Farm City

http://www.amazon.com/Farm-City-Education-Urban-Farmer/dp/0143117289/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279137430&sr=8-1

Last week I was browsing the new non-fiction section in the public library and a book about urban farming caught my eye.  At first glance, I thought it was going to be a how-to book about planting your very own vegetable garden on a roof top or balcony.  Instead, it's a story about writer Novella Carpenter's experience creating a fabulous garden on an abandoned patch of land behind her Oakland, CA apartment.  Not only does she grow heirloom tomatoes and melons, but she's even taking a liking to raising her own chickens, turkeys other fowl as she fondly calls, "meat-birds."

Anyway, it's a really great book - not only about the toils of creating an urban oasis, but an interesting and often humorous account of the neighborhood and its people.