iPads, Pirate Swords and Adult Diapers: Will Florida Push Back Against TSA Madness?

Better known for terrorizing toddlers than for catching terrorists, TSA is 'allowing' Sanford/Orlando airport to opt-out of government-sanctioned groping of Florida visitors.

The announcement was made by TSA and U.S. Congressman John Mica (R-FL 7th) at the airport Monday, according to The Sanford Herald. 'As part of the Screening Partnership Program, the Sanford airport will be allowed to use private contract screening services under TSA oversight. “I hope this opens a new era of reform for TSA operations, not only at Orlando Sanford but across nation,” Mica said.'

We hope so too.

For a state which depends on some 85 million annual tourists worth revenues of $60 billion per year, it's about time to give Florida visitors a little dignity along the heavily-traveled air routes to theme park and beach destinations.

It's not like TSA has actually caught any terrorists. They manage to find guns all the time, usually in x-rays of carry on bags and on forgetful passengers, but those could be found with any old-school metal detector.

What the agency does seem good at is picking bad targets for its invasive searches, resulting in viral vids of crying kids and Grandma putting a brave face during her diaper check. If bad publicity is better than no publicity, then Florida airports have TSA to thank for a public image that is equal parts outrage and ewww:

• TSA agents indulged in a bit of imaginative play at Ft. Lauderdale airport in 2009, when they confiscated Pirates of the Caribbean "weapons" from an eight-year-old boy who had recently lost his father to cancer. The youngster was treated to Disney World dream vacation, until TSA confiscated his souvenirs. "It's very upsetting because at one point I had told one of the employees, 'You know this is not a real weapon,' and he said 'Yes, I understand that, it doesn't matter,'" said mom Maria Edge. She said she became even angrier when she saw the TSA officers who had confiscated the items playing with the toy sword and gun. Stay classy, swabbies.
• TSA had a banner year for incidents in 2011, the most famous of which has got to be forcing a 95-year-old woman cancer patient to remove an adult diaper up at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last June.
• That same month, TSA admitted to 'bad judgement' for singling out a mentally disabled 29-year-old for a full bore, terrorist pat-down on his way to the Magic Kingdom. 'David Mandy said agents at Detroit Metro Airport took his son Drew, 29, and asked him about the padding underneath his pants, which turned out to be adult diapers. Drew, who is severely mentally disabled, had trouble understanding the agents’ orders because his family said he has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old,' according to MyFoxDetroit.
• The next month TSA spokesperson issued a statement saying that "As part of our ongoing effort to get smarter about security,” they would be making a “policy decision” that would give security officers more options for resolving screening anomalies with young children.
• Unfortunately, that same day TSA made its promise, agents subjected a a six-year-old boy from Washington state to not one, but two invasive pat-downs while the family was en route to Disney Land in Anaheim, CA. “They just treated him like he was a terrorist,” the boy’s father, Alex Long, told King 5 News. Apparently the kids was carrying a hand-held video game. 'Immediately after this happened, my son, I hugged him and he started crying and saying, ‘I don’t want to go to Disney Land anymore,’” says the child’s mother, Jenine Michaelis.
• "Fear of getting through the lines can kill travel plans," said a South Florida senior. No kidding, Ruth. Ruth Sherman, 89, of Sunrise, was one of three women who said she was forced to disrobe during a secondary screening at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in November. She said she is still angry. "I couldn't go through that again," she said in a Sun Sentinel story.
• Last December TSA cowboys caused a pregnant 17-year-old to miss her flight to Jacksonville -- where her mother was waiting for her -- because the teen's Western-themed purse was embellished with a decoration in the shape of a six gun. They sent the young woman to Orlando instead. Giddy up, Ma, y'all got some driving to do.
• In March TSA screeners refused to allow the father of a visibly shaking three-year-old to hold the boy's hand as he and his wheelchair were swabbed for explosives at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport while the boy and his parents, grandparents, and two siblings were on their way to Walt Disney World. Not exactly the happy family group Disney likes to feature in its advertising. What is the stuff this kid's dreams are made of?
• Last month TSA fired five employees and reprimanded 38 more in the Ft. Meyers airport for goofing off.

These are only TSA incidents with a Florida/attraction angle, just a sampling of TSA operatives' bad judgement.

The agency did get off to a great start this year with arrests of two TSA screeners in Miami for their eBay store, worth $400,000 profits from iPads and other electronics thoughtfully 'donated' by unsuspecting passengers over the past few years.

'Our employees are prohibited from taking backpacks, lunchboxes or any other personal carrying item into baggage screening operation areas,' TSA says on its official blog. All that means is that the thieves among them just target smaller, high priced items. (A TSA baggage screener at LAX was taped attempted to steal a high-priced watch from Paris Hilton, but apparently though the better of it and put the item back. Unfortunately, an average traveler has no such notoriety and is likely to receive no such comparable consideration).

Despite convictions resulting from TSA  employee theft rings in N.Y.C., TSA's official blog says that only 200 of their 110,000 employees have been accused of stealing; Shrug. Such a teensy percentage, you should worry? Of course their claim garners a bit less sympathy once it comes out that TSA counts ALL of its employees in order to best skew that ratio. Hey, TSA, if you don't count the pencil pushers in the back office, what's the real percentage of thieves who have access to passenger/luggage frisking areas? 

Women passengers routinely complain that TSA officers only seem to confiscate really expensive cosmetics for being outside size limits for liquids and gels, according to Airsafe. Apparently bottles of drug-store make-up get a pass.

Yet in every instance TSA issues the same cookie-cutter press release, defending the actions of its employees as 'professional' and done in a 'sensitive manner'. Really? Exactly how does one check a 95 year-old cancer victim's diaper in a 'sensitive manner?

The reasonable and professional folks at TSA find plenty of probable cause to submit children to nude photography, grope private parts and dose them with radiation because they are heading to Disney World. After all, it's not like U.S. invasions of other countries or American drones killing women and children half a world away could possibly have anything to do with terrorist attacks here.
 

So, to date, Sanford Airport joins 16 other airports allowed into TSA's opt-out program. Mica, (R- FL 7th), who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, engineered the change this past February. “Orlando Sanford will be the largest airport to convert to the private-federal screening model under the opt-out program. As more airports across the country will be encouraged to opt out, both taxpayers and air travelers will benefit from this cost-effective program,” he said. Sanford had applied to opt out through the Screening Partnership Program on two previous occasions, but was denied its right to do so. TSA denied other airports’ applications to opt out as well. The Committee cites benefits such as greater screening efficiency, better customer service, improved employee morale, and greater flexibility for airports. (It remains to be seen if private contractors are given the same latitude to grope Granny).

Here's hoping Mica and the Transportation Committee follow through to push TSA to accept more airport opt-outs.

Rep. Mica wrote some pretty good legislation last year with his bill to stop automatic pay raises for members of Congress; Although he's also introduced his share of pure PR, Miss America-type bills such as those on
calling for commemorative coinage for air marshals and scenic highway designation for the overland route to Key West.

Speaking of Miss America, TSA made her cry too. Is this a great country or what?

Raw milk vending machines in France

In Florida, you have to pretend you are an animal if you want raw milk.

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Connects With ISS

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981357552

SpaceX Rocket, Gamer Changer for America's Space Program

SpaceX Rocket, Game Changer for America's Space Program

Rocket City Retro, Mid-Century Style Florida Space Coast

Nichole and Billy Meyers

That stylish interior shot of a Space Age home featured in Kennedy Space Center's newly-released commercial, "One Day," is the real thing. It features authentic Mid-Century architecture, and those are authentic furnishings.

The commercial was shot in the home of Nichole and Billy Meyers, a thirty-something couple who collect 1950s-1960s-era pieces. The house is a sweeping, tri-level structure built in 1961-'62 and located in Cocoa's River Heights subdivision. It features one room of their home which has been finished -- as much as any avid collectors ever finish rooms -- and eventually the couple plan to complete the entire house in vintage. 'I am a purist,' Mrs. Meyers said. 'It will be 100% period.'

The inevitable overflow from their personal passion first spilled into a vintage furnishings store down in Eau Gallie which they ran for about a year, but now they've expanded into a larger venue in Cocoa Village: Rocket City Retro store, launched a few days ago at 9 Rosa L. Jones Place.

Mid-Century style describes architecture and furnishings design which is heavily influenced by streamlined shapes, experimentation with methods of industrial production and was frequently inspired by science and space travel.

Genesis of Billy Meyers' collecting bug began when he purchased his first home at age 20. A bungalow built in 1952, it featured all the typical design elements of the era: A house conceived as a system for living, incorporating passive solar heating and cooling, seamless indoor-outdoor living space, clerestory windows providing pleasant, indirect natural lighting, and a spare interior.

'It had the pink, grey and black terrazzo,' Mrs. Meyers said, 'It had site sensitivity -- the patio was built around a tree. The outdoors, was just another room.'

"It was not kitschy at all,' said Mr. Meyers, referring to a common misconception about collecting American style. With its open, uncluttered interior space and spare, distinctive furniture shapes, 'These houses are easier to clean. Less time spent on housework means more time spent with family,' said Mrs. Meyers, noting the couple have a 12-year-old.

Hand made tile table, late 1950s; Danish Modern table, 1962

The Meyers scour the Eastern Seaboard 'from the Hamptons to Key West,' Mrs. Meyers said. They are part of a network of pickers who repair, refinish, re-upholster and re-wire relics, which might be cherry-picked from estate sales, or sometimes found forlorn and threadbare in thrift stores.

Among their best customers are college kids who have good jobs, and are their late 20s to 30s. 'A lot of people come in because they have seen this type furniture in advertizements, and on TV,' said Mrs. Meyers. Popular items include everything from clothing, tube radios and record players, table furnishings to complete furniture suites.
"we are also getting a lot of retirees,' Mr. Meyers said. 'They're downsizing. They're moving into beachside communities and looking for those 1,500 sq. ft. houses. Not only is this the furniture they grew up with, and that they love, it also fits the scale of these homes perfectly.'


Generally, the Meyers say their customers are people who are looking for '...pride in workmanship and superior materials,' said Mrs. Meyers. 'Made-in-America brand names still hold value.' The Meyers said their customers don't want furniture which have been made in China. 'Our customers say, 'Hey, this furniture has lasted 50 years, it can last 50 years more, Mrs. Meyers said.

'The decision to buy vintage furniture is a decision to buy a certain quality,' Mr. Meyers said. 'It's as much emotionally driven as it is calculated purchase. It's good furniture, made to last.'

------------------------------------ 30 -----------------------------------

More info:
Rocket City Retro
Kennedy Space Center commercial, 'One Day'

Rocket City Retro shop/ Mid-Century collection

JPMorgan Chase: Too Dumb to Learn?

Too Dumb to Learn?

Mid-Century style on Florida's Space Coast

Now that the last of the shuttles have been picked apart and dispersed for points elsewhere, and Americans have to hitch a ride beyond the blue, it can be said also that the original dream of a Space Age, which so gripped the nation's psyche during the golden 1950s-60s seems to have run out of fuel here as well.

Once a nexus of launch activity and a parabolic building boom, the Space Coast was arguably a near-perfect time capsule of Mid-Century Modern design. The style of the time was an exuberant explosion of vaulting roof lines, angled plate glass, sine wave arches, boomerangs and atoms.

Florida Memories Collection

Mid-Century Modern. It was streamlined, it was copied, it was a physical manifestation of faith in science and in an unlimited future. It influenced the world, from housing to industrial design. It was the 'American Look,' indigenous as Jazz music and uniquely our own.

 The Space Coast once had the American Look in spades, although little of it has been preserved; there are a few worn details left, but those may well already be on someone's list to 'update'. The great irony is that Mid-Century Modern design has now come full circle.

 Elsewhere in the world, Hipsters snatch up remnants of Atomic Age furnishings, art and clothing. Gen Xers vie for the un-renovated 1950s-'60s homes. Urban explorer websites send pilgrims to Cocoa Beach's unique and once-spectacular Glass Bank. Although dim and crumbling, the 1961 structure is considered vastly more interesting than older, but, yet-another-non-descript Greek Revival buildings in the area.

Conservation groups are vigilant in protecting Mid-Century buildings in California, Washington, Nevada and Oregon; efforts are ramping up in other states as well. Enclaves of the playful, distinctive architecture have proven to be major tourist draws in Phoenix, Arizona and along New Jersey's Wildwoods Shore.
Variations on the Mid-Century style -- Atomic, Vroom, Ray Gun Gothic, DooWop and Googie are increasingly cropping up on our nations' Historic Register. Renovators reap tax breaks and the amount of money for rehab grants is growing.

 In residential housing, today's young architects look at Modernist and Mid-Century style as they lead a backlash against the excesses of the housing bubble, when boom-time contractors raced to pack homes with the most square-footage-under-air in order to qualify for ever-larger construction loans. Critics call those results bland and bloated warrens of rooms, rather than livable spaces.

They suffer from choppy layout, wasted space and wasted materials. Interiors are climate control nightmares, and exteriors a pastiche of illogical roof lines and stuccoed foam gewgaws. Garage Mahalls.

 In a 2006 article The Wall Street Journal noted a rise in 'minimalist' houses, sparing of energy, materials and square footage. The trend has rippled out into commercial custom home design: The National Association of Home Builders' 2012 awards went to models which demonstrated simplicity, cost-effective use of materials and to those which incorporated indoor-outdoor living space. To American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, that would sound quite familiar.

Wright, as always, was ahead of the curve. In the late 1930s, a post-Depression scarcity of building materials (more likely, a dearth of moneyed patrons) prompted him to re-think single family home design. He was among the first to observe that advances in industrial production techniques and in transportation would likely yield a more autonomous working class ready to venture into suburban enclaves to raise families.

Toward that end, Wright designed faster, cheaper, and more comfortable homes. He called his concept Usonian, and these are its basic elements: low-cost building materials; spare roof lines, most of them on a horizontal axis; passive solar heating and cooling attained by extended roof overhangs and covered walkways for shade; clerestory windows and patterned concrete block fenestration for pleasant, indirect interior lighting; strong visual and physical connection between the interior and exterior spaces through glass walls and spacious patios; open floor plans for kitchen and living areas; concrete slab floors and carports. Yes, Frank Lloyd Wright invented carports.

Usonian Basic, Wikimedia Creative Commons

Just as Space Coast high tech began to come into its own, Wright completed his 'Child of the Sun,' a 10-year opus which is the whole of the campus of Florida Southern University in Lakeland (designated earlier this year as a National Historic Landmark by the Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior).

 Let's just understate and say Wright was influential in Florida home building in the early '50s. Ever the entrepreneur, Wright reprised his Usonian concept. Essentially, he went into the building supply business, producing the both modest floor plans and a patterned, concrete block-and-rebar system for modular, expandable houses. He envisioned this system would be a hit with the DIY homeowner crowd and assembled on weekends, after barbecue parties.

 Most homeowners, however, passed on it and just hired building contractors to produce similar-looking designs. Wright's original proportions got re-interpreted into standard concrete block sizes. Further, few of the maestro's horizontal roofs ever remained water tight for long, and his glass walls didn't particularly lend themselves to privacy in subdivision settings.

Illustration from a 1952 Sherwin Williams brochure

Nevertheless, most of Wright's 'natural house' concepts formed the basis of Mid-Century housing design.

 Meanwhile, in California, architect John Lautner, with a nod towards Italian Futurist architecture circa World War I, took design off the chain and created motion. He is primarily responsible for the American kitsch known as 'Googie' or 'Ray Gun Gothic', architecture, for upswept roofs, geometric curves and glass, steel and neon Space Age designs.

 Concurrently, designers Charles and Ray Eames revisited and refined Wright's sometimes-chunky and overdecorated lines, consulted Modern art, threw in a little Miro, a little Mondrian, and made use of new technologies in extruded metals and molded plywood. Generally, they set about streamlining American industrial and consumer products from chairs to World's Fairs.  They were highly-influential in the look of Mid-Century interior furnishings.

 Through all this the sleepy little Space Coast built on, a blank slate with a big need. The Town of Cocoa Beach saw a 1000% increase in building permits between 1950 and 1960 to the point where, as noted in City archives, a moratorium on permits was declared in order to 'sort things out'.

Mosquito Beaters archive

 Relatively modest and utilitarian, Space Coast buildings of the time lacked some of the more exuberant excesses of 'Ray Gun Gothic,' but nonetheless represented with sinage of Vanguard rockets and the airborne buttresses of the Starlite Motel.

Low cost houses with the signature overhangs and open plans made best use of sea breezes in the era before central air. Most of the housing design hereabouts was decidedly plebian, but isn't that what Wright would have wanted? And most of those early homes are long gone; such as the subdivisions razed for Launch Complex 39.

If you look closely, though, you can still see vestiges of the Space Coast's contribution to Mid-century American style. One distinctive feature in our area seems to be that actual rocket scientists liked the look of sine waves in their concrete entry canopies. A few of these remain.

Saturn Condo, Cocoa Beach

Cape View Elementary School, Cape Canaveral

Cape Royal Building, Cocoa Beach

What an interesting little Petri dish the Space Coast once was. Most of the Mid-Century buildings here were never surveyed or cataloged.

An apochryphal story, but it is believed the iconic Moonhut sign ended ignobly on a dump.

In 1984 parts of Cape Canaveral Air Force station were added to the National Register of Historic Places, but we locals failed to take a cue from that.

The erosion continues. Little Cape Canaveral bungalows and bits of buildings are going, going, gone, leaving subsequent generations to weigh the history of a seldom-seen audacity of American design against salt-rotted rebar and asbestos-wrapped pipes.

 Fly me to the moon
 And let me play among the stars.
 Let me see what Spring is like, On Jupiter and Mars...

A valentine to Mid-Century Style, Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach

Ok, so most of the architecture is gone.

A few years ago, the owner of the famed, but now-renamed Moon Hut had the original neon sign languishing in the restaurant side yard for quite some time. Of course I noticed it, and stopped by to ask about its disposition. (real, I offered to buy it). The owner told me quite a few people were interested in it. Good. He said he was undecided as to what to do.

Months later, I noticed the Moon Hut sign was gone, so I stopped in again  and asked what was what.

He told me he had consigned the sign to the dump.

This is what we deal with here everyday; so few original structures are left. The once-spectacular Glass Bank is falling apart before our eyes. There has been some interest from Cocoa Beach City Council to secure the building, but from what I understand the owner has set a price out in La-La land and would rather see the whole of it fail than take less dosh than what he thinks it is worth. Kill it for everyone, doll, do as you will.

When one goes to the Brevard County Historical Society in Cocoa Village and asks for info on subdivisions build in the Go-Go era of the 50s-60s, one gets a blank stare and is told, 'but we have buildings from the 1820s,' as if that really means something (face it, LOTS of places have old buildings).  They do not understand that a building of mediocre design from the 18-somethings is much less interesting  than even a modest structure from the Atomic Age. They simply do not get it.

Here's a few snaps of remaining architectural details.

Always interested in input. Please feel free to upload your shots.

Will upload a photo-essay of other architectural details asap.

BTW, the woman on the lawn mower -- I have that hat. I love estate sales.

Art video of Space Shuttle launches shortlisted for Vimeo award

Grand Finale 2010-11, a video compilation of space shuttle launches designed by artist McLean Fahnestock is among the top entries for this year's Vimeo award in the Remix category.

Based on NASA launch footage, Ms. Fahnestock's hypnotic piece was completed last July with the launch of Atlantis, final flight of the Space Shuttle Program. The California artist presents feed from all 135 missions synchronized across a 15 x 9 grid.

 The cumulative effect of left-brain technology at work yields a real right-brain experience: The individual clips merge into ripples of color, and audio feed from mission control becomes a dreamlike, collective whispering. Her selective editing conveys our emotional experience of the shuttle program as well.

Vimeo winners will be announced June 7-9, during the Vimeo Art Festival held concurrently in New York City and online.

Fahnestock is a sculptor who also works in video and photography.

Yours truly contributed a video clip to this project, shot from the Jetty during the last launch. Alas, though, it seems to have found its place on the cutting room floor.

 ------------------------------------- 30 -----------------------
Here's the link to the video (hint: it's in HD with stereo sound, so let the page load fully):
http://vimeo.com/27505192 

 Interesting stuff from Ms. Fahnestock:
 www.mcleanfahnestock.com

See what happens if you really don't care?

....Bad girl just might get a gilded statue for herself.

Here's a shot taken in New Orleans about a year and a half ago.

Happy Birthday Jeanne d' Arc.

Home to roost with David Poole

Brigitte, herself. photo by David Poole

Brigitte is the star. She's French, you know. A salmon Faverolle hen. She has the run of a little homestead as neat and well-ordered as any English garden, because she behaves herself and does not scratch up the vegetable plots, notes David Poole in one of his intermittent 'Poole Family Urban Farm Reports' on You Tube.

A long-time gardener, Poole, 48, is an engineer who lives with wife Dawn, and three of five children who are still at home. 'When we first built the house in 1986, I intended to have a kitchen garden,' Poole said in a telephone interview from his Cocoa homestead, 'but then I had kids and I didn't have room for it, and I let it go.' Recently, though, the Pooles have expanded their interest in an edible landscape.

They began by planting fruit trees four years ago, and in the past couple of years began to devote more time and backyard space to vegetable cultivation in raised-bed gardens. 'I have always had an interest in how things were done in the past and like the idea of having some level of self-sufficiency, even if it is somewhat symbolic, as a reminder to not take things for granted.'

David Poole

This year the soil improvements should pay off in spinach and kale. 'We compost everything here, all green material on our property. Along with a conviction of biblical stewardship, we are concerned with food quality and sustainability,' said Poole. 'We have slowly switched to humanely raised meats and organic dairy products.  At first it was hard to find, but now we have witnessed the free-market responding to that demand with more selection, lower prices and increased availability.  I would also love to see market demand correct other issues, as consumers reject GMOs and hormone laden meats.'

The current U.S. economy has also heightened the Pooles' interest. Although it does not sustain the family completely, the backyard garden '...does help with the grocery bills,' he said. They are also able to sell a modest surplus of eggs from 'the girls,'Brigitte and the compliment of hens they keep in the back yard; they are pets with benefits. 'Well, it won't really save you money, but that is usually not the reason most people are doing this. I would say the main reasons would be availability, control and quality. I love knowing where my eggs come from.'

Florida 'Cracker' coop, design/build D. Poole

'We treat our animal humanely,' Poole said. 'when you have a chicken in a cage -- look at the size of the cage -- ours weren't producing, you find out how small the cage is.' That piqued Poole's interest in building chicken coops which were both comfortable for the chickens and the neighbors. 'People have nice houses, and I recognized there was a need for a coop that would be attractive enough to add to the landscape and not have to be hidden out back or look like a pile of scrap lumber.' He builds coops as a both method for providing an entry point to those with an interest in keeping fowl, and sells them on Craigslist.

Cute coops, with an eye towards neighbor's property values

Poole said he's noticed interest in backyard farming transitioning from niche magazines to those magazines with mainstream appeal. 

On April 3, Brevard County Board of Commissioners did hear from local residents on the subject of loosening rules for keeping fowl on 1/4 acre lots. 

Currently the county considers two and a half acres suitable for raising poultry.

According to minutes from the Brevard County website:

"Toby Napier requested approval of backyard poultry, excluding roosters, on residential lots having a minimum of .20 acre in un-incorporated residential neighborhoods, and a preliminary number of poultry to be allowed would be two fowl per .10 acre of property.  

The following individuals spoke in favor of backyard poultry:  Penny Norrie, Margaret Goydelod, Susanne Richmond, and Andy Schneider.

The Board directed staff to come back with a report on what is occurring in various communities around the area, and to have discussions with different organizations that could be affected relating to raising poultry on non-agricultural property."

So, we shall see. 

But, given, some municipalities and homeowners' associations once thought they might dictate how homeowners could do laundry, intent on banning unsightly clothes lines (O, how delicate their sensibilities). Florida answered in 2009 with 'right to dry' legislation, passing a law forbidding any ban on this basic solar energy right.

Given mounting food inflation pressures, backyard eggs might start looking mighty attractive to families, especially those with children and it could be los pollos ninas might win this round. Go Brigitte.

'If the trucks stopped delivering tomorrow,' Poole said, 'and you decided that was the time to start gardening, you can count yourself about two years behind where you should be.  I encourage people to do small things whilst they can and learn a little as they go. Two hens and a couple of raised garden beds is a great start, and requires very little time.'

------------------------------------------- 30 ---------------------------------------------------

More information:

Check out spacecoast.craigslist for Mr. Poole's occasional chicken cook builds.

Poole's Backyard Urban Farm Report for Coastal Florida on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQcub113f_A&context=C4a2126aADvjVQa1PpcFPibRD9ZuyOjuGnW0vzH2RxxOzcyiY5MBU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAMvvhoG5Mc&context=C452116cADvjVQa1PpcFPibRD9ZuyOjoumvjln0hiK2Dh0wz_F304=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8U_oN7fqy0&context=C4f62c0aADvjVQa1PpcFPibRD9ZuyOjojWoC6h0FZ4ML8ZqmSKmao=

Food, Inc. movie trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQVll-MP3I

 

bee. photo (c) Lauen McFaul

Diana Salopek, sprouting house

Rockledge, FL -- USDA plant hardiness zone 9 (sometimes called Zone 9a, as well). Here's a quick run-down on the basics of a water-sparing hydropinic drip system.
This system uses pumps to drive nutrients -- liquid fertilizer -- through a tubing system, and can be adapted for gardening in summer heat by installing shade cloth over the arched bows above the plants.

The system is also suited to survive occasional high winds as well, owner Theresa Riley said.

Hydroponics for Brevard farmer's markets

It's good to start small, said Theresa Riley, owner, with husband Kevin, of Rockledge Gardens, the largest plant nursery and garden center in Brevard County.

Theresa Riley, owner of Rockledge Gardens

She should know. Riley is the daughter of Rockledge Gardens founders Mary and Harry Witte, and one of six children who have run the family business since 1960 at the location on U.S. Highway 1, three miles south of S.R. 520. Her father Harry started out in 1948 with a road-side vegetable stand near St. Augustine run on the honor system, and now Riley is bringing the family business into the future with hydroponics.

'Our goal is to produce enough fresh vegetables to stock a farm market here at Rockledge Gardens,' Riley notes on her website. 'We will use natural methods for growing this food, with no harmful pesticides or chemicals. It's a very clean and efficient method of farming.'

Riley offered advice to backyard gardeners during a recent interview at Rockledge Gardens' new hydroponic facility adjacent to the nursery.

'Florida soil, particularly in Brevard County tends to be poor,' Riley said, 'It needs amendments -- organic matter -- to improve it.' As a backyard gardener, 'You don't want to get overwhelmed, you don't want to get discouraged.' Homeowners do not need to plant long rows of crops, said Riley. 'It is better to start with a raised bed garden, where you have full control' over the soil and fertilizer.

More information:

Rockledge Gardens:
http://www.rockledgegardens.com/

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockledge-Gardens/138636936167730

 

Urban Gardening

These days more Brevard residents seem to be out working the back 40 -- the back 40 square feet, that is. Urban vegetable garden projects are sprouting up all over, ranging in size from window box herb planters to lawn-sized crop production areas.

'I think people are coocooning more,' said Merrideth Compton, who grows greens and vegetables at her digs in Cocoa Village. 'I think it's about feeling good, about improving your own space,' Compton said, 'Growing vegetables costs a whole lot less and is also rewarding at the same time.' Originally from the Northeast, Compton remembers gardening with her Grandmother as a child. She's come full circle. The garden '...did help sustain us. And I think it skips a generation. Not only do I grow vegetables, I'm starting to think the way my Grandmother did, I now cook the way my Grandmother did.'

Horticulture Agent Sally Scalera, a Homeowner education specialist with Brevard County Extension Service notes public interest in edible plants has grown steadily in the last two years. 'Right now, our "Be Healty, Grow your own Vegetables" course is the most popular, and has been for a while now. I don't see that changing,' Scalera said in a telephone interview from the Extension Service office in Cocoa. 'For the last few years now, people have been willing to pay $5 or $10 for a course like that, but not so much for courses on general landscaping,' Scalera said.

Along with the health aspect, Scalera said many people who participate in Extension Service classes also voice concern over fresh produce prices as a big part of their motivation to grow their own. The Extension Service is part of a cooperative with the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, as well as various other state colleges and federal agencies. The aim is to provide cutting edge information and expertise to the public. The service offers dozens of low-cost classes per year at various locations around the state, and announced on the Extension Service website. Next class up is canning and preserving food, which Scalera said is every bit as popular as the food growing classes.

Farmers markets have taken root in the community as well, Scalera points out. 'All vendors at Brevard Farmers markets (that the Extension Service sponsors) have to grow or produce at least 50 percent of what they sell,' Scalera said. 'Plus, people get the meet the people who are growing their food.'

Emerging agricultural technologies can make small areas such as the average urban 1/4 acre more productive than ever before. The trend is up, not out.

As the official Farmer for Rockledge Gardens' new hydroponic vegetable production area, Diana Salopek maintains such a high-tech garden. On a recent sunny morning she was performing routine maintenance on the nutrient-laden irrigation system which feeds herbs and vegetables in the facility's Vertigrow system.

'The plant root in various combinations of growing medium,' Salopek said, flushing the drip irrigation lines in an open-sided pump house which ticks away like a heartbeat, forcing liquid fertilizers through a network of pipes and small hoses to deliver measured amounts of nutrients to a series of buckets, each filled with a plant or two. Rockledge Gardens began experimenting with the new system last January, and their hydroponic farm is located adjacent to the main facility on U.S. 1, three miles south of S.R. 520.

'The lines need to be flushed at intervals to prevent mineral build-up in the lines from the liquid nutrients,' Salopek said. Its called a soil-less system because the growing medium -- a combination of volcanic Pearlite chips, vermiculite and coconut coir doesn't break down the way organic soil does, but is sterile and reuseable. 'It just holds the plant roots in place,' Salopek said, while liquid plant food drips over them several times a day. Salopek has grown herbs and vegetables in North Carolina and run a couple of farmer’s market before coming to the facility.

The highly-efficient system uses less than half the water and land required for conventional farming for comparable yield. 'We're on city water here, so that's important,' said Rockledge Gardens owner Theresa Riley. The produce is certified organic. 'We use biological pest control here,' Riley said, which combines beneficial insects and organisms to control pests and plant ailments, along with horticultural oils. 'The standard (for certified organic) is that you can harvest the same day that you spray, and the sprays are safe for workers to breathe.

Rockledge Gardens opened a weekend farmers market about three weeks ago as a service to their nursery customers, Riley said.
'It is price, 'but more and more people are asking questions about their food,' she said, such as, "Where did this come from, Is it safe?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

More info:

Brevard County Master Gardners
http://brevard.ifas.ufl.edu/Horticulture/master_gardener.shtml

Brevard County Master Gardeners on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brevard-County-Master-Gardeners/140598649291979?ref=sgm

University of Florida/ Extension Service Solutions For Your Life classes:
http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/families_and_consumers/

Rockledge Gardens:
http://www.rockledgegardens.com/