Seeds of hope for Istanbul's urban agriculture?
Farm-fresh food for sale in Gümüşdere Looking out across today's concrete-covered expanses, it's hard to imagine that Istanbul was once a city of gardens -- and not all that long ago, either. In Ottoman times, according to researcher Aleksandar Sopov, there were bostan (market gardens) all along the ridge passing through Istanbul's old city, many associated with that area's large mosques, and fed by water from the Valens Aqueduct . As recently as 1900, Istanbul was home to more than 1,200 bostan covering as many as 12 square kilometers. Highly productive and tended with sustainable techniques passed down through generations, many of these gardens continued providing food for the local population until mass urbanization kicked off in the 1960s and 1970s. The Tarlataban garden at Boğaziçi University These days, only a scant few bostan remain in the city. The extensive gardens at the base of the old city walls are under threat from development, as I wro