

This a very interesting system. The Omega Hydroponic Garden covered by Treehugger 

An indoor garden/hydroponics kit, The AeroGarden covered by Treehugger 

This is an article by HydroponicsOnline on how to build your own 11 plant hydroponic system 

Welcome To MicroAg!

MicroAg is short for "Micro-Agriculture." This blog is dedicated to small scale agriculture. The format of the blog will be a series of posts under the following categories:

-general
-compost
-hydroponics
-aquaponics
-resources
-tools
-miscellaneous

Enjoy!