reward - labor matrix

Here's the diagram I drew last week that tries to think about houseplants and gardening through effort and reward. How much work do we put in? And what do we get out? It's not a very nuanced diagram, but it gets at one of the dynamics of taking care of plants -- that people sometimes feel like their work is rewarded, and sometimes not.

Hmong Garden

Hmong residents of Fresno, California are urging the city council to not bulldoze over the preexisting community garden for a new police substation. For these people, it is important for the garden to exist for more than just novelty, recreation, or aesthetics. The residents depend on the vegetables and fruits from this garden to feed their families.

Read the original article here and more information here.

Bookshelf Gardens

I am a self-defined bookshelf gardener. You know, the kind that keeps small potted plants on top of their bookshelf because that's the only place in their apartment where there is room to do so. The kind that explores with different small plants, the exotic and the not so exotic. The kind that proudly displays these installations as thropies. The kind that forgets to water them once in a while.

And so on.

The question is: Where is the line one crosses... 

A) from where plants are the accessories to the furniture

B) to where plants are the feature and the furniture becomes the accessory

This role reversal is an interesting study of the role in which plants play in a given area, examining its significance in an area dedicated to different elements. To what purpose does each element in the area serve and what one gathers from this knowledge or acknowledgement.

Ecospheres

This is for those who enjoy the idea of keeping, growing, maintaining a plant and a pet. Now you can, but without actually doing all of the above. These popular gift items do it themselves.

How Ecospheres Work:

Filtered sea water is enclosed in a glass ornament along with microorganisms and algae. Indirect sunlight is absorbed by the algae, allowing the algae to produce food through photosynthesis. It releases oxygen and becomes a source of food for the microorganisms. The microorganisms produce organic waste that bacteria feeds on. Both the microorganisms and bacteria produce carbon dioxide, which the algae picks up and starts the cycle again.

These closed ecosystems are sealed with everything they need for years and are self-sustaining without the care of any outside element other than sunlight. There is an element of sterilization involved, very much contradictory to traditional gardening where one gets their hands dirty.

-novelty factor (innovative, unusual, miniature, great gift idea)

-responsibility factor (minimal work, minimal effort)

Another item to a collection of indoor plantlife.

DIY indoor plants

Released in 1982, the Chia Pet was introduced to households across the nation. It reached popularity through its easiness to grow and witty marketing. Since then, the company has extended its line to include Chia herb gardens, Chia Trees, and China Cat Grass Planter.

Since then, many companies have followed this idea, bringing our local drug and grocery store shelves a wider variety of do-it-yourself planter kits. Recently, I recieved an indoor daffodil kit as a present, reaffirming the notion that indoor plant projects are popular gifts. As a derivation from traditional gardening, this is formulating to be a popular trend. Already, its novelty has caught the eye of young adult apparel and goods stores like Urban Outfitters.

Takeaways:

• Responsibility - Being able to claim responsibility about bringing a seedling into full fruitation, gain pleasure by watching the progress of plant knowing that results are from one's doing
• Experimentation - Bridge to gardening by beginning at a novice level, being able to try a new activity without risking too much capital or space, being able to grow various plants given restricted conditions
• Knowledge - Not much expertise required, but get to enjoy fruitful results nonetheless
• Novelty - Enjoy the idea of having a green thumb and a do-it-yourself-watch-it-grow project, opportunity to show off to others

Some more do-it-yourself kits:

Green bus shelter at Larkin and McAllister

Planted with beach strawberries. Supposedly temporary? 

Photo from SFist, which thinks they're "inane"

From the Chronicle:

The mayor is expected to release San Francisco's first food policy in the next several months, and one of the cornerstones will be decreased reliance on imported food. The policy will also encourage urban gardens and call for planting fruit-bearing trees and plants in street medians and abandoned lots.

...

The key is to get creative, he said. Look at school playgrounds and empty lots and city-owned lands outside San Francisco.

Even bus shelters can turn into gardens. The city's newest - unveiled Thursday at the corner of Larkin and McAllister streets - is roofed with sod and planted with strawberries.

SF food policy

From the SF Chronicle:

The mayor is expected to release San Francisco's first food policy in the next several months, and one of the cornerstones will be decreased reliance on imported food. The policy will also encourage urban gardens and call for planting fruit-bearing trees and plants in street medians and abandoned lots.
...
San Francisco consumes about 1 million tons of food each year and the Bay Area consumes about 6 million tons, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's Department of the Environment. More than 20 million tons of food - and 80 different types of food - are produced every year within a 200-mile radius of San Francisco.

Urban gleaning and backyard farming

Natasha Boissier did not expect an epiphany while pushing her baby’s stroller exhaustedly around the neighborhood. But eyeing her neighbors’ yards, Ms. Boissier began noticing the abundance of fruit trees — and how much of their succulent bounty wound up on the ground.

“There was all this fruit going to waste,” she said of the apples, pears and plums in her midst. “It seemed like such a natural way to deal with hunger.”

Thus was born North Berkeley Harvest, part of a small but expanding movement of backyard urban gleaners — they might be called fruit philanthropists — who voluntarily harvest surplus fruit and then donate it to food banks, centers for the elderly and other nonprofit organizations.

from the New York Times

Organizations

North Berkeley Harvest
Village Harvest
MyFarm
Your Backyard Farmer

Notes from Tues, Oct 8 brainstorm

Spaces of action

• garden
• home
• street

actors

• gardener-user
• camera
• other gardeners
• outsiders (neighbors, etc)

disjunctions / gaps

• between gardeners in the same plot, who cannot share knowledge about their shared space
• between gardeners in the same garden, who share knowledge serendipitously (and who may or may not see themselves as a "community")
• between garden and outside neighborhood -- fence and locked gate separates spaces

sources of data

• photos of garden
• weather -- sun, rain, wind, temperature
• visualization strategies (timeline, concentric circles

design suggestions

• look for analogues of garden spaces in home: places where time passes, activity amount changes, places of beauty and calm
• can we make something that could be customized to specific gardens? specific homes?
• something that reacts to environmental conditions dynamically and directly - not digitally mediated
• flipping the garden to see its roots
• metaphor of soil for visual array of photos: speckled, textured

emotions / affective states

• ephemerality, time passing
• pleasure

questions to answer

• what can/should a prototype discover in a week?
• if a week is too short, what is the "right" deployment period?
• what do people want to take photos of? why? what would they do with them (gift, souvenir, planning for future)?
• where is the garden in the home? "nature"? where could it be?

proposed activities

• wizard-of-oz study where we act as the photographer and follow around a gardener for a week.
• home visits
  

goal: deployment completed in mid-Dec for paper in Jan