Nothing is more hot this year than the idea of urban agriculture in it’s many forms. Perhaps due to the economic downturn or maybe just a natural extension of our new found urban ecologic sensibility that includes urban agriculture at the highest levels – there is not shortage of the wonderful and the questionable in the realm of city-based food production.

:: image via The Infrastructurist

The interesting and inevitable direction of any trend is the spawning of products to aid in the adoption of gardening. Some notable ones include the idea of services – such as Seed to Plate (below), or the plethora of land sharing or backyard farming options.

:: image via Treehugger

There are also some tools for simple gardening that made me chuckle, such as the Roll out Vegetable Patch which is a “… corrugated cardboard mat … sowed with four types of vegetable seeds and organic fertilizer all ready to be rolled out – all you need to do is add water and soil.“

:: image via Inhabitat

And for the uber-lazy or totally clueless, why not just get a garden in a box sent via post from Rocket Gardens. Perhaps going to the store and picking up some seed packets is just too difficult for some. I jest (somewhat) – because any method of getting people to garden more – particularly kids, is a good thing. But how about teaching them about it in reality – not just reinforcing commodization of our food items by having them show up in a box.

:: image via Treehugger

This education and adoption leads to such interventions as window boxes which continue gaining ground in dense areas, a number of more refined (but somewhat elegantly simple) solutions pop up as well, such as Earth Boxes. (more here)

:: image via Inside Urban Green

Urban gleaning isn’t a new idea, but seems to have re-emerged as a viable pursuit. As GOOD magazine puts it – food grows on trees, so we may want to take advantage of what’s there in a more formal way. And in a new twist the idea of tapping urban trees for maple syrup – one I haven’t seen before.

:: image via cbcnews

Finally, the idea of seed bombing is both subversive and getting more commercialized – and has also created a number of iterations – such as this great post on ‘Johnny Apple Sandal’ via BLDGBLOG. Also, check out the video by Guerilla Gardening guru Richard Reynolds for mixing up your own verdant morsels via the Guardian.

:: image via ecolocalizer