HERE’S ANOTHER ONE FROM THE VAULT: two video clips of David Miller, mayor of Toronto, inviting delegates to the Cities Alive conference on green infrastructure technologies last month. In the first video clip, he lists the various ecological initiatives that the municipal government has implemented over the last several years, explaining why he believes that Toronto is leading the world in fighting climate change. In the second video clip, he talks about the new Green Roof bylaw that city council enacted back in May. I hope you don’t mind the odd colouration of the video; the room was very dark, because while he spoke, he was screening a series of slides, so I had only a small colour spectrum to work with. In any case, I certainly hope that his enthusiasm for the environment will translate into many more green roofs across Toronto! Here’s hoping!
OKAY, FOR OUR FIRST FORAY into urban agriculture, we wrote Backyard Farming, a blog about vegetable gardens and fruit trees. For those interested in kicking it up a notch, we brought you Backyard Chickens, a blog about raising birds right outside your house. I imagine that we’re already treading on weird and wacky territory here when we start talking about food-producing animals. You may know a couple people in the neighbourhood that take care of a vegetable patch, but you probably aren’t aware of anyone that’s providing a happy home for chickens and turkeys, ducks and geese. So I don’t actually expect anyone out there to take me up on what I’m going to talk about next. But in the event that you’ve already aced Homesteading 101 and you’re past the intermediate class, then we’ve got to give you something to shoot for: an entire menagerie of livestock, fauna of the land, sea, and air!
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED yesterday’s article, Backyard Chickens, where we broke down some of the issues surrounding the consumption of animal products in our society, and suggested that if you eat eggs, perhaps you should think about raising some chickens of your own. Well, a couple of months ago, I went to interview a not-so-mysterious local woman that I will refer to only as the “Toronto Chicken Lady”. She raises several chickens in her own back yard in mid-town Toronto, and she operates the website TorontoChickens.com, preaching the gospel about backyard chickens and urging politicians to legalize the practice. I had to doctor the video so that her identity would remain a secret, but we’re very thankful that she agreed for the clip to be posted online, so that we can spread the good word about backyard chickens. Enjoy!
IN OUR PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRY, Backyard Farming, we explored how you can turn your little patch of land into an urban homestead. A tiny sliver of land in the Annex may not be able to feed a family of four, but backyard homesteading brings with it many educational, nutritional, and experiential benefits. And once you turn your own backyard into a fruit and vegetable garden, you may find yourself so consumed by it and caught up in the excitement that you start fantasizing about how you might take it to the next level. For the intermediate-level urban agriculturist, I would suggest Backyard Chickens.
IN THE 2009 SEASON, we successfully started a new ecological business venture, designing and building Living Roofs and Living Walls. In the 2010 season, we plan to introduce another new line of ecological services, growing gardens of edible and medicinal plants… even picking up the concept of small-scale animal husbandry. It’s simply not possible to completely revamp the entire product line in a single season. But we can give you a little preview of what we’re planning down the pipeline.
