JungleBoots
Well-known member
So Ive talked to a few people on the site, and a few of them at least has a really strong interest in growing their own food. Alot of them also are interested urban living, and fusing the two lifestyles together. Urban gardening, urban farming, something like that. Im right there with them
given you hypothetically already have land and a decent ability to grow a sustainable crop i think a big issue of urban farming is making soil healthy for your crops/gardens. In the urban setting, especially in places like detroit where you have a bounty of land available to grow said crops, alot of that soil will be poisoned and polluted by hundreds of years of pollution from all sorts of ugly causes.
Everyone knows peanuts, and soy are good for putting nutrients back into the soil after a cycle of crop growth (along with other natural fertilizers, compost, manure, and so on) but there is still the issue of getting pollutants off so you arent poisoning your crops or even end up eating heavy metals, and petrolium residues.
one of the cool peeps I learned about in college was the artist Mel Chin and his project called "reclaimation feild" in which he set up a small plot of plants on a dump site. (probably far more polluted than your average urban lot.) He planted what he called Hyper-vascular plants.
these plants essentially sucked up toxic chemicals from the soil; heavy metals, petrolium residues, and other nasty chemicals. these plants would essentially take the materials and keep them in their leaves, and not only growing but actually thriving in these soils. He then harvested these plants and burned them, effectively he had a collection of heavy metals at the bottom of his fire pit, and a clean plot of soil. (after a few years of this process)
http://www.satorimedia.com/fmraWeb/chin.htm
I've been trying to get a hold of him to find out what plants he had been growing, but ive heard people have used sunflowers and some wetland plants.
does anyone else know of plants that could provide these kinds of processes? other hyper-vascular plants and such?
given you hypothetically already have land and a decent ability to grow a sustainable crop i think a big issue of urban farming is making soil healthy for your crops/gardens. In the urban setting, especially in places like detroit where you have a bounty of land available to grow said crops, alot of that soil will be poisoned and polluted by hundreds of years of pollution from all sorts of ugly causes.
Everyone knows peanuts, and soy are good for putting nutrients back into the soil after a cycle of crop growth (along with other natural fertilizers, compost, manure, and so on) but there is still the issue of getting pollutants off so you arent poisoning your crops or even end up eating heavy metals, and petrolium residues.
one of the cool peeps I learned about in college was the artist Mel Chin and his project called "reclaimation feild" in which he set up a small plot of plants on a dump site. (probably far more polluted than your average urban lot.) He planted what he called Hyper-vascular plants.
these plants essentially sucked up toxic chemicals from the soil; heavy metals, petrolium residues, and other nasty chemicals. these plants would essentially take the materials and keep them in their leaves, and not only growing but actually thriving in these soils. He then harvested these plants and burned them, effectively he had a collection of heavy metals at the bottom of his fire pit, and a clean plot of soil. (after a few years of this process)
http://www.satorimedia.com/fmraWeb/chin.htm
I've been trying to get a hold of him to find out what plants he had been growing, but ive heard people have used sunflowers and some wetland plants.
does anyone else know of plants that could provide these kinds of processes? other hyper-vascular plants and such?
