Massachusetts

Hi, she’s Patti Moreno. She’s a wife, a mother, a daughter, and she’s as “city” as you can get…. says Patti, also known as Garden Girl. She grew up in New York City and moved in Boston where she runs a small urban permaculture farm.

She’s all about sustainable urban living and she’s got a lot of videos to prove it. As far as I can tell she produces her videos herself. Most of the videos are how-to’s about gardening and taking care of animals in the city. She even has stuff about recipes, how to shear a goat and how to knit a baby hat.

I applaud Patti for her efforts, I think its great that she has an amazing permaculture set up in Boston and she wants to share it with everyone. She has made a living off of the urban agriculture that she does. These video clips help to make urban agriculture more mainstream, more normal and accessible to the average city-dwelling American. I often think that urban agriculture has taken on an alternative and artsy connotation- certainly not something that is bad, but it does limit its audience in some ways.

Sure, the music in the video clips is cheesy, her perfectly make-uped face seems out of place in the garden, and her dialog often makes her seem like Martha Stewart, but thats what makes it great. These clips are something that can appeal to people who watch cheesy home improvement shows and worship Martha Stewart.

Patti’s projects are not cheap- they do cost money and use supplies that are not accessible to everyone. But, like Martha Stewart, she is putting crafty ideas in the heads of the over-consumeristic middle class of America. I have had many people ask me about projects or ways that could grow vegetables on their balconies, roofs or sunporches, these videos give people ideas. They are made for middle class city residents (and especially homemakers it seems) who probably will have the money to afford the supplies necessary for raised beds or an indoor garden.

Many of the organizations I have worked with and talked to use urban agriculture as a method to improve low-income communities both mentally and physically. These videos try to appeal to a different crowd entirely.

Here’s just a couple of the videos (just sit through the couple seconds of annoying opening line music…)