Planet Veggie Garden

It’s Veterens Day in the United States - a day to honor veterans.
I’d like to mention a few small-scale farm programs that are working with veterans.
Nadia McCaffrey is the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. She recognized that many folks returning from Iraq and Afganistan were struggling. In 2007 she created Veterans’ Village. [...]

It’s Fall and that means all around the San Francisco Bay Area, figs are ripening on backyard trees everywhere.
While we don’t have a fig tree in our own yard, our generous neighbors have four huge fig trees (one green Calmyrna and three purple Black Mission) - they let us help ourselves every year. This is [...]

Will Allen, former pro basketball player and Fortune 500 marketing exec bought a 2 acre roadside farm in an economically depressed area of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1993.
Since then his organization - Growing Power - has produced $500,000 of affordable fresh produce, meat and fish in an area characterized as a “food desert”. “Food desert” is [...]

Slow Food Nation ‘08 San Francisco City Hall

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A beautiful sunny day, we arrived via BART for the first day of the Slow Food Nation ‘08 Celebration to tour the Victory Gardens in front of San Francisco City Hall.

Surreal View of City Hall Through the Victory Garden

 
It seemed almost surreal to see what was once a [...]

Slow Food Nation ’08 is coming to town this weekend – August 29th to September 1st. Just what is Slow Food? (from slowfoodusa.org):
Slow Food USA is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to supporting and celebrating the food traditions of North America through programs and activities dedicated to Taste Education, Defending Biodiversity and Building [...]

…on every roof.

I was on a walk the other day and spied this garden tucked away on a garage roof.
Some folks don’t have space in their yard or even have a yard. As they say, where there is a will there is a way.
If you are considering a roof garden - be sure the roof [...]

We’re in a Victory Garden revival period.
It’s commonly believed the Victory Garden movement started during World War II… and it did… under that title.
It’s predecessor was the War Garden which started during World War I.
The intentions were similar… have the population produce most of the food they need to free up large [...]

Gardening can be expensive… and it can be inexpensive.
Craigslist is a rather interesting resource.
It started out many years ago as a type of bulletin board for San Francisco area folks. Initially it was mostly about events/places/things to do. It expanded from there to a huge classifieds type site. Real estate for rent and for [...]

War on this, War on that.
The word has been adapted into our culture… and perhaps, overused.
I believe the first adaptation of “War” was by the Johnson administration in the mid 1960’s - War on Poverty. Part of Johnson’s “Great Society”.
Seems a bit ironic since war is by nature destructive. I suppose this presumes destruction precedes [...]

San Francisco City Hall planted it’s Victory Garden over the weekend.
A few weeks ago there was a sprawling lawn in front of City Hall. That was dug up (the sod was given away) and transformed into garden beds.
The beds were planted over the weekend. Harvest is scheduled for Labor Day.
Not your typical City [...]