Summary: SUMMARY: We use the magic of radio to fly around to garden roof tops in Brooklyn USA, a permaculture fruit farm in Quebec, and small acres restored in Nottingham UK. Buckle up. On the rooftops of Brooklyn New York, the Brooklyn Grange raises local food and hopes in America's largest city. Anastasia Cole Plakias is the Vice President and a Founding Partner of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm. Olivier Asselin is a film-maker and free-lance photographer, recently back from years in Africa. Now in the Canadian province of Quebec, he set out to make a film about permaculture. That sounds simple enough, but along the way, Olivier discovered it's a big task with many fertile directions. Courtesy of film-maker Olivier Asselin we'll hear the audio from his first short film on the permaculture orchard founded by Stefan Sobkowiak in southern Quebec, Canada. It's turned the whole idea of monoculture orchards on into a natural fountain of many fruits. In the UK, Rob Carlyle built a low-energy house. With partner Jill, they are refashioning an overgrown woodland into gardens suitable not just for humans, but for all the creatures. His blog at sustainablegarden.blogspot was named one of the ten best garden blogs by Ecologist magazine. Radio Ecoshock investigates. Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock Show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) GROWING HIGH IN THE SKY: BROOKLYN GRANGE As global oil becomes more expensive, and then runs out, major urban centers need to figure out their local food supplies. We find a solution in Brooklyn, New York. Anastasia Cole Plakias is the Vice President and a Founding Partner of Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm. I expected to find container gardening on these roofs, but a video on your web site seems to show a virtual dirt field right on top of one building. One of my first questions: What are the advantages of avoiding container gardens? The buildings used by the Brooklyn Grange are old cement monsters with plenty of capability to hold the load. Of course they got that checked out by engineers first. Anastasia tells me containers actually waste space that could be planted, plus there is the weight of the containers themselves. As you can see in this picture, they just planted everything between the parapets. One rooftop is about an acre, the second an acre and a half. The group gets at least 50,000 pounds of produce out of that. Their growing season in Brookly was longer, with some greens and root crops coming out of the farm as late as November. This may be partly due to the urban heat island effect: New York City throws off a lot of heat. This year may be different, as the very cold winter turned into a later and colder spring. Everything grown is organic. These farms not only feed customers in Farmers' Markets and restaurants, but also the families of the farm crew. They don't want pesticides in their own food, and don't want to add more to NYC. CITY BEES Speaking of that, the bees in their sub-project, the Brooklyn Grange Bees Apiary, do better than some in the country. This may be due to fewer agrichemicals and pesticides in the city! They do lose bees over each winter, but then overcome that and gain bees during each summer season. Anastasia tells us the NYC spring honey is excellent, with almost a menthol taste coming from the flowers of the city's many Linden trees. People may wonder if the honey contains pollution from the city. I can tell you my friend at the University of Exeter, Toxicologist Paul Johnston, tested honey from hives on a rooftop in down-town London. He found the honey was completely free of harmful chemicals. The bees purify their honey, no matter what the pollution. Isn't that amazing? The Grange helps organize the annual New York City Honey Festival every year. The next one is September 7th, 2014. Also: the air is far less polluted up on the rooftops, than it is down in the street. Our guest has here own radio show on the internet Heritage Radio Network. It's called "Anastasia’s Frid
