Kijani Grows : Urban Garden Systems

this is an indoor garden. the purple color is because of the led grow lights. … nothing like a fresh yummy salad … on demand.

our increasing exotic taste buds have resulted in neglect of local native fish. this has also led to the demise of traditional native recipes as … native fish tend to be considered cheap fish.
using local fish is sustainable … so … sacramento black fish it is. … these are pretty, delicious and hardy for raising in tank culture systems. more important they are local to our bay area environment thus safe and legal to raise as well. (like tilapia is not in many parts of north california).
sacramento black fish have no stomachs … rather one long intestine. … see here for more information on this fish.

our sac’ black fish fingerlings shown below:

west oakland’s soils are lead contaminated. in the south prescot region, it is so bad they are epa has decided to bring in the emergency response team.

this is the first large scale green cleanup in the nation … they are using fish bones to lock the lead so it passes through the body if consumed (mostly by kids playing in the soil) … more information can be found here

we are building the  the demo gardens shown below at the incident command center. the aquaponics garden here will be integrated with a grey water system and a bamboo bio filter installed by hyphae design lab. the gardens will be computer controlled and part of our social gardening project … more information coming soon. see here for basic prototypes.

so we went to our first hackathon at the summer of smart. teamed up with some amazing folks to build an application for urban agriculture in 48 hours. the team put a front end dash board and interactive garden mapping for our gardening projects from live data being streamed from our computer controlled demo garden in west oakland.

a million and one thanks to team kijani grows members . … these guys are amazing … see the initial prototypes for a mobile app on the project and the dash links from the menu bar.

kenneth, maundu, gene, michael, naureen, sarah and marianna. (james was missing in group picture)

they did a great job … i think i blew it with a weak presentation … hey … i only had seven minutes, it takes me a little while to warm up.

much love to the team members and gaffta for the invitation to the event

ohh … and much thanks to enjalot in florida for putting together a django backend and api for querying live garden data … enj is special.

it cost me more than $500 for the following information ...

the City regrets that there is not a simpler method at ***** ***** than a
CUP with Landmarks review, but that is the truth.
You
May have one of the technologies of the future, aquaculture, but our
procedures are not set up to allow a simpler review of such requests.
Good luck!

what can $500 get a farmer in oakland … information that …. our two projects, the aquaponics entrepreneurial project and one of our secret projects are going to cost us an additional $6500 in zoning permits to the city of oakland – a two month process. for:

• a design review
• conditional use permit
• revision of existing approval

how is a farmer supposed to make an honest living here in oakland

it’s been 4 weeks since i submitted a pre-zoning application to the planning division for the city of oakland. for $500 the least i would expect is an acknowledgement or status update … that is asking too much … it would probably cost to acknowledge receiving documents they insist on.

more painful than paying was the amount of time and resources it took to compile the required documents. a 2 month process so far since i started dealing with the city about this. below – handing in my pre-zoning application documents … you need at least 3 copies … 10 if they decide you are going to need a design review.

this is sorta the same process when you are about to create a live/work facility with unique architectural features such as say … it levitates.

but no all we are trying to do is build a raised bed garden.

i saw this old man cross the street to take a closer look at the windmill that has been waving to the commuters in west oakland … i saw his question marks and soon we were chatting. wise old man robert turned out to be. he said he had been the bay area for more than 50 years coming in from the south. the he used to be a dog handler and spent a big part of his life trying to start a dog kennel but was not successful as a result of bad business decisions and permit blockages from the cities (oakland, richmond & san francisco).

as i gave robert a tour, he said my projects are an extension my energy. he said my energy flows in circles.

i am having serious problems with zoning related permit issues and understanding what is required in creating a successful business … i don’t what to end up like robert at 75 years old taking about how situations made me quit.

I asked robert to bring 5 senior friends and i will teach them everything i know about urban farming … you should have seen his face light up. a pic of the windmill robert was looking at is shown. … west oakland bart … guess who mounted it?

it’s six months into the 2011 already, where does all this time flies to.
the moments and the battles though trying when occurring soon fizzle, becoming insignificant in the bigger scope of things.
blessings are a good thing – coming often in forms we may not identify at first or want to acknowledge
plant a seed … watch it grow … let it grow.