Sign the petition from Eat the View to replace part of the White Lawn with an organic veggie garden… really fresh Arugula and more.

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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 a label applied to inner city areas that don’t have access to grocery stores and fresh produce.

Along the way he’s brought health and food appreciate to low income folks and has trained a couple thousand neighborhood volunteers.

Mr. Allen was just granted a “Genius Award” by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

His dream: to create a five story, off-the-grid eco-system.
He’ll grow food and raise animals. He’s working on turning food waste into fertilizer and methane gas, then using the methane as a power source.

This sounds similar to the “vertical farm” concept discussed in this post.

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While the motivation to DIY these days may be the increasing cost of food or a desire to decrease one’s carbon footprint, as most longer term gardeners like Candace Simpson featured in the video will tell you… it’s a bit of an addicting hobby.

There’s the tantalizing taste and fabulous freshness of veggies picked at perfection, handled with care and enjoyed soon after. Grocery store produce just doesn’t come anywhere near it.

There’s the challenge and joy of being a producer, a cultivator.

And there’s the opportunity to develop a whole new relationship and appreciation for food.

It doesn’t have to be a 5,000 square foot plot. You don’t need to grow everything you eat. It doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. Start with a salad in a box. Easy, inexpensive, repeatable, delicious.

What motivates you?

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Here is an inexpensive way to do it with a free banana box from the grocery store, half of a $6 sack of potting soil and a $2 packet of seeds. Or, as I usually do, let a head or 2 of lettuce go to seed and save the seeds for future plantings – you will get hundreds of seeds from one plant.

Ingredients for Salad

Find a spot in your garden that gets a fair amount of sun – at least 3 or 4 hours minimum. Lettuce likes cool to warm temperatures – like most people. Too hot and they will not only wilt but become bitter – which some people actually enjoy. If it does get too hot you can set up some shade. We usually hang up some sheets or use a small patio umbrella. Shade cloth from the garden center is also a good choice.

To prepare the box, put the bottom of the box into the top so you have a double layer container as shown above. The box usually comes with a thick paper lining the bottom. You can add a thick layer of newspaper too. I like to keep the plastic bag that comes with the box as well to line the box before adding the soil. Make sure the bag has holes in it for drainage.

Fill the box between 2/3 and 3/4 full of good potting soil – we use American Soil Local Hero; Orchard Supply Hardware Brand has also been recommended. I like to spray on some water at this point.

Sprinkle in about 1/4 of a packet of lettuce seeds. Try to spread them out as evenly as possible. Cover the seeds with a 1/4 inch of soil and gently water again. Water a bit, then wait for the water to soak in and water again. Do this 3 or 4 times to be sure the soil is wet throughout.

Make sure you gently spray on the water so as to not disturb the soil and the seeds.

It’s important to keep the soil moist at all times. Once the seeds sprout, if they dry out at all then they will die and, well, no salad.

Always keep your lettuces well watered – morning is best so that the leaves have a chance to dry to avoid mildew.

Once the lettuces have grown a few inches tall you can thin using scissors to trim the plants for your first salad. If you want to have some head lettuce, space the lettuce 8-10″ inches apart on all sides. To extend the harvest, you can just cut off the outer leaves instead of the whole head. After awhile you will notice the center of the leaves pushing up – this is the plant wanting to flower – you can cut off the whole head at this point or leave it to flower and save the seeds for future plantings.

For a continuous supply of salad greens start another box every 3 weeks or so.

You can follow the same method for spinach as well but instead of covering with a 1/4″ of soil cover with a 1/2″. We really like the crinkly Bloomsdale variety for it’s texture, flavor and ability to with stand hot weather a bit better than it’s flat leaf cousin.

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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 neatly manicured lawn now planted with such a variety of summer vegetables.

But once I realized this was all real I reveled in the abundance of food this garden was producing

Field of Chard in Front of San Francisco City Hall

 

Victory Garden Broccoli

Companion Gardening – Three Sisters: Summer Squash, Corn and Pole Beans

There was the classic example of companion gardening used by the American Indians called the ‘Three Sisters.’

Here the summer squash shades the ground for the corn to grow without competition from the weeds; the corn is the ‘pole’ for the green beans and the beans add nitrogen to the soil to feed the summer squash and the corn.

What a great collaborative effort in the name of survival – we can all learn from that even if we don’t eat our veggies.

Bricks made of worm castings to be added to your garden

There was also a compost demonstration area along with a section on worm composting. They had made some bricks out of worm castings that they plan to give away on Sunday. Other freebies included seeds from Ecology Action and the Food Network.

To round out the Slow Food Nation celebration – on one side of the Victory Garden, there were stands from a number of local sustainable farms showcasing one example of their many summer crops. Most of these farms attend many of the Farmer’s Markets that happen through out the week in cities around the Bay Area.

On the other side of the gardens were food stands selling hand crafted foods – most local and some from other parts of the US.

The Topsy Turvey Bus

All in all it was a great afternoon – educational and full of inspiration. In this topsy turvey world of food choices (what the heck should I eat?) and questions of food safety, there’s hope some will walk away with the desire to plant a few seeds.

After all, what’s healthier than home grown veggies? …and you’ll certainly know the source. So grab your worm casting brick, your packets of seeds and hop on the bus!

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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 and the building below is structurally able to handle the extra weight.

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Growing your own food, not quite so easy.
You have to plan well in advance as to timing, variety and quantity.

For the most part, the grocery store (and farmer’s markets) are always a back stop. One you’re likely to rely on less and less as you get into the rhythm of gardening.

While for sure you can spend less cash on food by growing your own, there’s really far more to it.

Gardening is part:
-> Skill which you continually improve over time – such as developing your soil, choosing the optimal varieties for your area, choosing the best location for specific varieties within your garden and getting plants in the ground during the best window of time.
-> Art – developing a relationship with the circle of (plant) life, developing an intuition/”sixth sense” about your soil and plants, developing a rhythm that includes your garden as part of your life.
-> Chance – such as the weather.

Food is a very basic need. More basic than procreation.
Before the advent of grocery stores, we were much closer to our food source… dependent on our ability to grow it or trade for it, and much less so – buy it.

Some would argue perhaps we were too dependent. They might cite the “Potato Famine” in Ireland and the “Dust Bowl” years in the 1930’s as well as droughts and floods that somewhat regularly occur throughout the world.

They might argue that “industrialized” food is more economically diversified allowing us to survive individual supply disruptions.
I can’t truly counter-argue that point. But I can counter question:
At what cost?

Some of the costs of industrialized food are:
• A dramatic decrease in varieties of food… monoculture farming. Different varieties adapted to different growing conditions. Just as skin has adapted to sun exposure such that cultures that live in continents with a lot of sun have darker – more sun tolerant – complexion.
• The extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers… and the resulting impact on the environment and our health.
• The carbon and landfill costs of packaging.
• The carbon costs of transporting food from factory farm to processing plant to packaging plant to distribution center to grocery store to your kitchen.
• The food safety aspect of processing and packaging food… can’t get through a year without multiple e coli and salmonella outbreaks.

There’s a lot of costs of industrialized food that aren’t measured by your bill at the checkout counter.

And there’s a lot of savings in growing your own food that aren’t measured by a decreased grocery bill.
Eating fresh, sustainably grown food taste way better and it’s way better for you health wise.
Getting out in the garden for a little physical activity is also better for your body and your mind.

Isn’t it time to swing the pendulum in the other direction?

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The program was rolled out and in the span of two years, 20 million Victory Gardens were created in front and back yards, public parks and City Hall lands across the nation.

The result: an astounding 41% of the countries food was produced by individuals who grew a garden “for defense”.

It was a different form of “patriotism”. Rather than “sacrificing”, it was about cultivating. Rather than destruction, it was about production.

People were given a reason to grow a garden – “help your country, support the War effort”. But instead of having to give something up, they actually got something – good food at a lower cost.

Over time, lawns became a symbol of the good life… vegetable seeds yielded to grass seed.
Far fewer of us “learned” gardening as kids. And we grew up and haven’t taught our children to garden.
Many of us haven’t learned to cook either.

We’ve become further and further separated from the circle of food.

But that’s changing.

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One Senator – in a highly emotional state – demanded to know what we could do RIGHT NOW to bring down the cost of oil significantly. NOW.

Coincidently, I caught about 10 minutes of a radio segment on energy. The guest was some University Professor. He referred to the 1970’s When President Jimmy Carter appeared in a sweater and proposed a list of energy conservation and development measures.

This included decreasing to zero importing oil from the Middle East.

We had gone through an “oil crisis”, but things had settled down and – relatively speaking – oil was cheap.

People looked at his plan as overboard and unnecessary… and they went back to sleep.

The Professor basically said… Carter’s plan was what we needed to not be where we are today.

There is no NOW solution.
The choices we make today create the cumulative results we’ll experience in 5, 10, 20 years.

Growing your own food means you’ll:

• eat better… higher quality food, fresher food
• eat more diversely… a broader array of vitamins, minerals, nutrients
• reduce your personal gas use… fewer trips to grocery stores
• reduce fuel used to transport food to the store
• reduce pesticide and fertilizer use… harmful to humans, animals and the environment
• get some natural Vitamin D (sunshine)
• get some exercise

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The beds were planted over the weekend. Harvest is scheduled for Labor Day.

Not your typical City Hall thing to do. But this exercise is somewhat reminiscent of “Victory Gardens” which the government encouraged citizens to do during World War I & II… out of necessity.

Necessity is truly here again.
Food costs have been inflating dramatically. More people now cannot afford to eat nutritionally.

And there’s the food security issue… how many tainted food outbreaks have occurred over the past year?

And, we have global warming/climate challenge. On average, your food has traveled 1,500 miles to your plate… a not insignificant carbon footprint.
17% of our petroleum consumption is spent on farm food production and food processing, packaging, transportation and refrigeration. What you grow and harvest to eat decreases food related petroleum use.

The San Francisco Victory Garden Project is a public example and encouragement to reconsider our habits as well as our relationship with food.

City Slicker Farms is a co-creator of this project.
City Slicker Farms started in 2001 and is active in West Oakland (across the Bay from San Francisco).

Their goal is for 40% of West Oakland’s veggies and fruits to be grown in West Oakland through backyard gardens, community gardens and any plot of land they can put into production.
Noble goal.

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