Gil Friend and David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

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MORRIS: Not much . . . except for bagging the shoots and delivering them to the food stores. That's rather tedious—especially the bagging—and it has to be done in a short period of time. So we make it a group effort and it's sort of a daily social hour for us.

PLOWBOY: Have you developed any new techniques for raising sprouts?

FRIEND: Well, for one thing, we've found that sprout buckets or wash jars—which most people use—are not very efficient or convenient for an operation as big as ours. So we worked out a system which uses bakery racks and trays. A bakery owner gave us some old racks and we made the trays ourselves. The bottoms of the trays are nylon mesh over heavy gauge metal screen . . . which makes it easy to water the sprouts and clean up between crops.

PLOWBOY: It sounds like a great way for someone with a basement to generate some extra income.

FRIEND: You don't necessarily have to have a basement. Sprouts can be raised in any cool, dark place that has a fresh water supply. But let me warn you that this is not an operation you can start and then go away and forget about for a while. Sprouts need frequent attention—only a few minutes at a time, but several times a day—from someone who knows what they're doing. If you neglect them for longer than about twelve hours, the whole crop can be ruined.

PLOWBOY: Since you're making money on this operation, are you going to expand your production?

MORRIS: No, we've done what we set out to do. We've developed a system suitable for use on a neighborhood level . . . and we've published a how-to booklet that can serve as a guide to people who want to set up their own sprout business. So now we're going to turn our operation over to a neighborhood group and let them build it up.

PLOWBOY: Gil, when you first mentioned that basements make good locations for urban gardens, you also said that food can be grown in city backyards and vacant lots. Have you tried doing that?

FRIEND: Yes, we've helped about ten groups grow community gardens—the traditional kind—in vacant lots. Mostly we helped them get tools and furnished whatever know-how they needed. We've also experimented with bio-dynamic/French intensive gardening. That's a method of raising food which is particularly suited for urban areas because it produces two to eight times the yield of traditional gardens with half the water consumption.

PLOWBOY: David, we've talked—so far—only about producing vegetables. But animal protein is a big part of most folk's diet. You certainly can't raise cattle or chickens in the city.

MORRIS: That hasn't always been true—Mrs. O'Leary's cow is a rather unfortunate example—and it won't necessarily be the case in the future. Joel Schatz, the energy advisor to former Oregon Governor Tom McCall, analyzed that state's energy systems and recommended that Oregon's mayors change municipal ordinances to permit the raising of goats and chickens within city limits.

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