Posted on 11/08/2018 8:57:35 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
Thanks for information.
Did not read entire article.
A 3.5 acre farm would no doubt
support 60 families, and then some.
Their website includes an article about a Detroit farm. Figures: the take is less than 25lbs of food per household per year for 2,000 households and requires 8-10,000 volunteers. Part of the downside besides paying premium prices for housing is a constant flow of strangers and activity:
“The all-volunteer non-profit that is MUFI has heralded big changes in its home neighborhood, where twosquare blocks of formerly vacant land has been transformed into “a three-acre agricultural campus,” anchored by a “two-acre urban farm that has produced more than 50,000 pounds of free produce since 2012 to more than 2,000 households, food pantries, churches, and businesses within two square miles of the farm.” These impressive figures come from David Darovitz, a volunteer communications director for MUFI who has been working with the organization for the last two years.
According to Darovitz, their agrihood, with the help of an average of 8,000 to 10,000 volunteers per year”
Sacramento’s Orangevale was just that - orange orchards. Now they just grow houses.
It’s been said that without fresh water irrigation flowing into the ground to keep the salt water table down where it belongs, the salt water table leaches up and kills the trees and grapevines. Produce can still be grown because vegetable roots only go down a few inches and with short growing cycles not the ground long enough to be harmed. There’s probably a better scientific explanation for it. But it seems to boil down to imposed water shortages plus cyclical droughts.
Can rice paddies in a housing complex be far behind? or maybe vineyards. Pelosi could advise them on growing grapes for vino and fun.
You remember the old dairy herds and their lots off of 237? or the sausage plants off of 1st street? They smelt real good sometimes.
Having grown up on a Minniesoda dairy farm with all kinds of ‘smells’ around.. it made me feeel right at home when I drove by them and worked nearby. whew. :)
All the fertilizer they need can be scraped up off the sidewalks nearby.
No, it’s not a collective. The land is rented to farmers. The tenants just happen be be living next door to the farm. The crops are sold to stores and at farmer’s markets. The tenants in the housing are not obligated to do any farming.
It’s meant to be more of a scenic, bucolic field and make the tenants feel good about living “green.”
237 has sure changed, hasn’t it?
I started off in the power business. We sold huge utility boilers down to the small ones used in canneries. Every harvest season the “tomato campaign” would start and we’d have field engineers in the canneries making sure the steam kept going. The aroma from the canneries was wonderful. The dairy farms - not so much!
I don’t remember the sausage plant off 1st st.
Do you remember the Hills Brothers Coffee Roaster plant in downtown SF by the financial district? Wonderful aroma of roasting coffee wafting all over downtown!
interesting. i did not realize they were still in business!
i remember when SV was mostly all orchards .. then they started planting tract houses in the middle of the orchards, but at first they tended to leave the front of the orchards alone... so they had to put up big bi.lboards with huge arrows pointing into the trees to advertise the presence of the new ticky tacky tracts..... (”New Homes! Only $950 down, NOTHING DOWN TO VETS!”) with a big big arrow pointing into the trees)
Oh yeah.. Gold Street, Gone. The Cows. Gone. The tiny old 2-lane road. Gone.
I never spent much time in SF. I did go to old Kezar for a Led Zeppelin concert once, that was interesting.. Missed the smell of coffee roasting tho. I first visited the area in 1973.. I680 ended at Calaveras.. They had orchards all over back then, sad to see Olson’s gradually going internet sales only.. not many local spots left you can pick or get fresh picked stuff. lots of farmers markets tho.
The farmers markets around here don’t have many farmers at them. We bought a place in Idaho earlier this year and the Kootenai County farmers market in Hayden is the real deal. People raising goats, milking them, and selling cheese. Ranchers with small herds selling steaks and burgers. Lots of orchardists selling cherries, apples, and peaches. So many varieties I’ve never heard of. Anthology Orchards is specializing in old heritage / heirloom apples and they are wonderful. They make the best apple syrup ever. Great people and super food products.
Over in Washington state north of Spokane is the Greenbluff Ag district with a huge number of farms. In August, it is fresh peaches for miles and miles. Lots of u-pick if you want lots of them for canning.
Watsonville has the best u-pick left around the South Bay now - Gizdich Ranch.
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