Tilt

Thanks to Novella Carpenter (and Anne Draddy for telling me about her), Oakland can now claim fame to one of the most talked about US City Farms (well at least of the new millennium). Farm City is based on her story of living in the historic and tainted “Ghost-Town” in an undesirable area of Oakland with a 100 yard plot in her backyard that she essentially squatted on for the last decade. She built an inner city farm complete with pigs, chickens, rabbits and honey bees and her stories are wonderful.

Novella writes with an easy tone, allowing for a quick read and numerous experience. You feel like you are one with her during her triumphs and failures. She provides quality guidelines on how to grow veg from a seed straight from the seed bank all the way to how to feed, raise and slaughter pigs the size of a small car.

One of my favorite reasons for reading this book is how Novella demands more from her food than what stores can provide her so she grows her own and yet she is still human and loves all the varieties of ethnic food at all the amazing restaurants in Oakland. It is a perfect paradigm. She appreciates both city and country, but believes it is better for her to live in an urban community. She still makes it difficult to believe that a normal 9-5 person could produce a farm like she has, especially because of the time commitment – you have to love this lifestyle – but she does instill a sense of ease and possibility that anyone can try. Grow a pepper, get some bees to make your own honey, if your garbage disposal is broken maybe get a pig and try that out for a while instead.

Life has gotten really complicated and challenging because of all the gadgets and things that we ‘need’ and require as consumers. Novella has simplified it down to the basics and shows how truly basic it can be. We forget how hard it is to grow a perfect cucumber we buy in the grocery store. Two weeks later when it is in the back of our fridge and we have forgotten to eat it and it is now rotten, we don’t feel sad about the £1.00 or $1.50 we spent on it. Maybe we should consider the effort farmers, suppliers, truckers, grocers and the world’s resources have gone into in order to get this cucumber to us in the first place. It should be more like £5.00 or $7.50 that we are throwing away!

Try to simplify a little, read this book and maybe grow a plant of basil and tomatoes when you can. It is worth it to eat something you have created, loved and nurtured for its whole life.