Green Options » city growers

Backdoor Harvest Lends Hands, Know-How for Urban Farming

Adam Williams — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:47:44 +0000

There’s been plenty of recent talk in the media about “recession gardens.” I’ve kind of thought that urban gardening was just a good, wholesome way of healthy living.

Here in St. Louis, Backdoor Harvest seems to agree. And that’s fantastic news for me — and novice gardeners like me — because I’ve got almost no idea what I’m doing when I start digging into my yard.

Lucky me, my wife, who knows a little more than I do about plunging seeds and such into our tiny backyard plot, enjoys doing the research to figure these things out. Even luckier for us, Backdoor Harvest is hanging its open-for-business shingle in the coming days, just to help urban growers, even ones as inexperienced as in the Williams household.

Urban Farmer in Milwaukee — Founder of Nonprofit — Receives MacArthur Genius Grant

Adam Williams — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:18:11 +0000

Will Allen, an urban farmer in Milwaukee, Wisc., was one of 25 people to receive a $500,000 no-strings-attached MacArthur Fellowship this year. Allen is the founder and CEO of Growing Power, a nonprofit organization and land trust to provide people with good health via affordable, quality food.

To me, the fact that an urban farmer leading a nonprofit for the benefit of teaching communities to grow, in a slew of meaningful ways, can receive such a prestigious fellowship — and the associated financial boon — is remarkable.

Along with Allen, there was a saxophonist genius, a lighting designer genius, a neuroscientist genius, an astronomer genius, a fiber artist genius, a geriatrician genius and on and on.