The Community Gardening Handbook: The Guide to Organizing, Planting, and Caring for a Community Garden

This accessible, inviting book by Ben Raskin extolls the benefits of gardening in the introductory pages, reminding us it is also mood therapy and provides benefits by nurturing us as well as connecting us with nature. In this way it is aimed at potential urban gardeners and serves as a motivational and inspirational read from page one. Ben Raskin remarks that gardening can be a solitary activity or one that is shared, as the act itself helps nourish an emotionally healthy society. The first chapter examines some of the ways community gardens have been set up by gardeners, launching into a series of inspiring case examples with full colour photos galore. Individual space rentals are discussed as are their advantages and disadvantages. These include issues involving rules, having the advantage of other people if you need help or when you go away. Benefits of collaborating on gardening include social interaction, lots of volunteers to do larger jobs, and the potential to tailor each job to the individual.

He also beautifully discusses orchards. Orchards work well with work parties, are wonderful spaces, and can invite picnicking or to have a poetry reading there. Orchard considerations include how much fruit, is there enough space, and direct access to healthy fruit. There is nothing Ben Raskin doesn't see as doable in this urban gardening book.

Animals in community gardens are discussed, as they provide weed control, and pigs and goats can provide manure, while poultry eat insects, and again on the emotionally healthy front, Raskin adds that it helps mental health to interact with animals and care for their wellbeing. As a downside, bylaws sometimes prohibit animals, they can be a big-time committment, and require a continual and reliable source of clean water, as well as treatment for diseases. good fencing, and several other details which Raskin explores in surprising depth. There are even photos of community gardens with pigs, chickens and goats happily encorporated into their scheme.

Raskin then discusses community supported agriculture, i.e. the "CSA," which tend to be larger than community gardens, and involve commitment to upfront payment by members. CSA's also require members to work in many cases, something members often enjoy. Rooftop gardening is also addressed, including the planning of it, questions involving wind, water, access, roof strength and other logistics and safety questions. Moving quickly through these major topics, Raskin then tackles a brief overview of the challenges of temporary gardening: arrangements and water needs of portable gardens, pallet beds, one ton bags, trailer gardening and dumpster gardens.

Guerrilla gardening, or planting without permission is addressed after this, and is a particularly upbeat section. Leaving it better than you found it gardening, which is tidying up a neglected space and planting appropriately, planting in potholes, planting in areas under signposts, on the front yards of government offices and planting in places where people are cheered by the sitr of a tiny garden or a controversy occurs because of a garden springing up there are charmingly presented as possible gardening "activities" by Raskin.

The author also encourages gardeners to reach out and become more literate and aware of their communities, citing UK gardening activist sites online such as Community Networks, Transition Networks, and the Incredible Edible Network. Going further, Raskin in the second half of the book encourages readers to step forward from vision to reality. Here Raskin describes how building your gardening team can be done by creating the vision, having a public meeting, raising funds, and moving towards making it a reality. Raskin even had excellent details on how to run a public meeting that could apply to almost any meeting type, but was intended for communtiy gardeners. Raskin's suggestions on how to create interest include "get a local key figure or celebrity" to endorse and come to your meeting. He explains how to use the meeting to listen, to collect contact information, to develop a proof of need and future community and funding support, and how to be prepared to adjust your plans if you have not thought of everything at the start. Raskin encourages anticipation of possible issues such as questions around dogs, loss of wildlife, traffic and privacy concerns among others. The book then suggests a follow up organizing "with your steering committee" a week or two after the first meeting while the buzz is still fresh.

Here the book delves into "Building the team and sharing the workload," as well as "Finding the right people," which can involve finding out what skills people have, a process in itself. Raskin advises asking for expert advice, and remembering that everyday people have skills already, and any meeting may have a lot of undeclared skills prrsent in the room. Raskin also talks about "Voluntary vs paid" and when such projects have been rolled into part of a day job. "Organizational structure," including balancing strong and weak personalities, is discussed. Raising funds annual fees, informal fundraising, loans, share offers, crowdfunding, applying for grants, financial transparency are all explored. Gardens often survive by bringing in new members, creating a sustainable business model that will not rely on funding for everything.

"Community events, horticultural events, skill-sharing and seed swaps as well as plan-and-learn events" are all fundraisng ideas, and an "apple grafting course" as an example of an orchard learning event is described. Raskin mentions that in the case of a seed swap event, "practical demonstrations of cleaning and storage of seeds" is advised. The final part of the book delves deeply into ways to share and devdlop planning the layout of the garden, watering routines, water harvesting, compost, efficient use of space, and picking the right crops for the garden. Raskin also describes the balue of perennials that can take two or three years, crop rotation, flowers for pest control, and creating a task list based around seasons.

The very last third of the book is an in-depth description with drawings of different common garden varieties, with an actual whole page devoted to green beans, a page on asparagus, a page on ea h of the common herbs an so on. I commend Ben Raskin for creating such an activist book. Its pages are dense with excellent and motivating information and the book itself is laid out in a beautiful and accessible manner. I reccommend this book to be read and shared as widely as possible. A classic.

Raskin, B. (2017). The Community Gardening Handbook: The Guide to Organizing, planting, and caring for a community garden. Lumina Media.

The Community Food Forest Handbook: How to Plan, Organize, and Nurture Edible Gathering Places

Written by Catherine Bukowski and John Munsell, this important book deserves to be read widely. There is a renewed interest worldwide in creating places where nutured forest sanctuaries can thrive with edible harvests that change everything about how we relate to trees. These edible forests can solve both community and social problems, but they must be anchored in practical wisdom and solid strategic planning or the original charm of the idea will not take hold. ,p>This book is the type of planning tool that people interested in food forests will find timely. It is one thing to think they sound cool or find they look pretty, but forests change and demand a certain type of stewardship. As the introduction by LaManda Joy states, "planning and adaptation are particularly important for community food forests...Individuals, volunteer organizations, school clubs and the general public have helped establish community food forests...Many volunteers sign up to maintain a site, but a forest ecosystem matures slowly and visual change will gradually plateau. The same may happen to volunteer interest and even project leadership."

Part One of the book, Understanding Community Food Forests, talks about the rise of food forests and the concurrent societal shifts. The book then delves into interrelated systems. With a section titled: Systems Thinking and Community Food Forests, the authors build on the discussion of systems concepts. A the third chapter addresses community assets, finances and investing in the future. This chapter has a refreshing approach, by including discussions of social, human, cultural and financial capital, as well as ongoing food literacy.

Part 2 of the book opens with the title: Meaningful Planning, a section which supplies a number of photos and charts. It talks about independent vs nested projects, strategies for avoiding common pitfalls, safety issues, maintenance and issues around public policy, along with a number of other mini-topics of interest. The next chapter in this section addressed planning and creating a theory of change. Advocating for plans that walk backwards from the ultimate goal, the authors state, "by working in reverse, outcomes are not taken for granted but critically challenged before being included in support of previously determined steps." This chapter also discusses time planning and adresses "short-term outcomes and long-term impacts" for stakeholders. The next part of the book explores some history and examples, and is actually one of the better parts of the book in a way, because it is a really good primer on the movement itself.

Chapter 8, titled The Role of Agroecology, addresses how scientific practices that are "reflecting traditional ecological knowledge" inform both permaculture and agroecology. It explain how both practices, while different, resemble and compliment each other in a food forest project, as, similar to permaculture, "agroecology combines land management science, indigeneous knowledge, and traditional farming practice." The rest of the book is packed with inspiring case examples, presenting ideas such as collaborative leadership and other ideas presented in the earlier chapters in action with real people working on real success stories.

By the time readers arrive at the concluding chapter, Looking Back, Moving Forward, we are extremely well-versed in the food forest movement and hopefully engaged by the work needed to be done to meet it's challenges. I highly recommend reading this book, it will make you wonder how many ancient food forests may be hidden under forest canopy worldwide and how many past food forests are in danger or have already been turned into paper products and fuels by a society just awakening to the need to protect and nurture this indispensable food security solution.

Bukowski, C., & Munsell, J. (2018). The Community Food Forest Handbook: How to plan, organize, and nurture edible gathering places. Chelsea Green Publishing.

The Ultimate Guide to Urban Farming: Sustainable Living in your Home, Community, and Business

Beware this book, written by Nicole Faires, as it will pull you in and quickly create a conviction in you that you want to become an urban farmer. Surprisingly, for such a fun-filled book, there is a lot a lot of hard information between these pages that can support any person or group considering creating a project which involves cultivating land in a small-scale or larger way and even converting it from a local urban sustainablity focus to actual surplus and potential profit.

Prefaced with some beautiful quotes and charming photography, the book begins with a momentary history of the rise of supermarkets before turning its attention to Urban Farming Defined.

Divided into five chapters, by the first pages of chapter one it jumps right in. Describing the requisite levels of self-reliance and skills, it then explains permaculture ethics and the process of creating an agricultural hub. The book describes crisply what community is and isn't, and how to start one. Using a lot of pretty charts and beautiful user-friendly layout, it then delves into business structures, starting a farm co-op, and straight into break-down sheets for setting up a CSA.

The next part of the book introduces discussion of record-keeping, followed by a section that addresses acquiring land, rental or buying, making a farm plan and profitability planning. Different models of farming and a crop planting schedule are presented in this wonderful book, along with information on commercial greenhouses and on how to access funds.

Everything about this book is so hooky and cheerful, it's impossible not to feel encouraged to jump into something wild by the conclusion of these early chapters. Chapter 2 swings straight into designing your land, and explores permaculture in more depth, climate, water management, fencing, frames, trellises and greenhouses, as well as how to develop the final successful design.

Chapter 3 is an in-depth discussion of soil, soil health, where to get worms, save seeds, and how to reclaim and remediate soil. The second to last chapter discusses plants, immediately addressing cash crops in case you didn't think they were trying to hook you into becoming a farmer. This chapter also contains extensive plant tables and guides for the beginner.

The final chapter is titled Animals, and it is much more in-depth than one would expect from such a book for beginners. There's actually a helluva lot in this volume about raising chickens, what to expect and how to raise ducks and quails as well. It even includes a section on sheep, goats, succinctly explaining the challenges of raising them and how to process and market their milk as well as their meat.

I really enjoyed this surprising volume. I would recommend this book for its unintended revolutionary effect as readers will have a tough time not dreaming of farming by the middle chapters. It really was super interesting and every starting farmer would clearly do well to keep a copy of this book in their library, as there are a number of indispensable chapters. Recommended.

Faires, N. (2016). The Ultimate Guide to Urban Farming: Sustainable Living in your home, community, and business. Skyhorse Publishing.

Sustainable: Houses with Small Footprints

This large hardcover volume by Avi Friedman is packed with information and features full-colour photos and illustrations on each of its more than 300 awe-inspiring pages. The book is divided into 12 sections, each addressing a design element or a materials issue that defines sustainable dwellings. The first section, Verncular Design, design that is "spontaneous, indigenous, rural, primative and anonymous," is presented. Vernacular design is also proposed as a strategic solution to the "costly, inconvenient, and worst of all, environmentally damaging" housing design of the past. Friedman also comments that vernacular design encorporates modern technological elements, but cites clay, earth and low-technology features as well. These beautiful homes with small footprints adorn the book in various stages of construction and are accompanied by architectural cut-aways to help the reader envision the process. Examples of various homes of this sort, including floor design, are then presented in a case-by-case basis, until the resders mind is saturated with ideas and possibilties. Chapter 5, titled Raised Dwellings, is a chapter dedicated to houses placed up above the ground, and the benefits of this type of design element, showing examples in many places throughout the world of a successful implementation of this technique. Chapter 9, Indoor Farming, includes the use of earth overlay as insulation, creating a passive refrigerator as an example of the flexible coolong effect of this technique.

The book also showcases Maison Productive House or MPH in Montreal Canada as an exciting example of an urban design with sustainability features. These include the integration of permaculture agricultural systems. "On the roof, a greenhouse produces various fruits and vegetables, supplying food year-round and helping ensure local food security." MPH also has carbon offsetting plants on the outside to mitigate air pollution, and features "a communial living style, a community of self-sufficient residents." Each unit in MPH also has a private garden, and access to a fruit orchard is avaiable to all residents in the units. Rainwater entrapment is employed at MPH, as is grey water filtration, and there is a compost system in the building that minimizes food waste and cycles it back into the gsrden. The building has self-shading windows and has eliminated the need for air-con, a massive issue in big cities. Passive solar heating is used to the utmost effect at MPH, as are solar panals on the rooftop, which supply almost all the energy needs of the complex. Chapter ten, water harvesting and recycling, addreses sustainabilty issues around water overuse globally. It then demonstrates the alternative, that of sublime conservation, through a series of beautifully-photographed houses that have brilliant water-sustainability methods built in to their foundations and throughout their construction. These include include rainwater collection and grey water recycling. An interesting example in this chapter is the RainShine House in Decatur, Georgia, which has a butterfly-shaped roof that collects rain water in the centre, channeling it down the middle of the house to serve within. In conclusion, I am so grateful Avi Friedman embarked on this massive effort it must have taken a lot of coordinating to compose this beautiful book. it is loaded with information and great ideas, and without the author openly stating this goal, reading this book entirely challenges anyone who thinks beauty and sustainability do not go hand-in-hand. i highly reccomend this read. The "browsabilty factor" of this book as a coffee-table presence makes it a book to enjoy in one's home while the ideas springing from it remodel your dwelling space around you.

Friedman, A. (2015). Sustainable: Houses with small footprints. Rizzoli.

Small Gritty and Green: The Promise of Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World

Not a lot of people have done what Catherine Tumber has done, which is to travel extensively to small and mid-sized American cities researching the impact of industry withdrawal. The author traveled to 25 "rust belt" cities in the American Northeast and Midwest from Buffalo to Detroit, Rochester, Syracuse, Akron, Flint and many in-between.
This book is of value to Canadian readers in an age where so many Canadian cities suffer similar effects of manufacturer abandonment. This book is a relevant read to people concerned about the Ontario rust belt, where towns such as Peterborough, London, Sudbury, Sault-Ste Marie, North Bay, to name only a few, find decent jobs and even minimum wage jobs are scarce. In such towns good communities are plagued with strained services, with issues of unemployment, homelessness poverty, drug abuse and crime that were unheard of a few decades earlier. Such economics are turning hometowns into challenging places of brain-drain and talent flight where bright young people are eager to leave.
Small industrial cities deserve hope, and the book delivers this. Tumber provides excellent historic backgrounds on the challenges of these American cities, conducting extensive interviews with mayors, urban planners, and green entrepreneurs, as well as with local farmers and conservationists. These cities, once vibrant, “increasingly resemble urban wastelands.” The author writes how these American cities "gutted by deindustrialization, outsourcing and middle-class flight” were further battered by highway development, failed projects, the displacement of the urban poor, and the classic issues of crime and decay.
Yet these smaller cities offer many assets and the book is full of hope for such places. This was what I wanted the book to provide and it delivers. But it also delivers the vital details behind the broken cities we see sometimes only from the highway as we pass through. The book includes discussion of the earlier origins of beautiful city planning that seemed lost, such as The City Beautiful movement, Russell van Nest Black's 1934 planning for the smaller American city, and an era of snobbery over cosmopolitanism for cities that were a satellite of larger industrial metropolises.
Catherine Tumber has also included the relevant political history behind these once-proud places who suffered the brunt of Reagan's slashes to the Department of Housing and Development HUD which had concentrated on affordable housing, while Reagan disproportionately funneled money into larger cities and big metro projects. Tumber writes of the damage incurred during the Reagan era as “closely tied to this obsession with all things mega was an ethic of disposability, drawn from ramped-up consumer culture and applied heartlessly to any 'loser' that could not stand up to the inexorable forces of privatization and globalization...Their pride as home to America's producers, the world's breadbasket, and the shop floor heartland-already eroded by decades of deskilling and mechanization, now became a joke.”
However these proud communities do stand up, and Tumber also interviews some of the activists who for decades have pursued things like highway tear-down projects, where big money and political stakes are high. Beyond the local resistance to damage and squalor, Tumber and the larger new urbanist view have identified what local people have been desperately needing funding support to enhance- small to mid-sized cities have potentially unparalleled assets for sustainable living. Addressing urban fringe and agriculture in Chapter 3, Tumber remarks, “smaller cities had a lot of advantage in developing what new urbanists are calling agricultural urbanism in their rural and suburban areas.” Nearby fertile farmland for solar farms, windmills and urban but local agricultural assets are only the beginning.
Tumber then digs into the real-life examples existing in these towns, point-of-pride specializations that are competitive and homespun. Advances and changes to Toledo's glass industry have developed a solar panel industry innovating thin-film solar “with a serious national commitment to renewable energy." More than this, "other smaller cities that contribute to Auto Alley's second and third-tier levels of the supply chain benefit as well." Tumber travels to Akron, "the historic home for the tire industry and synthetic rubber" now reinventing itself as a research and production centre for polymers, and to Canton, Ohio where industry creates solar sealing and water filtration systems. The author remarks that these cities will require complex multi-layered regional economic development arrangements. China has subsidized its export business, making “clean energy and other green technologies” while keeping wages “crushingly low” leading to a massive US trade deficit.
By helping these domestic advances through subsidies and similar support that challenge trade with China, as well as empowering their special assets in urban sustainability, the American economy can once again experience a significant and positive impact from small city ingenuity.
Meanwhile, the small city advantage is gaining momentum as these gritty towns present a fertile ground for green entrepreneurialism welcoming low-carbon economic revitalization with farmland at their doorsteps. This book has a huge number of notes and sources at the back, making it seem almost like a handbook for action. It belongs in the library of every Canadian city with similar issues as a point of inspiration and common identity through adversity.

Tumber, C. (2013). Small, gritty, and green: The promise of America's smaller industrial cities in a low-carbon world. The MIT Press.

Coping with Climate Crisis : Mitigation Policies and Global Coordination

This book was published in 2018, and is a very interesting look into the momentum created at COP21 and COP22, which drove today's international effort to tackle climate change with foresightful policy and planning.
The book is designed to "synthesize" key economic research. It lives up to its claim of being "user-friendly" both for "policy-makers and scholars," opening with a forward written by Nizar Baraka, the President of the Scientific Committee of COP22. Baraka's forward is much like a retrospective already. He composes looking towards the future, examining not only progress thus far, but changes that came to ensure more effective decision-making in the process.
Remarks Baraka, “we are living today through a period of great changes toward a new world order, triggered by a profound technological shift that impacts the very way we live, (this) transforms radically our economic models as much as our mobilization and communication capabilities."
Suggesting that Kyoto failed because the top-down approach was not effective, the introduction to the book remarks that COP21 was considerably better because the approach changed and with that change came as well a change in tactic.
“The Paris Agreement is built on a bottom-up approach which includes all major actors, not just national governments...The approach taken with the implementation of the Paris Agreement is one of community rather than legal enforcement.” These thoughts on the shift in decision-making conclude, "this bottom-up approach is inevitably less coherent, but more realistic as it leverages the power of civil society and business.” The editors also remark that as a result newcomers may be surprised by “how seriously public and private organizations are taking global climate risks and are planning for the future."
For perspective, the book is edited by Rabah Arezki, Cheif Economist of the World Bank's Middle East and North African Region, Patrick Bolton, Managing Editor of The Journal of the European Economic Association, Karim El Aynaoui, Managing Director at the Policy Centre for the New South, and Maurice Obstfeld, former Chief Economist at the International MonetaryFund. It is structured into four major topics. Philip Benoit of the International Energy Agency opens topic one, "Reducing Energy Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Meet Our Climate Goals" by providing key steps required to reduce CO2 in keeping with the Paris Accord. Benoit describes the two keys: delinking GDP from Energy Supply and Decarbonizing that Energy Supply. GDP has always been driven by increased GHG emissions. Replacing fossil fuel, electricity is at the centre of low-carbon transition, while coal is the elephant in the room, so much so that it can hide the issues around gas which also creates environmental challenges. Remarks Benoit, “coal power generation produces over 9 Gt of CO2 emissions, larger by itself than the combined energy emissions of the United States and the European Union (EU); but coal-fired power plants also provide about 10,000TWh, powering businesses, households, and social services worldwide.” Benoit's assessment of the "energy landscape" is followed by Rick van der Ploeg writing on "Transitional Risks and the Safe Carbon Budget," which differs from other models of "optimal" carbon pricing. He wants to remove all fossil fuel subsidies and incentivize firms to stop using coal and gas.
The second major topic is called "Getting The Price of Carbon Right" which includes "implications of uncertainty around the pace of global warming and tipping points," and includes extremely useful input which functions from an "avoid the worst-case scenario" approach. The third major topic, Climate Agreements, addresses enforcement. The authors remark that enforcement typically involves the questions of "reputation, accountability, and sanctions." They make note that Trump's attempt to withdraw the US from the Paris Accord, rather than defeating the process, surprisingly caused additional resolve on the part of many American mayors and state governors to carry on with their Paris Accord commitments.
The fourth major topic in the book is that of Financial and Sustainable Infrastructure. Financial markets can play a major role in creating incentives for a low-carbon transition. However, financial markets cannot do it alone. It is individual governments that need to take on the role of pushing for complete carbon footprint disclosure, at times offering limited guarantees and taking on risks financial markets are not able to hold. Here the book examines the role of financial markets in accelerating the energy transition and financing sustainable infrastructure. For many developing countries, financial aid to ensure clean technology imports and participation in the energy transition will be inevitable. However, the authors remark that such aid could then offset the costs associated with the process of removing carbon subsidies and levying carbon taxes.
As per the forward written by the President of the Scientific Committee of COP22, the book describes a radical paradigm shift, one that will support us as we moving rapidly forward towards solutions. If you are fond of economic theory, this book is a collection of excellent contributions from top theorists and “economic practitioners” developing real plans to fund energy transition and safeguard the climate for future generations.

Arezki, R., Bolton, P., Aynaoui, K. E., & Obstfeld, M. (2018). Coping with the Climate Crisis Mitigation Policies and Global Coordination. Columbia University Press.

Whales and Elephants

Whales and Elephants in International Conservation Law and Politics: A Comparative Study

Ed Couzens specializes in water security and international wildlife law and is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, NSW, where he has dedicated himself to Environmental causes. He has been the editor of two dozen books involving environmental law and threatened species, and has written chapters in over 21 environmental and conservationist-themed books on a broad range of topics. His work has appeared in over two dozen journals. At present, 19 examples of his research papers appear published on researchgate.
To begin, both Whales and Elephants are somewhat emblemic animals of the conservation movement. Couzens explores the history of their conservation in this fascinating read, as well as creating detailed comparisons of their treatments and the history of international governance involving their protection. Both species arguably play keystone or super-keystone roles in their environments. Both would be considered especially intelligent and sensitive. As well, to quote Couzens, "both have experienced near-catastrophic population declines due to overuse by humans and both have come, over time, to be given relatively stringent protection in international law."
In Whales and Elephants, Couzens introduces CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, discussing how it impacts wildlife flora and fauna. He also introduces ICRW, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. He then quite deftly explains why both these treaties are inadequate in protecting the two large mammal species in question.
His book also explains how both these species have reached a similar point "within International law, despite these species having inherently different status either as free-for-taking (whales) or as falling into the dominion of states (elephants)." Couzens demonstrates here that both these major treaties that seem intended to cover the security of these species are currently inadequate instead. In particular, both treaties fail to consider the ecosystems in which the species live. Other features render them not strong enough for states to generate adequate protection. Remarks Couzens, "the world needs to move away from managing and/or protecting species in isolation and to move towards understanding, managing and protecting species within their ecosystems in a holistic fashion." Other features render current treaties not strong enough for states to generate adequate protection. Both conservationists, (sustainable use) and proponents of preservation (near-complete protection) agree the treaties are inadequate. Couzens proposes instead a multilateral environmental agreements used together synergistically, offering a convincing argument throughout the course of the book.
The rest of the book outlines solutions and discusses the alliances and work done in the past around such delicate things as the ivory trade and whaling. It is an interesting voyage into the world of diplomacy and environmental law negotiations and treaties in general. Fascinating politics and an interesting read (with a few star players and unsung heroes along the way) the fresh approach Couzens proposes is argued convincingly as he takes us through the complex interconnected ecosystems involved in the protection of Whales and Elelphants. Recommended.

Couzens, E. (2016). Whales and elephants in International Conservation Law and Politics: A Comparative Study. Routledge.