Urban Farming Day #1

For the next three days I’m going to be writing on some new urban farming methods. Tonight the focus will be on new ways to participate in farming even if you think you don’t have the knowledge to be a great farmer. The slogan of the first application is actually, “10,000 Farmers needed, no experience necessary.”

The first one, I know my big big in Alpha Phi will love. It’s called MyFarm.

It’s like farmville, also played on facebook, but your choices will be completed by this farmer in the UK. The application will teach you about farming and what goes in to the decisions they make, and then turns the choices over the participants. They always go with the majority rules, and then they have a video commentary showing the farmers reaction to the decision. It does cost $30 to join, but it’s a great way to learn about farming. They recommend it for classrooms and families, to start a conversation about food.

The second app for new farmers is called EasyBloom. 

It can tell you about the sun exposure, soil foisture, soil fertility, and temperature. Based on this is can recommend which plants will grow best in the given environment. You can even filter these recommendations by size, color, season, and edibility to make sure you are planting exactly what you want. It can also tell you whether you are under or over watering your plants and if it needs different sun or soil conditions. This can be good for both new farmers and those with experience! The application provides charts and graphs for the experienced farmer, but also makes it easy to follow with a green thumbs up or red thumbs down for those who need the simplification (like me!) The Easy Bloom connects to your computer using a USB extension and the only limitation I could find is that it only works in the United States. This is because it draws information from AccuWeather for sunlight in each zipcode, USDA for hardiness, and AHS for heat zones. If you are in the US all of this information will turn you in to an expert gardener. 

I don’t know much about farming, but I think farming and food education is key to our country’s obesity epidemic. Using these tools to learn about the food we eat and getting more involved in farming can help us make more responsible decisions for both our weight and our environment.

Try them and spread the word! If you do subscribe to either of these services let me know!