Oh, and sorry about the shitty roads.  Hope you didn’t drive your own car.

I visited Michigan recently, Detroit was interesting (Cliff Bell’s was amazing) and Ann Arbour was a very nice town I’d love to return to.

It has worked pretty good.  The first one he got lasted about 5 years.  Really the only issue with it was corrosion to the PCB inside.  If you took it apart and applied a little clear lacquer to it the unit should hold up fine.  Their problem is mostly deer and it handles those with ease.

Groundhogs are a problem as well, but he handles those in a more permanent way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND9QoDS4ScY

A. The Stepford-like community would never go for heads of lettuce on the lawn.

B. I live in the 10th level of hell and pretty much everything gets scorched on the vine. I learned the hard way when my tomatoes and beloved lemon tree burned in my courtyard. *sob*

Also, along along the lines of garbage/recyclables pick-up, each village/city/whatever could have a compost program where, if households weren’t making their own compost, they could have their food waste (which reaches 40% in America) picked up once a week and taken to some anaerobic composting center (which can also handle stuff like milk and meat).  Residents could then use that compost in their garden beds.

I know, it wouldn’t be cheap (mainly with start-up costs), but if there’s anything that would be a worthwhile investment I’d imagine it would be this.

Or better idea, make basic horticulture a mandatory requirement for HS diplomas.

Schools have evolved to teach mostly academic subjects because of the assumption that families were teaching life skills.  It would be great if everyone graduated from high school knowing how to manage a checking account, change a diaper, grow a tomato, etc.  They’re certainly not learning at home.

At any rate, growing food on a London street might just be a way to ingest more pollution.

though I rent and my job is physically laborious enough without doing “real” gardening on my off days, I applaud those who do; several (if not all) generations of my family have maintained gardens.  My grandpa had one that took up half his backyard (mostly food) and another huge one on his vacation property that was all food.  leave it to my grandpa to spend his vacation farming, but that’s the kinda guy he was.

Not in response to PaulDavis’s message but to the topic as a whole, I suspect that a lot of people simply do not want to garden.  Oh sure it is fun to have a tomato plant or two or a fresh herb window box but to actually grow enough to eat — and the canning/preserving for winter — is hard.  I happen to enjoy it (and have a couple acres of non-tree land to do a proper “big” garden) but it certainly is not easier than sitting on my rear end at my job.  One hour at work is more than enough to pay for several days of food from the local farmers’ market.   I suspect most of my co-workers would rather just join a CSA or go to the farmers’ market or the local “organic food” supermarket … if they even care about local organic food.