Contents

The Lewis School Garden
Planting Fruit Trees
Community Growing
A Dream that Healed the Earth
Beauty in the Garden
Certainties
Gardening in the Summer of 2011
A Personal Garden Vision
Gardening for a Purpose
Garden Observations are a Bonus
Gardening with Natural Principles
Community Growing
Hidden Places for Growing
Still Learning as Always
Connecting Gardeners, Community, and Opportunity

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Localization of Agriculture by Lester Brown

Lester Brown is an authority on global land use as it relates to the health of the planet. He knows about solving global warming in a timely manner. I offer his essay on local food production as this is something that most of us can do. I find growing food easy and would be happy to offer more information to any who request info on how to get started. I recently heard of neighbors who planted sun loving vegetables in a yard with sun and greens in a shadier yard. Fruit trees were in another yard. All neighbors involved in sharing this project reaped the harvests. I hope that they also had the satisfaction that working together on a common goal can bring. If you are interested in growing food in your neighborhood, the best book that I know is How to Grow More Vegetables on Less Land Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons.

The Localization of Agriculture

http://www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2009/pb4ch09_ss5

Lester R. Brown

In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers’ markets.

With the fast-growing local foods movement, diets are becoming more locally shaped and more seasonal. In a typical supermarket in an industrial country today it is often difficult to tell what season it is because the store tries to make everything available on a year-round basis. As oil prices rise, this will become less common. In essence, a reduction in the use of oil to transport food over long distances—whether by plane, truck, or ship—will also localize the food economy.

This trend toward localization is reflected in the recent rise in the number of farms in the United States, which may be the reversal of a century-long trend of farm consolidation. Between the agricultural census of 2002 and that of 2007, the number of farms in the United States increased by 4 percent to roughly 2.2 million. The new farms were mostly small, many of them operated by women, whose numbers in farming jumped from 238,000 in 2002 to 306,000 in 2007, a rise of nearly 30 percent.

Many of the new farms cater to local markets. Some produce fresh fruits and vegetables exclusively for farmers’ markets or for their own roadside stands. Others produce specialized products, such as the goat farms that produce milk, cheese, and meat or the farms that grow flowers or wood for fireplaces. Others specialize in organic food. The number of organic farms in the United States jumped from 12,000 in 2002 to 18,200 in 2007, increasing by half in five years.

Gardening was given a big boost in the spring of 2009 when U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama worked with children from a local school to dig up a piece of lawn by the White House to start a vegetable garden. There was a precedent. Eleanor Roosevelt planted a White House victory garden during World War II. Her initiative encouraged millions of victory gardens that eventually grew 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce.

Although it was much easier to expand home gardening during World War II, when the United States was largely a rural society, there is still a huge gardening potential—given that the grass lawns surrounding U.S. residences collectively cover some 18 million acres. Converting even a small share of this to fresh vegetables and fruit trees could make an important contribution to improving nutrition.

Many cities and small towns in the United States and England are creating community gardens that can be used by those who would otherwise not have access to land for gardening. Providing space for community gardens is seen by many local governments as an essential service, like providing playgrounds for children or tennis courts and other sport facilities.

Many market outlets are opening up for local produce. Perhaps the best known of these are the farmers’ markets where local farmers bring their produce for sale. In the United States, the number of these markets increased from 1,755 in 1994 to more than 4,700 in mid-2009, nearly tripling over 15 years. Farmers’ markets reestablish personal ties between producers and consumers that do not exist in the impersonal confines of the supermarket. Many farmers’ markets also now take food stamps, giving low-income consumers access to fresh produce that they might not otherwise be able to afford. With so many trends now boosting interest in these markets, their numbers may grow even faster in the future.

In school gardens, children learn how food is produced, a skill often lacking in urban settings, and they may get their first taste of freshly picked peas or vine-ripened tomatoes. School gardens also provide fresh produce for school lunches. California, a leader in this area, has 6,000 school gardens.

Many schools and universities are now making a point of buying local food because it is fresher, tastier, and more nutritious and it fits into new campus greening programs. Some universities compost kitchen and cafeteria food waste and make the compost available to the farmers who supply them with fresh produce.

Supermarkets are increasingly contracting with local farmers during the season when locally grown produce is available. Upscale restaurants emphasize locally grown food on their menus. In some cases, year-round food markets are evolving that market just locally produced foods, including not only fruit and vegetables but also meat, milk, cheese, eggs, and other farm products.

Food from more distant locations boosts carbon emissions while losing flavor and nutrition. A survey of food consumed in Iowa showed conventional produce traveled on average 1,500 miles, not including food imported from other countries. In contrast, locally grown produce traveled on average 56 miles—a huge difference in fuel investment. And a study in Ontario, Canada, found that 58 imported foods traveled an average of 2,800 miles. Simply put, consumers are worried about food security in a long-distance food economy. This trend has led to a new term: locavore, complementing the better known terms herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.

Concerns about the climate effects of consuming food transported from distant locations has also led Tesco, the leading U.K. supermarket chain, to label products with their carbon footprint—indicating the greenhouse gas contribution of food items from the farm to supermarket shelf. Sweden is a recent pioneer in labeling food with its carbon footprint along with nutritional facts.

As agriculture localizes, livestock production will likely start to shift away from mega-sized cattle, hog, and poultry feeding operations. The shift from factory farm production of milk, meat, and eggs by returning to mixed crop-livestock operations facilitates nutrient recycling as local farmers return livestock manure to the land. The combination of high prices of natural gas, which is used to make nitrogen fertilizer, and of phosphate, as reserves are depleted, suggests a much greater future emphasis on nutrient recycling—an area where small farmers producing for local markets have a distinct advantage over massive feeding operations.

In combination with moving down the food chain to eat fewer livestock products, reducing the food miles in our diets can dramatically reduce energy use in the food economy. And as world food insecurity mounts, more and more people will be looking to produce some of their own food in backyards, in front yards, on rooftops, in community gardens, and elsewhere, further contributing to the localization of agriculture.

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Adapted from Chapter 9, “Feeding Eight Billion People Well,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4

Monday, October 5, 2009

Youth Gardening as a Lifetime Change-Agent

Experience with gardening, even observing other students carrying out gardening activities, has the potential of introducing lifelong changes in thinking, health, responsibility, appreciation, environmental concern, enjoyment, family nutrition, practical planning, and many other factors too often lacking in traditional educational systems. Classes focused on gardening can raise a student’s interest in other subjects by connecting math, science, reading, and so on with ongoing projects and thus introducing personal purpose and interdisciplinary understanding into schooling. A gardening class can present vocational guidance: one student may establish a business of providing window boxes beautifying homes and later become a landscape architect; another may begin with a new appreciation of growing things and develop a passionate interest in becoming a farmer; others may be visited with diverse ambitions—because gardening includes many diverse activities and arenas of study, many directions for new interests to blossom along with the flowers and squash.

Eating healthful foods is essential to well-being; reducing childhood obesity is a critical issue; children no longer grow up learning at home how to prepare well balanced meals or even knowing how to select wholesome food in markets. Schools need to take more responsibility for this kind of education, because students aren’t getting it elsewhere, and this is not just a literacy project or a test to be passed: This is learning not only how to live in health but also how to parent the next generation, so we don’t continue to have students who think milk is produced in the back room at the supermarket, and continue to be indifferent to what is available in school cafeterias and vending machines, and remain indifferent to what goes on in school as long as it doesn’t cost too much and the kids pass tests. Today’s students are tomorrow’s parents and tax-payers; who’s going to correct the schools if they don’t? Textbooks and lessons have but a shadow of the power for change that personal experience offers. Students are excited by the act of growing edibles; preparing food they have raised is practiced as a life-changing part of this study. Even students who never plant another seed may well eat differently, and grow up to feed their families differently, because of the experience of learning to appreciate vegetables as good eating.

Growing food locally reduces the need for shipping foods long distances. This reduces our carbon footprint, giving students a way to contribute to this otherwise remote endeavor. Our educational systems need to be inculcating these crucial matters into their students’ experiences and training; this is the time to influence them in terms of caring about their home planet and the ongoing life of our species.

Growing food organically teaches sound gardening and farming principles such as recycling nutrients back to the soil by composting; growing many different, correctly selected crops together to achieve and sustain a balanced ecosystem; and respect for other life forms, including the life in the soil. Many such students will go on to nurture gardens, even if very small ones, as a way of living. Those who do not will recognize the importance of organic growth principles and thus be well informed about selecting and purchasing food, an approach to personal and family nutrition that may well become a change-agent in improving national health.

Students who relate to soil and seeds, and watch growth, develop an appreciation of natural beauty. They learn that they can enhance their environment with flowering plants; they grasp the value of protecting our environment; they grow up to contribute to civic beauty.

We are planting seeds for the future of our students and the health of our planet. Our students experience the joy and wonder of the natural world. This kindles curiosity which leads students to want to learn more about what they have seen. Student enthusiasm from direct experience with the Earth comes back to the classroom in the form of curiosity about what was observed in the garden. For some students experiencing the success of gardening changes how students see themselves. This can be life changing as students see themselves as capable and industrious. The proof is right in front of them at their school campus in all of its beautiful blooming glory.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Trust and Listening Are Needed for Learning

by Marlena Hirsch January 2010
I work for the Home and Hospital Program of Santa Rosa City Schools. We teach students who can’t attend schools due to illness and a variety of other reasons. I believe one of the unspoken reasons some of our students end up on this program is that they have given up. They are discouraged. The following is a description of the early stages of working with a discouraged teenager.

One of my students had a tough exterior. When I first met her, she acted like people on the Jerry Springer show who loudly display their disputes as if they are proud of making a spectacle. She was so far behind that she wanted to take the high school equivalency test. Yet on two practice tests, she got 12% correct. I spoke to her about why she was in this situation hoping we could gain insight on how to correct what had gone on before. Why hadn't she learned this material? Did she have trouble focusing? Were there distractions in her life? Had she ever been comfortable with school? Assuming that I was putting her down, she became angry. When I was talking to her, she talked over me so that she couldn’t hear me. I informed her that when she does that I can't teach her. She continued becoming more angry and saying she wanted her other teacher from last year. I told her that her previous teacher doesn't teach high school equivalency test preparation. I prepared to leave. She left the house. As her mom and I were talking in the front yard, her mom began to cry. She told me she had tried everything and didn't know what to do. Her daughter returned at that moment and saw her mother crying. I was hoping this would have some calming effect showing the daughter that her mom cares. Hoping she would listen to me, I again began to talk. This time I got right to the point. I told her I was angry that our education system was failing students like her and that the high school drop-out rate was over a third in her neighborhood. Beautiful young people like her were not being served, and I wanted to try to correct this.
She decided to try again. The next day she tried another grammar placement test in the front of a grammar book with the same dismal results. We worked on the first lesson. When I talked to her about how she learns, she bit her tongue and listened. She was not happy about it, but she listened. At the end of the hour, I asked her what she learned and she said she had learned to listen. It is from the solid foundation of trust and listening that learning takes place.
Two months later, we enjoy our lessons together. She wrote an essay about learning from her mistakes. I told her, “ I see learning from mistakes as a hallmark of maturity.” Getting to this point was a gradual process of building trust and learning to enjoy working together.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

In Celebration of Eugene

I sometimes visit Lewis Opportunity School, a small alternative secondary school in Santa Rosa, to bring plants, encouragement, and garden ideas. The teacher, his students and I work to beautify a school of run-down portable buildings, asphalt and cyclone fences. It is September, and school has started but something feels very different when I walk onto campus. Something is missing. Eugene is gone. He was the one who greeted me and made me feel that he knew I was part of a special mission to transform the world, one garden and one student at a time. He died during the summer.

I didn't know Eugene well, yet I felt our spirits were delighted by the same things. Eugene noticed which plants were starting to bloom. He knew which students were responding to the plants and which ones cared enough to work to help them grow. He would have been thrilled to see the sprays of yellow daisies on the towering Jerusalem Artichoke plants in the parking-lot planting area, to see the harvest from the potato patch, to see that the newly planted nectarine tree had made in through the dry California summer, and to see how much the grape vines had grown during their first summer.

When I arrived on campus with arms full of plants, Eugene's smile welcomed me. He loved it when I emerged from the bathroom in gardening clothes, my teaching outfit left behind, my mud caked worn-out running shoes on my feet. Now I could do magic. Eugene likened my transformation to what superman did when he donned his cape.
He knew my gardening clothes revealed my true identity.

Transforming the campus by getting the students to create beauty with plants was making a difference in student lives, if not now then years later. They were producing food with their own efforts. The seeds were being planted for a better world. "You can do this yourselves. It's easy." This was the message given by the act of gardening here. Eugene celebrated this vision, and he communicated this with his beaming smile and words of cheer.

I am including the anonymously written poem as a tribute to Eugene and to all who work to create a more peaceful humane world.

A SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY

On the surface of the world right now there is
war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time,
something else is happening underground
An inner revolution is taking place
and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution.
From the inside out. From the ground up.
This is a Global operation.
A Spiritual Conspiracy.
There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.
You won't see us on the TV.
You won't read about us in the newspaper
You won't hear about us on the radio
We don't seek any glory
We don't wear any uniform
We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles
Most of us work anonymously
We are quietly working behind the scenes
in every country and culture of the world
Cities big and small, mountains and valleys,
in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands
You could pass by one of us on the street
and not even notice
We go undercover
We remain behind the scenes
It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done
Occasionally we spot each other in the street
We give a quiet nod and continue on our way
During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs
But behind the false storefront at night
is where the real work takes a place
Some call us the Conscious Army
We are slowly creating a new world
with the power of our minds and hearts
We follow, with passion and joy
Our orders come from the Central Spiritual Intelligence
We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Movies ~ Kind words ~
Smiles ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Social activism ~ Websites
Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness...
We each express ourselves in our own unique ways
with our own unique gifts and talents
Be the change you want to see in the world
That is the motto that fills our hearts
We know it is the only way real transformation takes place
We know that quietly and humbly we have the
power of all the oceans combined
Our work is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains

Friday, August 28, 2009

Nurturing Relationships

Some relations with family or friends are nurturing. These are the relationships that sustain me. It may be a special relationship that helps me see the truth and appreciate beauty. For example, a coworker and I related like this today. At lunch we talked about our love for and experiences with horses, an animal that I have always considered beautiful. Other parts of our conversation were an attempt to see the truth of situations that we find ourselves in, by sharing insights and impressions. I was glad to take time in my day to spend with this friend.

I am reminded how important my nurturing relationships are with my family and friends by the
passing of one of my true and inspiring friends. First, I will clarify my use of the term nurturing relationships: what is a nurturing relationship? Nurture comes from the same root word as nutrition. Nurturing helps support or sustain. It also can cause growth. A nurturing relationship is one that makes us feel supported and helps us grow to be better people.

Relationships with my immediate family are so deep and special that I cannot even begin to put them into words. These are the people who will persistently tell me the truth about myself that I may not want to hear, and they will tell it again patiently or impatiently until I hear. They care enough to do that. They know that I want to grow as a person and trust that I will be open to the truth.

For example, my son once told me how to be a better listener with specific things to do to listen better and participate more responsibly in conversation. I understood how useful his suggestions were and even took notes at the time. He followed up with coaching in our later conversations. Truth be told, he was probably at his wits’ end with my interruptions and thinking I knew what was being said without really listening. When I was a child, what passed for communication between my mother and me was to talk at each other so I had a lot to learn.

I am happy to be learning to take my time and really hear what is being said. Listening is such a nice way to appreciate another person. I can show someone that they are worth while to me. This may seem like a small thing to do, but in slowing down, I am noticing that the quality of my day is made up of hundreds of small things.