Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

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Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 4,644 ratings · 948 reviews

Urban and rural collide in this wry, inspiring memoir of a woman who turned a vacant lot in downtown Oakland into a thriving farm

Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating h...more
Urban and rural collide in this wry, inspiring memoir of a woman who turned a vacant lot in downtown Oakland into a thriving farm

Novella Carpenter loves cities-the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can't shake the fact that she is the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents' disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Carpenter decided that it might be possible to have it both ways: a homegrown vegetable plot as well as museums, bars, concerts, and a twenty-four-hour convenience mart mere minutes away. Especially when she moved to a ramshackle house in inner city Oakland and discovered a weed-choked, garbage-strewn abandoned lot next door. She closed her eyes and pictured heirloom tomatoes, a beehive, and a chicken coop.

What started out as a few egg-laying chickens led to turkeys, geese, and ducks. Soon, some rabbits joined the fun, then two three-hundred-pound pigs. And no, these charming and eccentric animals weren't pets; she was a farmer, not a zookeeper. Novella was raising these animals for dinner. Novella Carpenter's corner of downtown Oakland is populated by unforgettable characters. Lana (anal spelled backward, she reminds us) runs a speakeasy across the street and refuses to hurt even a fly, let alone condone raising turkeys for Thanksgiving. Bobby, the homeless man who collects cars and car parts just outside the farm, is an invaluable neighborhood concierge. The turkeys, Harold and Maude, tend to escape on a daily basis to cavort with the prostitutes hanging around just off the highway nearby. Every day on this strange and beautiful farm, urban meets rural in the most surprising ways.

For anyone who has ever grown herbs on their windowsill, tomatoes on their fire escape, or obsessed over the offerings at the local farmers' market, Carpenter's story will capture your heart. And if you've ever considered leaving it all behind to become a farmer outside the city limits, or looked at the abandoned lot next door with a gleam in your eye, consider this both a cautionary tale and a full-throated call to action. Farm City is an unforgettably charming memoir, full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmers' tips, and a great deal of heart. It is also a moving meditation on urban life versus the natural world and what we have given up to live the way we do.

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published June 11th 2009 by Penguin Press HC, The (first published 2009)

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Lists with This Book

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Locavore Reading List

4th out of 50 books — 155 voters

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

Down on the Farm

3rd out of 68 books — 118 voters

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May 06, 2010 Adele Stratton rated it 2 of 5 stars

(Audioversion) (Two and a half stars.) The story, which apparently sprang from her blog about how she moved to inner-city Oakland California and began growing her own food—moving quickly from fruits and vegetables, to bees, to meat-birds and rabbits, and finally to raising pigs—by squatting on a vacant inner-city lot, next to an apartment she rents. I had some mixed feelings about this one. The book is engaging, and there is a part of Carpenter that seems to have honorable intentions and a good...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Kara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food-politics, growing

I had fair warning: the sections of this book are named turkey, rabbit, and pig.

Still, I was willing to read about the killing and eating of animals because of the good things I'd heard.

The book is as much about living in the down-and-out part of Oakland and general D.I.Y. as much as urban farming. Carpenter's sense of humor is on target for the first half of the book, as is the charm in her descriptions of her neighbors, her farming projects, and even of the animals she keeps. She begins with v...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Ticklish Owl rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, memoir, urban, non-fiction

When my dentist recommended this book, I was delighted. It sounded like a fun and educational read, with a perspective different from my own. My family had a large (urban) garden when I was a kid. My gran and auntie had enormous gardens too, and they shared the harvest with us. We cellared, canned, and froze a good portion of our food. Being a silly kid, I thought everyone did this. Imagine my embarrassment when the neighbor's kids explained that mashed potatoes came from a box of flakes bought...more When my dentist recommended this book, I was delighted. It sounded like a fun and educational read, with a perspective different from my own. My family had a large (urban) garden when I was a kid. My gran and auntie had enormous gardens too, and they shared the harvest with us. We cellared, canned, and froze a good portion of our food. Being a silly kid, I thought everyone did this. Imagine my embarrassment when the neighbor's kids explained that mashed potatoes came from a box of flakes bought at the store!

I started the book with much excitement, accompanied by a snack, because I get peckish when I read about food. I did like the first quarter of the book, which is rather quaint and charming. Once the food animals became the main focus, the tone of the book took a dive. It soon became apparent that Carpenter's acceptance of anyone different from herself is limited and small minded. They are not her people; therefore, they are not worthy of her time or respect. Carpenter tries to be edgy and tough, waving her I'm a freak flag, but it all feels contrived.

Carpenter's farming techniques seem haphazard, and careless at times, as evidenced by the loss of several of her animals to urban wildlife. I was really puzzled by her care of the bees.

Not so sweet smelling is the quagmire of dead bees piled up outside the hive at the end of a season. It looked as if my undertaker bees just tossed the dead over the edge of the hive. Since it was on a deck in the middle of a city, the corpses didn’t gently rot into the soil or get blown away by the wind. They simply rotted on the hot roof—and the resultant reek was piercing.

Why didn't she sweep them up before they started stinking? All those rotting bees would invite disease into the hive and could have resulted in its demise, or maybe the bees were sick of the stench and decided to move.

Carpenter's message about farming and eating animals didn't ring true by the end of the book.

I had finally figured out who I was, who my people were: they were folks who love and respect animals, who learn from them, draw sustenance from them directly.

I knew that wherever I went I would continue to grow my own food, raise animals, love and nurture life in places people thought were dead.

She smashed slugs with gleeful abandon. She beat and hacked apart an opossum with a shovel, giving no thought to the traumatic and painful death it was suffering. She dumped the opossum's carcass in the garbage with the other trash, but she buried her animals who were killed by the opossum. Later, she even uses this act to assure herself that she is tough.

I had killed an opossum with a shovel and axed a turkey with my bare hands—did he understand what kind of crazy bitch he was dealing with?

I guess Carpenter's kind of compassion and respect excludes animals that won't become tasty gourmet food.(less)

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Nov 12, 2011 Tamara Taylor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, favorites, read-in-2011

I absolutely loved this book. The paralells between Novella's backyard city farm and my own rural spread are uncanny. Both of us are running a veritable shit show where things go wrong, animals are cavorting along public roadways, animals die...and yet neither of us can imagine a life doing anything else. Novella is my kind of gal. She's ballsy, hilarious, adventurous and kind. The people she encounters through her adventure are so genuinely bizarre. I adore her homeless "neighbour" Bobby and fe...more

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Mar 14, 2009 Erica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: farming-gardening

This is the best memoir of urban farming I have ever read.

Novella relays her joys and hardships of farming in Oakland with enthusiasm, intelligence, candor and humor. Aside from growing vegetables and fruit, she merrily upgrades her stock from chickens and turkeys to rabbits finally ending at pigs.

I laughed so hard at the image of hauling pigs in the back of a station wagon! I'm thinking of making hubby Tal read it so he can realize that just chickens aren't so bad in comparison.

Farm City is...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars

My fiance's been reading a lot about permaculture and urban farming lately, and while I appreciate the idea of self grown organic produce, I haven't been too motivated to read into it myself. But he insisted I read Farm City, Carpenter's account of squat gardening and raising livestock in inner city Oakland, and I'm so glad he did. She explains how she grew vegetables and fruit trees, as well as raised turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits and even pigs over the course of several years. At on...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Suzan Bond rated it 4 of 5 stars

As I've worked to improve my diet through fresher food I've learned that the quality of the food matters as much as the way you prepare it. I've also become obsessed with memoirs about people who took it a step further to make their own food. This book was extremely interesting to me as a city dweller because it was written by a woman who decided to create a farm in the city. While she grows vegetables her focus is more on animals. The book has an interesting structure as she describes her evolu...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Cheri Varvil rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book got better as I got farther into it until most of the story began to center on the raising of animals for food. The author seemed a bit naive and awestruck about what she was doing, and had a rather narrow definition of farming as needing to include the raising of animals for food. Also, as a person who does not consume any animal products for ethical reasons, this book was hard for me to read. Ms. Carpenter has a different view than mine, and her vivid descriptions of killing the anim...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Jenn rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this book -- the author's voice and personality shine through her writing very clearly. She seemed like a snotty, self-important, shrill and unbalanced person. I kept reading, hoping that the author would undergo some transformation that would redeem her, and thinking that perhaps she wasn't as self centered as she made herself sound -- but when it got to the section about how demanding and rude she was to the woman who butchered her pigs -- I realized: the author is just...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Trice marked it as to-read

Shelves: americas, memoir-biography, outside

I've been looking at a bunch of these 'I was a city person dreaming of going back to the earth' type memoirs and it just struck me as I added this to my 'to read' shelf and decided what other shelves to add it to, that this is definitely a memoir of the US (and possibly (my knowledge base not being wide enough to say 'definitely') the rest of the so-called developed world). I will fully admit to my ignorance (and, if it's a really honest day, my laziness) with regard to raising my own veggies an...more I've been looking at a bunch of these 'I was a city person dreaming of going back to the earth' type memoirs and it just struck me as I added this to my 'to read' shelf and decided what other shelves to add it to, that this is definitely a memoir of the US (and possibly (my knowledge base not being wide enough to say 'definitely') the rest of the so-called developed world). I will fully admit to my ignorance (and, if it's a really honest day, my laziness) with regard to raising my own veggies and/or animals for food. This is in spite of my dad growing up on a farm, doing his undergrad around the field of agriculture, and indeed, still working, if at a few steps removed, with farmers (I'm sorry, Dad!); oh, and a couple of family gardens over the years, the first when my dad still had a home office and my mom was only teaching part time, and the second when my brother and I were older and it was thought (by us too) that we would use summer time to take care of the weeding, harvesting, etc. Well, all this to say, yes, I too am ignorant while also at times flooded with that desire to raise my own fresh, nutritious, delicious food.

At present I live in a (to me) big city (5-7million people) in China, considered to be a developing nation. I'm spoiled even as a non-grower because where I live there are always vegetables of many varieties to purchase at amazingly reasonable prices (especially compared to US prices, but even when considered within the Chinese economy). But, too, there are many people who have balconies full of plants, some decorative, but also often for food or health; people who make a habit of forage; and, yes, people who raise various kinds of fowl in spaces available (one of my neighbors keeps chickens in their shed downstairs). I had a high school student whose parents had very good government jobs with excellent salaries (just to illustrate that this crosses income brackets) whose family grew potatoes and tomatoes in the yard outside their new apartment.

At the same time, even in some smaller towns in the US, local authorities are outlawing even the raising of chickens on people's home properties, let alone bigger animals. I'm wondering if this will change as the organic/local movement grows even bigger and the number of people wanting to raise at least part of their food grows - the number of friends and acquaintances I've 'heard' talking about starting up this kind of thing has certainly jumped in the last couple years, so I'm guessing there will be change, but then again, the atmosphere in the US, at least with regard to government, seems to be heading in the legislate/regulate everything and anything vaguely related to health. I'm not a 'Down With Government' person by any means, but I have been noticing this trend, and it's become more obvious the longer I've been outside of the US. And when it comes to positive efforts like people growing their own food, I find it more than troublesome, but, rather, troubling.

Lots of thoughts, not-so-random, on the general topic anyway; and I hope to have a chance to pick up this book sometime soon. :)(less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Jen Wilson rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'll put this disclaimer right up front. I don't have a super urban farm, but I do have chickens and bees. As a kid we had a pig and cooked it for a pig roast. I have experience with basic farming already.

I enjoyed reading her perspectives on farming. The connections and bonds she forms with her livestock definitely hits home. Even though I know my chickens are being raised for eggs and meat, not as pets, there's still an emotional bond that is formed, and when it comes time for slaughter, you c...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We have just added chickens to our backyard and are also former Oakland residents, Novella's book had been on the shelf for a while and I decided to give it a go. I want to find fiction to read; but so far nothing satisfies. More on that later.

Her bibliography rocks and provides much fodder for garden-planning and general food related reading.

I laughed out loud while reading this book, was provoked to tears, and dog-eared several pages. Its been a few weeks now, but I think this means I enjoyed...more We have just added chickens to our backyard and are also former Oakland residents, Novella's book had been on the shelf for a while and I decided to give it a go. I want to find fiction to read; but so far nothing satisfies. More on that later.

Her bibliography rocks and provides much fodder for garden-planning and general food related reading.

I laughed out loud while reading this book, was provoked to tears, and dog-eared several pages. Its been a few weeks now, but I think this means I enjoyed reading it. I would say the author writes in a vein of self-awareness that reminds me just a bit of a more-sincere version of the Portlandia clips I've seen; her particularly West-coast sense of political identity and relation to her rough and tumble new Oakland neighborhood blend well with her upbringing: her hippy back-to-the-garden/romantic European-touring young parents' influence on her life and the life of her sister weaves well with the chronology of her several seasons of urban farming. The book is also much about her family-of-origin relationships, the land she farms and her neighbors, and less so about her boyfriend.

Midway through the book she has a wine-fueled moment of inspiration; she will feed herself entirely from her garden/food animals..! This one I related to, not that I have done the same, but I did try what was for a student, the expensive raw/vegan life in Berkeley. The food I gleaned on walks, as well as the clear-thinking mind of a starved body, is a bit of an extreme experiment and one that is a luxury to choose; but the author handles it well and mines the spiritual gifts of the experience admirably. She writes on the eve of ending her experiment: "I would miss my intimacy with the garden. When I was eating faithfully only from her, I knew all of her secrets. Where the peas were hiding, the best lettuces, the swelling onions." We are indeed overfed and starving all at once!

I want bees of my own something fierce; my romantic heart sings along with hers during her descriptions of her beekeeping trials. I turned green with envy, and also relate to the kitchen-intimacy she chances upon with an area chef; befriended teacher of salumi-secrets and fellow-honorer of her big male pig.

Recommend.(less)

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Apr 19, 2012 Judith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: oakland, food

I really liked this book. In fact, I read it twice. I liked the subject and the style of the book, enjoyed the writing. When it appeared on the reading list for a class I was taking, I looked forward to the read. When I took the class six months later, I read it again, having enjoyed it the first time. I had developed some attitude about the author's attitude the first time I read it, so the second time, I was very mindful about being open to what she said and how she said it - open to liking he...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Alisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Okay. First of all...I think the author is a complete nutcase. If you don't *have* to, why in the world would you always chose to live in the most dangerous parts of any city you move to? When you move to CA, and a friend tells you that 'whatever you do' stay OUT of this certain neighborhood, why would you make a beeline there? And then stay there, even though you are for a long, long time to afraid to step outside your door because of all the drive-by shootings and drug deals happening right on...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

With bemused frankness, Carpenter opens the doors and gates to her urban farm and invites the reader to come in from where her life of raising bees, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, and finally pigs in an abandoned lot in an Oakland ghetto seems crazy and chaotic, to a place where it seems completely normal, and only a little crazy. The first chapters are bumpy, but by the fourth or fifth, Carpenter hits a stride that is the perfect blend of narrative, fact, and insight, without any of...more

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Nov 26, 2011 David Galloway rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: urban-agriculture

Novella Carpenter's Farm City is an endearing look at the author's journey to eat well and live simply. The child of 1970s back-to-the-land hippies, Novella spent her first 10 years on a farm in Idaho until her parents split and rediscovered the joy of growing in college. This book recounts her and her long term boyfriend Bill's efforts to create a small farm in a ghetto neighborhood in Oakland, California. At first she has a large garden and bees, but soon she adds in chickens, ducks, turkeys,...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Francine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Inspiring book for an urban gardener who dabbles in poultry and dreams of farming...like me. The book tells her memoir but doesn't sugar coat. The idea of having a flock of chickens for meat purposes has crossed my mind on more than one occasion. It is easy to see how one becomes enamoured with the idea of self sustained living and being a locavore. I don't see myself being a locavore because in the Pacific Northwest I would not get very much citrus and the lack of sunshine means I need alternat...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Karin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: animal-husbandry, bees, bee-keeping, farmers, farm-animals, farming, urban-farming, gardening, diet-nutrition, dieting, autobiography-memoir, nonfiction, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, turkeys, oakland-california, audio-edition, borrowed-from-the-library

Novella Carpenter moved with her husband to an apartment in a bad part of Oakland, CA. Their home was located next to an empty lot, on which Novella (being the child of two hippie parents) planted her first squat garden (squat, because she was squatting and hadn’t asked the owner, initially, for permission). Once the garden was flourishing, she expanded her farming operations to bees, chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, and even pigs. Some of her neighbors were puzzled or intrigued by her...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Robin rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful, light, often funny read! It has inspired me to plant a bigger and better garden this year, learn more about community gardens in our area and to help support school gardens. I very much enjoyed the book and the author's sense of humor. I have many favorite quotes, but here are just a few. I read off my Sony Reader; hope page numbers correlate.

"That I could borrow a firearm like a cup of sugar sure felt neighborly." P. 81

"Even in this ghetto squat lot, I was cultivating human hi...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Margot rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biographical, food

I have to admit that I'm biased in my review because this book is set 3 miles from where I live. One of the things I really enjoyed about reading this story of urban farming adventures was the forthcoming nature of Carpenter's narrative, sometimes to the point of oversharing. For instance, I would probably not have written a book in such a way that my readers could figure out quite easily where I live (28th at MLK in Oakland, you can see her empty-lot farm on Google streetview!). But this kind o...more I have to admit that I'm biased in my review because this book is set 3 miles from where I live. One of the things I really enjoyed about reading this story of urban farming adventures was the forthcoming nature of Carpenter's narrative, sometimes to the point of oversharing. For instance, I would probably not have written a book in such a way that my readers could figure out quite easily where I live (28th at MLK in Oakland, you can see her empty-lot farm on Google streetview!). But this kind of open, straightforward detail is what makes autobiographical works work. Carpenter shares with us her successes and failures, and gives us not only an entertaining story but also a little bit of how-to education tossed in. For instance, how to butcher and skin a rabbit, how to herd a turkey off of a main street, and who not to hire to slaughter your pigs. And I also really appreciate her masterful management of lengthy narrative tangents, always bringing it back around.

I just got a backyard of my own, and my sister recommended this book since I'm starting to do a bit of gardening. It definitely speaks to the merit of Carpenter's persuasive writing that I was even considering raising bees and chickens after reading this, and that it makes me want to get to know my neighbors better. And I really want to meet and be friends with Novella Carpenter now!

A tiny little bit of the book:
"A few weeks later, when we moved into our new apartment, we discovered that our neighborhood was called GhostTown, for all its long-abandoned businesses, condemned houses, and overgrown lots. The empty lot next to our house was not rare: there was one, sometimes two, on every block. And through the vacant streets rolled GhostTown tumbleweeds: the lots hairpieces of prostitutes. Tumbleweaves."(11)

"Along with most of the other back-to-the-landers, my mom had realized that the remaking of our entire American society might not be possible in her lifetime. That spinning wool or churning butter might be fun for a while, but eventually the conveniences of modern life--grocery stores, clothes driers--seemed pretty wonderful. The possibilities for mockery, in hindsight, are endless. The back-to-the-land movement's failure, as inevitable as the collapse of every other utopia, became a buffet of schadenfreude at which even I had occasionally feasted."(116)(less)

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Jan 07, 2011 Danielle rated it 2 of 5 stars

So, I read this book for the second time to try to give it another chance. I just WANTED to like it so much. The premise is something that is near and dear to my heart as I want to move from a heavy gardener to someone who is very deeply rooted in the farming scene. I grew up in a farming community and now live in the city, so shouldn't this book be right up my alley? The second try has confirmed, I hate this book. Maybe hate is a strong word, but who the hell told Novella to end her chapters wi...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Michael Glaviano rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

What a wonderful book! From the first page, this book charmed me, made me think, made me laugh. It ended too quickly and left me wondering what Novella's and Bill's latest urban farming adventures are.

This is an account of a young couple who move into the upper floor of a Victorian that's been converted into a duplex. The house is in a rough, a very rough, part of Oakland, California. We're talking people shooting up and shooting each other in broad daylight. We're talking Interstate 880 in plai...more

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Oct 24, 2010 Rachelle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm pretty surprised at how highly this book has been rated and how many impressive blurbs (Michael Pollan, NYT Book Review, Oprah) it has received. I picked it up to read as a comp title for a narrative I'm working on now, and I thought about putting it down at least half a dozen times as I made my way through it. It took me at least the first third of the book to become invested, and even then I only stuck with it because I wanted to read it for comparison.

Basically I think Novella tries too...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Ty rated it 3 of 5 stars

I haven't been very good at sleeping lately, so for a while this is what I was reading in the middle of the night when I didn't want to think about anything or have any emotions. It's about a lady in Oakland who has a garden and some bees and chickens and ducks and turkeys and rabbits and pigs. Towards the end I realized she was giving away quite a bit of her eggs and honey and vegetables, and I wondered if maybe I ought to be a more generous person. As soon as I wondered this I fell asleep. Whe...more

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Aug 09, 2010 Lan Yang rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: not-deep-enough

This book definitely makes a compelling read with Carpenter's stories about her childhood, family, and life experiences. Carpenter writes well and I admit I read the entire book in two sittings with an hour break between reads.

While I enjoyed the narrative quality of the book, there were things that I felt could be improved with Carpenter's writing. Carpenter's attitude throughout the book towards "wealthy people who farm as a hobby" was bothersome to me. While I completely agree with her that...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Bob Redmond rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bees, food-and-farms

Why is this book excellent?

First, it's a story worth telling. Carpenter transcends the "personal essay/memoir" genre by focusing on the story, rather than herself as narrator. Daughter of rural hippies lives in the Oakland ghetto and ends up raising bees, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, and a complete garden.

Second, it's excellently written. The egoless approach to memoir is relevant here as well. She focuses on the story and the action, with the perfect amount of context, asides, humor,...more Why is this book excellent?

First, it's a story worth telling. Carpenter transcends the "personal essay/memoir" genre by focusing on the story, rather than herself as narrator. Daughter of rural hippies lives in the Oakland ghetto and ends up raising bees, chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, pigs, and a complete garden.

Second, it's excellently written. The egoless approach to memoir is relevant here as well. She focuses on the story and the action, with the perfect amount of context, asides, humor, secondary characters, pacing. Often it is laugh-out-loud funny. It's not too long. Her observations are carefully made, and incisive. I found it page-turning, in fact: what happens to the turkeys? What about Lana the neighbor? Will the bulldozers come? Will disaster befall the pig project?

Third, it's not disingenuous. It's not a trustfundian tale of slumming. I kept wanting to make this allegation, but always found it groundless. Carpenter walks the talk--she doesn't just live in the ghetto, but participates in life there (once, at gunpoint), and doesn't ignore what it means to be a white girl in the hood. If the Black Panthers can accept this, so can I.

Fourthly, it's timely: Urban Farming is no lark, and Carpenter shows why this is true with a history lesson through-line. Her project is not self-inscribed (as in "I'm going to cook all of Julia Child's recipes in a year!) but much more expansive. In the end, it's not even about Carpenter the author, but this moment in cultural necessity: feeding people, using land wisely, being an ethical carnivore.

In the end, this is a book of transcendence: transcending genre, transcending usual language, transcending point of view, transcending its own cultural moment. This is a book that has impact, and should for some time.

*

WHY I READ THIS BOOK: A conversation with the woman who started Seattle's Pollinator Pathway (www.pollinatorpathway.org) led me to GOOD magazine, which earlier this year published the "Slow" issue. I am interested in Slow, since reading Bill McKibben and generally trying to find a way to slow the unsustainable growth machine of Capitalism. I tracked down that issue (January 2010), and in it read a blurb on Carpenter's book. I had crossed paths with Carpenter when she lived in Seattle and we both spent time in the literary arts circles. I don't think we ever shook hands, but we do have some friends in common. I knew she was in the Bay Area doing something with biodiesel, but didn't know about her successful (understatement! NY Times bestseller-successful!) writing career. As an urban apiarist myself, and a writer, I wanted to be jealous, but the truth is that the book is just too damn good for that. I look forward to reading more of what this onetime-Seattle-ite does next.(less)

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Jun 23, 2010 Anne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, non-fiction

I end up on the "it was OK" rating of two stars mostly because Novella simply rubs me the wrong way. She unfortunately comes off to me as someone with just a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude toward her neighbors and neighborhood, although it's difficult for me to pinpoint just how that attitude gets communicated to me. Many times the scenarios are humorous and the interactions zany in a good way. Yet when she confesses that it took her two years to get up the courage to walk off her dead end s...more

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May 25, 2010 Rosa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book came across my desk at the office and I'm so glad that it did! I burned through this book in a couple of nights. I am absolutely fascinated with Novella's approach to farming. Her writing is quick, witty and personable. I would say that she writes like you are speaking with her over a cup of coffee--except that I don't know if I'm tough enough to roll with her.
In fact, my favorite part of the book is when she has to summon the courage to ask the chef to help her learn how to cure her...more

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May 19, 2010 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book riveted me and intrigued me, even though I wasn't such a fan of its author. Even though she retains a dry, slightly detached perspective on her own life throughout the book, urban farmer Novella Carpenter comes across as kind of smug, especially when ranking on her "trustafarian" friends who yearn to be urban farmers too, despite the fact they have all the money in the world and no need for such a hobby.

To those trustafarians, I say: Farm on! Don't listen to your "friend" Novella. Whet...more This book riveted me and intrigued me, even though I wasn't such a fan of its author. Even though she retains a dry, slightly detached perspective on her own life throughout the book, urban farmer Novella Carpenter comes across as kind of smug, especially when ranking on her "trustafarian" friends who yearn to be urban farmers too, despite the fact they have all the money in the world and no need for such a hobby.

To those trustafarians, I say: Farm on! Don't listen to your "friend" Novella. Whether rich or not, we all need to do our part to make the earth more sustainable, and urban farming is a great way to do that. It makes our food source more localized, brings us closer to our food and the process of producing our food, and builds community. Everyone should urban-farm, from homeless people in Chicago to Bill Gates.

To be fair, Carpenter's negative riff on urban-farming trustafarians encapsulates only one chapter of Farm City, but it was spiteful and unnecessary enough to make me think she might be just a bit holier-than-thou. Or maybe I'm just jealous because I'm not growing a plethora of vegetables and fruits, and raising pigs, rabbits, turkeys for slaughter in an abandoned lot outside my home in the ghetto of Oakland, like she is. Oh, and Carpenter keeps bees too.

For some reason, Carpenter and her boyfriend Bill moved to Oakland years ago, setting up home in one of its most decrepit neighborhoods—which is saying a lot in the Bay Area's not-so-better half. She claims it was their fascination with unorthodox living situations. The cynic in me thinks she had a book idea from day one. Whatever the case, she quickly sets about creating a veritable farm in the middle of the ghetto, doing everything I just described. Her adventures gardening and raising and slaughtering her own meat in the slum are well told, as are the kooky characters that live all around and come to be familiar standbys on the farm. She's a pretty good writer, with a keen understanding of narrative pace and an eye for colorful details. I wish I liked her more, but all in all, I'm inspired by Farm City and I would recommend it. It prompted my girlfriend and me to plan to turn our parking space at our apartment into a little urban farm of its own. We're going to put raised beds in there, put up a little fence and grow some veggies. (less)

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Nov 22, 2009 Becca rated it 4 of 5 stars

Because I have a secret desire to turn my front yard into a vegetable garden, I loved the brazen confidence with which the author tackles becoming an urban farmer - complete with chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and even pigs. I didn't particularly care for the author's writing style (I found it a little bit annoying; I'm still not exactly sure why), but the story was so interesting and informative that it didn't matter. Novella Carpenter's memoir of urban farming in Berkley, California addresses sev...more

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About Novella Carpenter

Novella Carpenter grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She majored in biology and English at the University of Washington in Seattle. While attending Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, she studied under Michael Pollan for two years. Her urban farm began with a few chickens, then some bees, until she had a full-blown farm near downtown Oakland.

Author photo courtesy of author website.

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“I know the pleasure of pulling up root vegetables. They are solvable mysteries.” — 2 people liked it

“No one seemed to think it was odd that a Dumpster-diving urban pig farmer was in their midst. In fact, I came to learn that the restaurant industry was filled with other obsessive freaks like Samin, who would never buy a factory-made pickle. I was just another one of those freaks.” — 2 people liked it

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