Food

Back in the woods off N.C. 49, the winding blacktop ends beside a greenhouse. Thomas Gentry, a UNC Charlotte architecture professor, is watering tomatoes on a humid July afternoon. A man in a work truck creeps along the gravel drive. “The power back on?” he asks, pulling next to the greenhouse. Gentry nods. “Good.” It’s […]

Is “urban agriculture” possible in a city like Charlotte? Can backyard chickens and rooftop gardens solve urban hunger? The public will get a chance to consider those questions – and sip martinis crafted from local ingredients – at the June 13 KEEPING WATCH Clean Martini Screens. The event, free and open to the public, will […]

Where there once were weeds, there is now a farm field, planted in potatoes, broccoli and greens. Where there once was a defunct greenhouse, there are now floating trays bursting with lettuce, fed by water circulating through a tank of tilapia. A year has passed since Friendship Gardens’ Henry Owen and his team of enthusiastic […]

Whether you want to look up data or understand an issue or trend affecting the Charlotte region, the online resources of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute are available to help you. There are also many other programs on campus that work with local groups. The institute offers articles and data on a range of issues […]

Just northeast of uptown Charlotte in the Tryon Hills neighborhood, in a previously abandoned and cluttered warehouse, is Lila’s Garden. There is graffiti on the entrance, but once you step inside, you are met with a garden that appears to be from the future. Rows of leafy greens and microgreens are bathed in purple light […]

A group of local brewers and beer lovers is working with the city’s planning department to make Charlotte a more beer-friendly city in an unusual way: zoning amendments. The group held its second meeting at NoDa Brewing Co. last week, continuing a process craft brewers hope will adjust the city’s zoning ordinance, which currently restricts […]

Since 1993 the City of Charlotte has tallied information about some (and in later years all) city neighborhoods, in its regular Quality of Life reports. But this year major changes are afoot for the project, which opened its online doors to the public on Monday. The report now covers all of Mecklenburg County, and it’s […]

Just west of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River, a start-up farm and food council is emerging with a vision to fill small farmers’ wallets with money and the Charlotte region’s plates with local food. The collection of farmers, elected officials, health professionals and educators held its official inaugural meeting last week at Stanly Community College. But […]

Members of the Farm and Food Council for Anson, Montgomery and Stanly counties: Anson County Farmer: Gary Sikes, heritage turkey farmer, Bountiful Harvest Farm. Government: Charles Dunevant, resource conservationist. Public Health/Medical: To be determined. Education: Stuart Wasilowski, vice president, South Piedmont Community College. Interested citizen: Martha Parker, retired nurse, farmer. Montgomery County Farmer: Donny Epps, […]

When Allen Nelson moved to Charlotte’s Commonwealth-Morningside neighborhood in 2007, he was drawn to the area’s bungalow-style homes, the graceful, mature shade trees and the tucked-away location so close to downtown. But in Nelson’s view, Commonwealth has some of the same problems of many Charlotte neighborhoods – overflowing trash bins, energy-leaking older homes, a scattershot […]