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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Gardening on Construction Fill

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Arzeena Hamir <arzeenahamir@shaw.ca>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Gardening on Construction Fill
  • Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:39:32 -0800

Funny you mention the earthships. We have friends who own one in Taos, NM and they're in a bit of a dilemma. Move back to Taos where they have great house but no long term water to grow food or stay here in the PNW where we have tons of water but super high housing prices. They're looking at ecovillages here.

I work with a non-profit group trying to encourage more people to grow food, purchase local food, and support local farmers. One of our exciting programs is to launch a farm school (Farming 101 for non- farmers). The average age of our farmers is 57 here and no new farms have started in the last 4-5 years. We've lost a few in that time.

Land prices are outrageous. We do have an Agricultural Land Reserve, started in 1973 by the provincial government that restricts development on agricultural land but it's been diluted over the years and developers are just playing a waiting game, purchasing agricultural land and then applying for exemption from the reserve. If you're looking to purchase anything under 5 acres in Richmond, you're looking at $500,000 an acre. Obviously no serious farmer can afford that so we're now trying to encourage leases and land sharing.

We've started 4 new community gardens in the last year and I'm targeting 4 more this year (2 are underway). Lots of interest in fruit tree pruning, growing food, and preserving techniques. I have a great job!

Interestingly enough, funding for us doesn't come from the City but through our health authority. Health sees food security as an important part of disease prevention.

Arzeena Hamir MSc. P.Ag.
Coordinator
Richmond Food Security Society
http://richmondfoodsecure.blogspot.com
coordinator@richmondfoodsecurity.org
http://twitter.com/arzeena








On 9-Feb-10, at 11:16 AM, Tradingpost wrote:


Looking it up I see Richmond is at Vancouver in BC. Your Food Security Society is doing impressive work and I'm glad to know of it. If you want to tell us more about your work please do. I'm in NM and I've seen the earthships tho I'm not impressed with them ;-)

Suggest people look at that link
http://richmondfoodsecure.blogspot.com


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 2/9/2010 at 7:38 AM Arzeena Hamir wrote:

I would head the advice of the nursery. Along with possible
hydrocarbon contamination, asphalt also contains heavy metals.
Eighteen to 24 inches would be my recommendation. Here, our local
landfill does yardwaste composting and sells this material for about
$5 a pickup. It's not particularly nutrient rich but provides the
'fluff" to fill beds.

Arzeena Hamir MSc. P.Ag.
Coordinator
Richmond Food Security Society
http://richmondfoodsecure.blogspot.com
coordinator@richmondfoodsecurity.org
http://twitter.com/arzeena








On 8-Feb-10, at 5:02 PM, Jennifer Hamilton wrote:

I normally lurk on this list...but I need some advice. I want to start
a garden on my new place, but I am now finding that the area I want to
plant is probably construction fill. I'm finding lots of asphalt
chunks.

Would it be worth my time to sift them all out or should I just go
straight to raised beds? If I need raised beds, how deep should they
be? I was originally thinking 12", but a local nursery advised 18". I
hadn't really planned on needing to buy dirt!

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.
Jennifer Hamilton
Santa Rosa, CA
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