Incredible Edible Todmorden

© Incredible Edible Todmorden

What I want to know is: When I can I move? Imagine having fresh, unadulterated fruits and vegetables growing all around town. Not to mention, the wholesome country eggs being produced there. Good, nourishing, natural food is the best defense against disease and illness. Way to go, Todmorden!

The Incredible Edible town called Todmorden in the north of England is a model for sustainable living based on the local food movement. TreeHugger has posted about Edible Incredible before but this blog promotes Todmorden's Egg Map, as well as their Green Route Map which promotes Vegetable Tourism!

An inspiring video on turning a village "edible". Lots of great info included as well.



This week at Glassnature, a creative un-conference organised by oh!BCN in Barcelona, Incredible Edible’s co-founder Pam Warhurst gave an inspiring talk about why it is important to connect the dots between community, learning and business, and why we should all live and work in an edible landscape. What started off as propaganda gardening, lead to other campaigns such as the Todmorden Egg Map, a fairly simple yet effective way to promote local food and businesses, because as Pam says: “every egg matters” and “it is all very eggciting”, plus, she gives eggcellent advice here.

© Incredible Edible Todmorden

With Todmorden’s popularity its business increased and the town started to attract tourists eager to see the blooming local food movement. Pam explained that, in order to make Vegetable Tourism an attractive option all year round, design students from Goldsmiths College in London offered to create the Todmorden Green Route Map. That way you are sure not to miss the Bee Store, the Bug Hotel or the Waggle Dance Garden!

Restaurants Grows Its Own Greens on Rooftop

Photo courtesy: Growing Your Greens/Video screen capture

Rooftop gardens are becoming a more common sight nowadays; and, the trend seems to show no sign of diminishing. The truth is that rooftop gardens may become a necessary agricultural alternative if we expect to be able to feed the world's population in years to come. As more and more people are forced to move out of the cities and into surrounding fertile areas, the less agricultural land is left. With the population increasing and viable agricultural land diminishing, feeding our burgeoning population will require creativity and flexibility when using our resources.

We've seen a supermarket growing produce on its roof in London, and Brooklyn looks set to be the home of some massive rooftop farms in the near future.

But rooftop agriculture doesn't need to be big, nor does it have to be high tech.

Here we see Jon of Growing Your Greens visit Catch A Healthy Habit Cafe in Fairfield, CT where the cafe owners have been growing food on their cafe roof for the customers below.

Clearly, the group has started out small. But that's a pretty smart strategy — too many projects burn out after the first year as first-time gardeners get over ambitious and bite off more than they can chew. And clearly, as Jon shows, in the context of a cafe garden, there are some plants (peppers, for example) that will have a hard time contributing much to the demands of the business. But from kale to nasturtiums to herbs, there are plenty of options out there that either yield large amounts of food for minimal effort, or offer high value products that would otherwise have to be paid for.

Check out Jon's recommendations for next year in the video below.