The Bus! Sol Food Mobile Farm is a traveling, teaching, mobile garden classroom, that traveled the US in 2012 using waste vegetable oil as fuel.
In this episode, we feature a small, young non-profit in Durham, North Carolina with a focus on environmental sustainability and community development. Sol Food Mobile Farm was created as an experiential, hands-on teaching program based around planting and harvesting garden vegetables.
While so far that may sound a little familiar, this is not your standard garden teaching program… the Sol Food Mobile Farm is well, mobile!
They operate out of a retro-fitted 57-passenger International Blue Bird school bus, and in the summer of 2012 the crew made their first tour around the United States holding workshops that focus on 5 major categories: gardening, nutrition, composting, outdoor living and alternative energies.
Travel plans, maps, workshop dates and logbook for Sol Food Mobile Farm 2012 Bus Tour
We first met up with the young crew of this incredible “mobile farm” while they were still raising funds and retrofitting their mobile classroom, an old school bus.
It was modified to run on waste vegetable oil (WVO) and operate as a tool for traveling and teaching seed-starting and organic vegetable gardening in neighborhoods and communities.
The bus has an on-board greenhouse, living green roof, solar panels, vermicomposting system, and rainwater collection tanks, as well as living quarters built from recycled materials.
Joe and the crew visit the Sol Food Bus before the interior installation is complete.
You’ll see the bus in various stages of completion and we’ll even catch up with them “on tour” as they were doing workshops around the country, inspiring people and communities with the joy of growing your own organic food.
Later in the kitchen, Chef Nathan prepares a Honey-Vanilla Whipped Ricotta with Fresh Berries.
For more information:
- Sol Food Mobile Farm website, 2012 bus route, and blog of their travels
- Sol Food Blog on visiting with our co-exec producer Theresa Loe in L.A.
- Theresa Loe’s Blog on Sol Food Mobile Farm visiting her in L.A.
- Chef Nathan’s recipe for Honey-Vanilla Whipped Ricotta with Fresh Berries.
About GGWTV
Growing A Greener World is a national gardening series on Public Television that features organic gardening, green living and farm to table cooking. Each episode focuses on compelling and inspirational people making a difference through gardening. This gardening series covers everything from edible gardening and sustainable agriculture to seasonal cooking and preserving the harvest.
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Awesome, awesome! I love seeing this happen and hope they will continue this program.
I am fascinated by your creativity of RoofTop gardening which I would like to replicate here in New Delhi.would love to be guided by you young people who love nature so much…
Hello, hoping all is well with all of you and your families. I saw the episode on channel 13 on the Sol Food Mobile Garden, and it was so fascinating. I am a Program Coordinator for a program here in Fort Worth, Texas, and the kids, staff and myself have a community garden that we started about five years ago. I would love to be properly put in touch with the young people who operate the Mobile Garden that they have, and possibly try and get them to make a trip here to help me and the kids here in the program learn more about how to properly garden. And to also possibly give some input on a community garden that my son and I trying to start in our very own community. Thanks so much for all of the wonderfully educational information that you provide through your programming. God Bless!
This is AWESOME….HOPE YOU COME TO. JOHNSON CITY OR KINGSPORT, TN