Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

Read the part about urban foraging for pig food. The section outside the chinese fish market made me laugh so hard I couldnt breathe.

Farm City is an awesome read, written by Novella Carpenter, whose book I rank up with Bill Buford's wonderful Heat, with the spirit of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. And I love the voice-Novella the narrator often wonders why people open up to her and accept her so readily (among others, Chris Lee of Eccolo, who teaches her how to prepare pork from her pigs); the voice of the narrator (straightforward, funny, unblinking to the point of childlike wonder, compassionate) is hers, and as a reader I found myself liking her so very much.I mean, she describes her community in the ghetto with compassion and humor (describing the "tumbleweeds" as "tumbleweaves").I've been meaning to buy the book at one of our local stores, at one of Novella's book tour readings, but my availability did not intersect with her schedule. And so I ordered the book off Amazon-but for as long as I waited to buy her tome, I wasted no time in cracking it open and settling in for what turned out to be an absorbing, delightful, educational reading of a book that drips with optimism and moxie in a world that has in recent months, gone dark and brooding.Novella has a farm. She has a farm on an abandoned lot in a part of Oakland nicknamed "Ghost Town," near the freeway and BART tracks. I've visited her farm and was astonished on my first visit to discover an oasis in a part of town that is not a destination site for many-most people drive past it on the freeway, ride past it on BART, there are very few grocery stores, and abandoned lots are many. Like the Valley of Ashes in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. But on her street corner, behind a chain link fence, is a lot full of green vegetables and myriad fruits, with a quiet symphony of animal noises.The farm is serious work, with its share of tragedy: some of her birds die at the mercy of wild neighborhood dogs. Because the abandoned lot on which she squats and plants the garden is purposely unlocked, sometimes others come by and harvest things without permission. (This, she takes in stride-it's not "her" land and she willingly shares the harvest). A farm, rural or urban, is not a perfect fairytale. Nature is unpredictable-but rewarding and complex, too.When Novella's animals are slaughtered (by her or, rarely, by a third party), it is not a heartless act but a very complex one; sad, respectful, awful, spiritual, and ultimately, pragmatic.When she buys pigs at auction, unsure of what "Barrow" or "Gilt" might mean, she asks a boy, "Does G mean `girl'?" The way she describes the boy's reaction, "He looked at me as if he might fall over from the sheer power of my enormous idiocy. Then he nodded, so stunned by my stupidity he couldn't speak," is so full of humility and frank humor that I was bowled over as a reader. I laughed out loud. (lol to you). Most writers in the foodie/food realm are so pompous and full of themselves, that I was truly delighted and charmed by Novella here.I'm always interested in novel structure, and I took a quick look at how Novella structured Farm City: Rabbit, Turkey, Pig. (Those who read her blog know she has added goats to her farm in recent years).The book is written, more or less, chronologically-because Novella really did start with rabbits, moving on to turkeys, and then pigs. But I still found the livestock-centric structure interesting and effective because yes, to a farmer life and time revolves around the livestock at hand.The book is on Oprah's list of 25 books to read this summer, and deservedly so.

I was encouraged to read this as it was the summer reading for the soon to be freshmen at my youngest's university.From the outset it seemed to be the work of an educated person who for some reason has something against hippies. The word is used throughout, usually with disdain while not laying out the reasons for the disdain. A partial tale emerges as the story unfolds but the focus appears to be only the hippie concern with getting back to the land as opposed to the broader concerns of those who set out to live an alternative lifestyle of the sixties.What begins as a light narrative of moving down the west coast eventually ending up in a run down area of Oakland where the germ of an idea (sorry for the pun) takes root (groan) and eventually grows into an obsession which preoccupies the author's entire life. Gradually the tale becomes more and more personal while the cast of characters fades into one dimensional people, non more so that the partner of the author who gradually moves out of centre stage into a mere shadow.The notion of the farm is one which will be alien to the majority of Americans who reside in the amorphous mass of suburbia. The sheer difficulty of imagining such a situation is difficult to gauge. Furthermore, the lessons for those who wish to follow in the footsteps of Carpenter is to forget about everything and concentrate only on the objective of meeting the goal of having an urban farm.There is no recognition of anything else in this quest. No discussion of where money is to come from to support them while they wait for their bounties to be harvested. No self-respect for educated people who rifle around in dumpsters and feel no shame in being dirty and smelly from dumpster driving. No question of how they fuel their vehicles and have money to get buy.It is not as easy as she makes it sound either. The good fortune of coming across certain breeds or ancestry in plants or poultry is less accidental than researched. The sheer luck of coming across a highly trained chef who happens to have expertise in the preparation and cooking of pigs is unlikely to be replicated in a suburb of North Carolina, for example.By the end I found the book to be tedious and self-centred. The finale represents a completion of a journey of self-obsession and not really the sort of role model people should be looking at.In the latter half of the book I thought of those who have to work two and three jobs just to make ends meet. I thought of those on low and middle incomes who choose fast food rather than home cooking because it is cheaper and because they have so little time. I thought of those who would love to have their own garden but who are forced into imprisonment behind landscaped areas because of their reliance on rented properties or who are at the mercy of small-minded homeowners associations.In Britain, there is a long standing tradition of allotments where people can grow vegetables or flowers or raise small livestock. That is more akin to urban farming than to just take vacant possession of an empty lot and ignore the community around or even invite their participation.This book has some interesting points but I am at a loss as to understand why so many people gush over it.

Overall, this is an enjoyable book; it is modish, in that more and more people living in cities want to connect in some way with more natural surroundings, but it is not a manual for the gardener or urban farmer. Instead, it is an account of someone who, raised in the countryside, wishes to make sense of and give value to, inner city living, escaping some of its harsher realities and achieve something that is, hopefully, life enhancing. Novella Carpenter's account is a struggle, not only to juggle a work / life balance, but one that encompasses growing food in what is a near hostile environment. She uses a seemingly abandoned lot next to her apartment and introduces to her appropriated garden plants and wildlife including bees, fowl, rabbits and latterly, a pair of heritage pigs, Clearing and planting, attempting to live exclusively from what she can produce, learning to kill and coping with the consequences of this most unnatural of acts - at least for the city dweller, are the subjects for this book that she describes with humanity and a degree of humour and a little despair, at times. Fattening her pigs, scrounging dumpsters for suitable waste to feed them, learning to make salumi - Italian fermented and preserved sausages and salamis - the joy of their produce, tempered somewhat by their slaughter and the whole meaning of producing food for subsistence is the summation of the book and what makes it so enjoyable to read. There is not a great deal for vegetarians, here, but it is, at least, honest in confronting what it actually means to eat meat that acknowledges a debt owed to the animals whose deaths are not taken lightly and might make you think the next time you pick up a vacuum pack from the supermarket meat counter.

I love this book. There are no punches pulled and no sugar coating but it is deeply inspiring none the less.Mini setbacks and failures are part and parcel of growing food and Novella discusses these alongside the triumphs. A great book. Well worth the price. Please write more!

This is quite an interesting account of the author's largely successful efforts at running a micro urban small holding in Oakland, California. It largely involves the fattening and killing of a range of animals: chickens, ducks, turkeys and - in most detail - a couple of pigs. Occasional characters in the locality have walk-on parts, but it is the author and her struggles with nature and bureaucracy that is the main focus of the book.

Excellent book. I love books about farming and homesteading, and it was a wonderful change of pace to see the story told in such a different setting. The cast of characters added so much to the story. The best part though was the proof that the food crisis can be solved without monoculture crops and industrialization. Low income and those most at risk can benefit from urban farms.

Loved her story of farming in the city. She didn't sugar coat it - triumphs as well as failures, but a very entertaining read.