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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Salt

African Cities Test The Limits Of Living With Livestock

Sheep graze in the street last year in Cairo.

May 21, 2013 Hipsters may just be discovering the joys of backyard chickens, but in African megacities, people have been bringing their animals into the slums with them for decades. That's creating a new ecosystem of animals and huge numbers of people living closely together like never before.

Summary

The Salt

Vertical 'Pinkhouses:' The Future Of Urban Farming?

This "pinkhouse" at Caliber Biotherapeutics in Bryan, Texas, grows 2.2 million plants under the glow of blue and red LEDs.

May 21, 2013 Architects have come up with spectacular concepts for vertical farms that would grow crops in city skyscrapers. But many horticulturists think the future of vertical farming isn't in skyscrapers, but rather in large, indoor warehouses lit up magenta by superefficient LEDs.

Summary

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

The Salt

How Google Earth Revealed Chicago's Hidden Farms

Uncommon Ground, a certified green restaurant in Chicago, hosts an organic farm on its rooftop.

January 9, 2013 When scientists scoured lists of the city's community gardens, they discovered they didn't tell the whole story of where food was being grown. Satellite images instead show the city's food-producing gardens tucked away in backyards, on roofs and thriving in vacant lots.

Summary

Friday, November 09, 2012

The Salt

Sky-High Vegetables: Vertical Farming Sprouts In Singapore

Mah Bow Tan, a member of Singapore's Parliament, inspects Chinese cabbage growing at the commercial vertical farm. Troughs of the veggies stack up to 30 feet in the greenhouse.

November 9, 2012 Urban farming goes vertical, as Singapore opens a 30-feet tall greenhouse for bok choy and cabbage. The farm is already producing half a ton of veggies per day for local supermarkets. But are these vertical "farmscrapers" any more efficient than traditional, flat greenhouses?

Summary

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

13.7: Cosmos And Culture

Cities: Salvation Or Infestation?

Aerial view over the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Central Park in July 2007.

October 23, 2012 There are lots of lines of evidence telling us our current model for cities is unsustainable. Does that mean cities themselves are the problem and we should all move back to the farm?

Summary

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The Salt

Meet A Man On A Mission To Save Rare And Unusual Figs

One of Bassem Samaan's Pan e Vino fig trees, propagated from the yard of an Italian restaurant in Bethlehem, Pa.

August 22, 2012 Bassem Samaan of Bethlehem, Pa., is on a quest to save rare varieties of figs often growing unnoticed, right under our noses in neighbors' backyards. He's donated some of his finds to a government-backed fruit tree preserve in California.

Summary

Saturday, April 07, 2012

The Salt

Guerrilla Grafters Bring Forbidden Fruit Back To City Trees

Guerrilla grafter Tara Hui grafts a fruiting pear branch onto an ornamental fruit tree in the San Francisco Bay Area. She doesn't want the location known because the grafting is illegal.

April 7, 2012 In many metropolitan areas, urban foresters ensure flowering fruit trees don't bear fruit to keep it from being trampled into slippery sidewalk jelly. But a group of fruit fans in the San Francisco Bay Area is surreptitiously grafting fruit-bearing tree limbs onto those fruitless trees.

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