Urban Farming Spreads Throughout Bay Area (VIDEO)

Ever since San Francisco's Little City Gardens helped revolutionize urban agriculture, San Franciscans have enjoyed kale, summer greens and ripe tomatoes grown in neighborhood backyards for sale at the farmers market. And now, thanks to an initiative passed at Tuesday's City Council meeting, locavores in Oakland can, too.

On Tuesday, the Oakland City Council voted to overturn a ban on selling homegrown produce, allowing backyard farmers to bring their fruit, vegetables and herbs to sell at the local farmers market.

"It's the first step in legitimizing urban agriculture in Oakland," said Oakland farmer Esperanza Pallana to SFGate. "It's also preserving our right to grow our own food for ourselves and our community."

For many home farmers, the initiative is a way to help make ends meet and to help support the expenses of growing food at home. But for farmers like Pallana and Little City Gardens, initiatives like these are essential to helping the community support a more healthy and sustainable way of life.

And the movement is certainly not unique to Oakland and San Francisco. In Vallejo, husband-and-wife-team Rachel Hoff and Tom Ferguson eliminated trips to the grocery store for an entire year with the support of their 1/3-acre backyard farm. "It was much easier than we thought it would be," said Hoff in an interview with the Times-Herald. Hoff and Ferguson grew everything they needed and traded and bartered for the products they couldn't grow.

"I know the quality is better," said Ferguson. "I know where it's coming from, what's on it, or what's not on it." And now, Hoff and Ferguson say they will never go back.

Check out their backyard garden in the video courtesy of NBC below:

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

Comments

[shirleycox]

05:31 AM on 10/24/2011

I personally feel that growing garden teaches discipline, responsibility and patience. Not only that Gardening is a great source of exercise, helps you to keep away from everyday stresses of your life, gives you fresh air, helps you to relax and appreciate the natural environment around you. In my backyard garden, I have been growing my vegetable garden organically without using pesticides and herbicides, but only organic nutrients http://bit.ly/rgNy96 for the healthier and tastier yields.

[outloud]

04:41 PM on 10/15/2011

I have a home built, wonderful raised bed for my veggies. It's 4'wide X 24' long X 3' tall. It's super tall so I don't need to stoop or knell.....I'm an elder.

A contractor pal of mine gave me more than enough used, untreated redwood lumber for the construction. True, I did need to buy the dirt but that is a one time cost.
This was my first summer. I grew more food than I could eat. Even after giving/trading some with neighbors, I had enough to pack my freezer.

Will be harvesting my potatoes today. Fall/winter planting will start tomorrow.

No matter how small or large a piece of land or deck one has, it is possible to grow something good to eat.

[Oakland]

06:32 PM on 10/11/2011

You want urban farming, that's Detroit. Detroit is huge and has a ton of land.

[HawaiiShira]

06:04 PM on 10/11/2011

People who learn to feed themselves will survive. Living on an island, well aware that our food supply could be shut off within days, we are thinking ahead. We have begun to eliminate a lot of lawn, adding attractive bamboos that don't impede our ocean view, but offer wonderful privacy for our garden sanctuary. We just built a Urbane Chicken coop to covertly add to our small backyard space with four chickens to supply our eggs. We will place a small pond, sufficient to raise tilapia or pacu to provide our own fish, powered by solar panels, combining it with aquaponics to raise lettuce & other hydroponic vegetables. We have a large bin growing potatoes. A small garden space is full of heirloom tomatoes, carrots, assorted collard, turnip & mustard greens, broccoli & green beans. I have pineapple & herbs interspersed in the landscape, as well as lilikoi (passion fruit) vines trellising up trees. Dragon fruit drapes our rock wall, and guava & papaya grow wild at the edges of our property. We have begun eliminating most meat from our diet. We have adapted a healthier attitude about eating, choosing to eat to live, rather than living to eat. A garden aids in that mission.

Urban gardens planted in vacant city lots across cities across this nation would be a healthy benefit to cities struggling with obesity, hunger & fresh fruit and vegetables unavailability in many inner city neighborhoods.

Hip, hip, hooray! For Oakland City Council.

[vampbella09]

01:48 PM on 10/11/2011

I would be very interested in hearing from farmers or gardeners who have witnessed strange growth patterns or deformities in thier veggies and fruits. The Bay Area recieved a massive radiation dose from Fukushima between March and June of this year. Reports are surfacing around the country of deformed vegetation. I have several trees in my yard (Seattle) that have had very odd leaf growth or browning of signifigant portions of the foilage. If you have expiernced this pleae contact me at "[e-mail]". If you have photos than pleae forward them.

[ilovecandy]

11:57 PM on 10/10/2011

I'm currently planning to build a backyard garden in my backyard and agree wholeheartedly with what this article says.

[Bogey907]

06:31 PM on 10/11/2011

That's the best place for a backyard garden. :)