Beauty in the Garden

What is it that inspires me to go into the garden on a foggy November Sunday morning? The beauty. The dew collects on the Asparagus ferns giving them a silvery sheen. Brilliant pink roses announce their charm. The wild Baccharis pilularis or Coyote Bush covered in white fluffy bloom with its sweet scent will always remind me of fall. If you grow up in California and play outdoors in the hills as I did, you become familiar with this scent. These plants grow in the open grassy spaces between the Oaks. I have cut them for display in the house where their fluff falls on the table below.
The vegetable plants show their exuberance as they push up through the soil; fava and bell bean seeds, garlic, red onions, and also the flowering bulbs that promise color in winter. They express beauty in the patterns which their unfoldment follows. The bulbs are straight up and the winter beans slightly nodding with their leaves poised to lift and spread.
Always the surprise and wonder draw me. There will be some discovery today. Perhaps it will be new blossoms of sea-blue winter iris or a hummingbird at the pineapple sage. The wonder that I am part of this life is more that my mind can comprehend but my heart has always known. I share this life with the plants and animals I see around me and the microscopic life in the soil. Sometimes I see a favorite animal like a toad. I am at home.

Today's wonders were the last gifts of the season: a bucket of tomatoes in red, orange, yellow and green; a few last zinnias and chrysanthemums, and a couple of red kuri winter squash. This was probably the last time till next year that I will bring these treasures into the house. Soon the tender summer plants will turn to mush when they freeze. Then the onions, garlic, green manure legumes, chard, cole crops, and orange calendula flowers will have the garden to themselves. As I picked the last pear tomatoes, I was sad and appreciative. We have eaten some wonderful fresh salsas, salads, and tomato sauces, and the vibrant colors of the tomatoes have brightened our kitchen counter since July. I discovered that I will miss them like friends who move away for part of the year.

Certainties, October 2011

I am comforted by certainties in a time of little sensible political action amid world-wide environmental degradation and a poor economy. Some of the few things I can count on are the golden light of fall, acorns falling with the brown oak leaves, and the emerging green grass transforming the dry faded golden hills.
Another certainty is the funny things that kittens do. There is one kitten by my side as I write. Actually she is now moving under my journal, on me, next to me, oops!–over my journal. Now she is high on the book shelf after some tiny flying insect or spider that I can’t see. Now two of the smaller stuffed animals are falling on me from the shelf above the bed where I am sitting as the kitten explores.
When this active kitten first arrived, she seemed uninterested in people. We have recently adopted her along with her four-month old sister and their mother. During her first few days with us, she and the others stayed close to the bathroom where I had their beds and food. By the second week, they were joining us in the living room. The others were interested in being petted and purred vigorously when they were handled and came to sit with us on the sofas. It crossed my mind that the most active one needed more petting so she would become more social. I soon noticed that when she got around to being with her people she was most attentive–purring, laying nearby, stretching out on her side in front of me, moving under foot, or snuggling with me depending if I was lying down or walking. I realized that she is just a very busy cat and socializes when she gets around to it.
She is a cat after all, and does things her way. No extra petting needed. Weeks later, she is near me when I lay on the sofa in the evening. She even watched a documentary about dogs with me one night. I could tell she was watching because her head moved slightly as she tracked the motion on the screen. She got up and left a few times but went right back to her position facing the television each time.
My husband has named her Rudy. She is the smallest. The mom, he named, Claire. The sister kitten he named Theo or Thea. All names are from the Cosby Show. Sometimes my husband calls the mom Mrs. Huxtable. I can be certain that Rudy will have a busy day today.

Gardening with Nature’s Principles during October in California
A big change happens in California after the first inches of rain fall in October. The grass seed and other wild-plant seeds sprout and grow. Growth is fast in the soil that is still holding warmth from the summer sun. Soon green is visible after the long summer drought. The plants that grew with the last rainy season have withered and dried. In wild places, the dry plants are thick and some are tall. There the green is barely visible two weeks after the first rains . Where last season’s golden brown dry plants have been mowed or eaten by grazing animals, the bright green velvet coat of plants already shows its vibrancy. Perennial plants like the roadside fennel begin to grow from the base of the old dry stalks.
In my garden, I cut down the finished perennial plants and compost them. No one does that to the plants like roadside fennel. By late spring, their old dry stalks are concealed by the new growth if they haven’t blown down during winter storms.

This October, I copied nature and sowed my winter green manure crops in between the finishing tomato, squash, and corn plants. I can remove the tomatoes, squash and corn plants after the last harvest, while letting the seeds get a good start in the warm soil. My time is limited as I teach full-time so I dug compost into beds only when essential for a particular crops like onions, garlic, and cabbage. I didn’t dig or weed to sow the green manure. I just tossed the bell beans and mixed cover-crop seed in between the finishing crops and scratched them into the soil with a hand tool. These beds will get a good dressing of compost later when this green manure crop is double-dug for the next planting in the spring or dug even earlier for lettuce and spinach which will be protected under row-cover or glass.
This green manure sowing was very easy and took about ten minutes. I could have been watching baseball on TV and done the sowing during the commercials if the Giants were in the World Series.

The garlic is up and growing along with the cabbages planted in August.
This year I am planting Chinese Garlic. I recently read Chester Aaron’s book called "Garlic is Life". I was so inspired to try other varieties of garlic that I found this more spicy Chinese variety at Imwalle’s Gardens in Santa Rosa. We tasted some of it before planting to determine that it really had a noticeably different taste from the California Garlic commonly sold in the grocery stores, and it does seem a little spicier.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Garlic is Life for its beautiful descriptions of living in Western Sonoma County. As I had also lived in the Occidental area, I loved having Chester’s words bring back my connection to this land of tall firs and grassy hills. His writing also tells of his gardening and how that connects him to warm memories of his parents. If you love gardening, this is a good read.

Gardening in the Summer of 2011

A Personal Garden Vision
My garden is designed to grow food for my husband, myself, friends, and family as well as for beautiful views of flowers from our windows and cut flowers to put in the house. The total effect is patterns of leaf and flower in a range of vibrant colors with the movement of birds, insects, and wind while the constantly changing angle of the sun strikes the leaves and blossoms. Pairs of goldfinches visit the sunflowers chirping all the while. Hummingbirds visit blossoms. Woodpeckers work in the surrounding Oakwoodlands. Scents fill the air.

Included among the vegetables and fruits are plants that increase the well being of the garden. These plants provide food and shelter for a variety of insects. This insures a balanced insect population that eats only tiny bits of the veggies and roses---not enough to be a bother. The plants that increase the well being of the garden include the honey scented alyssum which attracts an insect that preys on aphids, the tall airy Verbena bonarensis with its small flat flower clusters which make perfect landing pads for a variety of insects, the wonderful monarda that attracts humming birds, and the healall that bees love. There are also scented beautiful plants like lemon balm, caledula, marigold, feverfew, lavender, and rue that are essential to a healthy plant community. Some of these probably contribute by repelling harmful insects with their strong smells. In fact, the one potato plant in the new orchard garden with no insect nibbles is the one with a little feverfew plant that volunteered right next to it. Being newly established, this garden does not yet have a variety of established beneficial plants like feverfew to keep the insect population balanced. Here most potato and early bean plants were nibbled..

Being a teacher gave me the summer to correct and refine my garden infrastructure and practices. For example, I built compost bins that will better hold moisture in our dry summers, and the new orchard garden is terraced, has double-dug beds, and is layered with mulch. The materials that I used in these projects were left over from home improvement projects. I have completed gardening projects that will keep myself and the plants thriving as I go back to teaching for the school year. I recycled materials that would have otherwise been landfill.

Gardening for a Purpose
This is the summer when my gardening became part of my life in a unified way. Just as I create an interweaving of plants that do well together, my garden integrates all parts of my life. I no longer leave unfinished tasks undone. For example, vines are tied up before they sprawl over other plants blocking sunlight. There are no neglected tangles of weeds and vines taking extra time to correct. I am planting a year-round garden so seeds are sown most months. I do not just sow a summer garden, water it, harvest it, and wait till the next season. I found that there is always something to harvest. For example, greens can be harvested when small or when mature. If I harvest them when small, I am giving nearby plants more room to mature. This worked well with the cabbage which I am still harvesting. My cooking is inspired by fresh vibrant produce coming from the garden.

Gardening gives me hope. I know I can grow food and increase beauty by growing plants in harmony with nature. I am inspired by the natural processes that I work with and ever changing life-cycles of the plants in my care. I sense that our lives and the life around us are like small concentric rings connected to larger ones expanding and blending. Sometimes these rings also blend from the past into the future.

As a child, I felt nurture in the homes and gardens of my great aunts and my grandmother Florence. Their homes were clean and orderly and their gardens and farms were lovely. I knew that I wanted this nurture in my life. I wanted to be able to create this nurture for myself and my own family. These women were my models for how I wanted to be. Now I can see that I have this nurture in my family relationships, my garden and my home. It feels good.

“I do not yet know why plants come out of the land or float in streams, or creep on rocks or roll from the sea. I am entranced by the mystery of them, and absorbed by their variety and kinds. Everywhere they are visible yet everywhere occult.” Liberty Hyde Bailey



Garden Observations are a Bonus
This summer was different as I paid more attention to what the plants needed since I was more attentive. After the summer plants were in the ground, I made compost and turned soil, all the while paying attention to the needs of the plants as they grew. I planned a year-round garden, so by July, I was starting plants for winter. I often hand watered the vegetable beds. “The foot steps of the gardener is the best fertilizer,” is a quote from the ancient Chinese farmers. It is so true as being in the garden allows me to see what is needed. While watering I sometimes pull a weed, notice a squash that needs to be picked, train a pumpkin vine to stay inside the protective wire deer fencing, and see what tomatoes need more staking. I don’t think that I spent more time in the garden this summer but my time was spent in better ways. I was able to do small tasks like getting out weeds before they got to be big and competed with the vegetables for food, sunlight, and water. Enjoyment of a well growing garden was my reward as I spent time on priorities that insured healthy plants. I was able to learn to prioritize tasks by what was most needed by the plants.

There were also other bonuses to hand watering besides the fact that the sprinklers don’t water the garden edges well. Once while I was hand watering at dusk, I noticed a turkey high up on an oak tree branch and wondered why her wing was out from her body in an unusual position. I paid attention to moving the gentle rain of water onto the soil between the zucchini and cabbage. The next time I looked up, the turkey had flown down the hill leaving behind five little ones on the branch about 30 feet up in the tree. I was amazed that these little ones had flown so high up to roost in the tree. I watched as one by one the little ones flew down to their mom to find another safe place to spend the night. I was sorry that my watering had disturbed them but glad to have seen how a momma turkey keeps her babies protected at night when the predators are most active.

Gardening with Natural Principles
My understanding of many natural principles increased. For example, plants want to make a protective cover over the soil. I plant seedlings close enough so that the mature plants cover the soil. I use mulch to cover bare spots. This cover protects the soil, keeps moisture from evaporating, and keeps weeds from sprouting. The mulch also provides food for the earthworms to mix into the soil. I also let dandelions and small grasses grow in paths, giving me fresh greens for the chickens. Another path had healall growing in it. In the summer the blossoming stems get about a foot high so I hoed out a narrow five inch pathway. I found that the bees loved this stand of blossoms. I walk through this narrow pathway slowly so I don’t hurt or disturb the bees while they work. I have not been stung, and I go through this area daily. I encouraged pursulane to grow between the corn plants which improves the corn. The plants are protecting the soil in many places in my garden.

Plants place their vitality for growing into tiny seeds which the gardener brings to life. I found this principle of nature a joy to work with. From big nasturtium seeds to tiny viola seeds, baby plants began their life under my care. Some volunteered like the violas and columbine in the soil under the parent plants. These I carefully moved to bigger quarters in nice pots of freshly mixed soil. The results have been a nearly constant parade of sprouts becoming beds of vegetables or decorative plants. Friends have benefitted from my extra plants.

I benefitted from the extra seedlings of a new friend. I partnered with Diane who had not grown much outdoors but grew indoor gloxinias from dust-like seed. Last spring Diane had extras of these baby plants which mature into tender house plants with flowers up to four inches across. As I type this, sitting next to me are several of these plants, one with a luscious wide-opened white bloom with red dots in a beautiful scalloped pattern of denser dots near the petal’s edge and another with intense purple blooms that look ruffled. Another gloxinia that has finished blooming was a deep red. It is in the greenhouse as it goes dormant to sprout again later from a tuber of stored energy. These wonderful plants have the added bonus of being perennial.

“Feed the soil, the soil feeds the plants, and the plants feed you.” This is a quote from my friend Pat who gardened for a year learning from Alan Chadwick, the gardener who introduced French Intensive/ Biodynamic Gardening to North America. Last year my summer and winter squash plants were small and produced little. They were growing in a new garden with very poor soil. In fact, a soil test revealed that my garden soil tested low in nitrogen and potash and medium in phosphorus. This planting area had only been gardened for a few years with my chicken manure compost added in only the last two years when I started raising chickens. My improved compost was added in the spring, and this year I noticed that my squash plants look healthy and vigorous. It takes years to build good soil with compost, and I needed more soil nutrients than I had been applying. I have continued adding purchased compost as a mulch throughout the summer, and these large squash plants are continuing to thrive.

Community Growing
My friend, Diane, and I gardened together every week this summer. Diane helped me prepare plum grafts and shell bell beans. I helped her double dig her first bed in the back yard. She gave homes to some of my extra plants like tomatoes and rosemary as we landscaped her wild front yard. I learned how to follow another person’s garden vision as I paid close attention to her garden plans.

My friend had not imagined she could turn her soil into planting beds. After observing me double digging the soil, she plans to get a fork for herself.

We were both very proud of our results. Her front yard shows off some of her favorite lilies and morning glory vines as well as existing shrubs and new tomato plants. Her back yard has its first planting bed. I have three fig tree starts from under her fig tree in my greenhouse and we await the results of the plum grafts which will be evident next spring. We were both pleased and got compliments on her front yard from a homeless man who often walks by her house.

Community growing was definitely a success for us and we have more gardening planned when our work schedules allow. Of course we will keep each other informed of the growth of our plants and the ripening of the figs.


Hidden Places for Growing
The path by the raspberries filled with the low growing mint ground cover, healall, is like a bee sanctuary. It is wonderful how many things you can grow in a path when you get over the idea of all paths needing to be free of plants. A sign saying "Walk slowly, bee sanctuary" would be nice if anyone used that path besides me.

The chickens are always interested in my activities when I come outside. They watch me from the edge of their pen. They are only distracted from me if I give them some greens or grasses to scratch through. I give them grasses from spring weed-eating done to minimize fire hazards. Any unwanted plant material pulled or trimmed from the vegetable and flower beds are theirs except for woody twigs and rose prunings which go to the garbage company for shredding and composting. I have a little pen within their enclosure that I sometimes use as a place to sow peas and vetch for the chickens to eat. They finish with that in a day. I am glad there are dandelions, burr clover, and grasses growing in the nearby paths to supply them with fresh greens. This also increases the vitamin content of their eggs besides keeping the chickens happily occupied.

Matching companion plants in beds together gives extra crops. There are carrots in between the tomato plants and carrots planted with green onions.

Starting the next crop among the finishing crop worked with a pea bed becoming a tomato bed. There is a bed of peas that had four tomato plants started in between them in May. Now the peas are decomposing under the mulch around the four foot tall tomato plants.

Several beds of potatoes are still growing. Adding layers of mulch to the beds probably encouraged the plants to continue growing. Most potato plants are still green and have not bloomed so the next crops for the cool season are in pots in the greenhouse waiting for the potatoes to finish. The greenhouse with pots is another hidden place for growing as growing in pots keep the beds available for large maturing plants. The potted plants will be ready when the mature plants are harvested. A continuous supply of food comes from beds in continuous production.

Invasive Plants as Healers
I have a patch of ground were the soil was once covered with chaparral. We cleared this area to protect our property from wildfire moving up the hill to our house. The slope faces south west receiving the hottest part of the sunlight. Over the years that we have lived here, star thistle has started growing here. This plant is considered an invasive problematic nonnative. I have tried over the years to pull it all out each summer, and the next summer it is still growing in the same place. This summer I read the book, Invasive Plant Medicine, The Ecological Benefits and Healing Abilities of Invasives which gave me an understanding of the job invasive plants do to remediate problem soils so I didn’t pull out the star thistle. I went to see how this area looked this summer and noticed there was only one star thistle plant and a whole patch of native bunch grasses perfectly arranged as if they had been planted with equal spacing between each one. Did the long strong roots of the star thistles make it possible for these plants to get their roots into this dense soil? Did I pull last year’s star thistle out before they made seeds and there were no seeds left in the soil from previous years? Has the star thistle finished its work so the native grasses can grow? I wonder what will grow there next year. I am going to continue to leave this place alone.

These quotes were taken from the book, Invasive Plant Medicine.
A quote from the great plantsman, Liberty Hyde Bailey. “All living beings have the right to engage in the struggle for existence.”
Many believe that invasive plants harm native plants. Here is a quote from Vermeij. “The evidence so far points to the conclusion that invaders often cause extinction on oceanic islands and in lakes, but rarely in the sea or on large land masses.”
A quote from Masanobu Fukuoka. “The living and holistic biosystem that is nature cannot be dissected or resolved into its parts. Once broken down, it dies. Or rather, those who break off a piece of nature lay hold of something that is dead, and unaware that what they are examining is no longer what they think it to be, claim to understand nature... Because [man] starts off with misconceptions about nature and takes the wrong approach to understanding it, regardless of how rational his thinking, everything winds up all wrong.”

Still Learning as Always
I am a teacher by profession and have found that teaching and learning are the same thing. I am curious about many things and want to share that with youth. I find that I am still learning about gardening constantly even though I have gardened since I was a child. Pairing up to work with a less experienced gardener gave me much to learn. It wasn’t so much that she learned from me but rather that we both learned different things from sharing gardening.

The wonderful thing about this is that each new season becomes a new chance to learn. My winter study of new garden practices and seed catalogues is always an exciting time of year for me. During this period, I am like a kid in a candy store as I envision next year’s garden. I often need to adjust my exuberant plans so they fit the space that I have.

Connecting Gardeners, Community, and Opportunity
Building a humane world where food is produced locally and sustainablly will heal ourselves and our planet. Currently about 75% of greenhouse gases come from food production and distribution worldwide. More land that is stewarded locally and sustainablly will allow gardeners and community to work together toward a humane world.

Imagine if the unused land between a suburban fence and a city street, the front yards currently growing only a monoculture of mowed grass, the forgotten easements, and unused back yards were beautiful kaleidoscopes of texture, color and form devoted to fresh local food. Children would view the wonder of the life in these places and be learning to appreciate and protect it. People would have more fresh nutritious food. People would work together to create something that would be a source of pride and kinship.

I have friends with a nonprofit organization who would be happy to sponsor food growing. Their website is Communityconnexions.org. I and other friends with gardening experience ranging from setting up community gardens to farming biodynamically would be happy to share our experience. I can be reached at marlenahirsch@yahoo.com. In my area of Sonoma County, California, there is igrowsonoma.org and the School Garden Network's group emails with helpful info for food growing. These are just a few of the many groups devoted to promoting local sustainable food growing.

Community Growing; food, flowers and friends

Community Growing ---May 2011
Mission Statement: To help people grow fresh food for healthier daily living using natural sustainable principles.

Walking outside to my garden is stepping into a world of surprise and wonder. Each day brings provides new observations. As I learn from my observations, my garden flourishes. I would like to connect with others who want to enjoy gardening.
When I bring food in to my kitchen from the plants growing outside, cooking is more fun. Often the smells and tastes are heightened as the food is so fresh and vibrant.
Plants want to grow. On a recent trip to North Carolina, I saw a tomato plant that was growing behind a restaurant next to the corner of the building near the sidewalk and the rock paved alley. No one had planted this or was caring for it, and yet it was as big or bigger than the tomatoes in my garden. As a gardener, I am attempting to organize the growing.
Besides college classes, my horticultural background includes working under the tutelage of Alan Chadwick at UCSC in the late 60s who brought the French Intensive/ Biodynamic gardening method used by the Parisian market gardeners to North America. I have taught gardening to children of all ages as well as to adults. My quest to learn and teach about growing plants continues.

You do not need to leave nearby to be part of Community Growing.
We can work together by meeting at a garden site or by email: marlenahirsch@yahoo.com

On Good Nutrition

June 21, 2010

Traditional Nutritional Wisdom

The human body is a complex wonderful organism that can often heal itself of injuries and conditions. Healing, like sustained well-being does require the body’s nutritional needs to be met consistently.

Nutrition varies among peoples living in different parts of the world. The Eskimos in the high Arctic live on sea animals they catch and caribou they hunt. The Masai of Africa live on products from the cattle they tend including blood. Chinese and Japanese people use rice, vegetables, and a little meat and fish. The Mediterranean people’s food consists of a variety of vegetables, pasta, fruits, meats, and fish including olive oil. These traditional diets promote health.

Western diet, typically containing processed grains, foods with added sugar and fats, and large servings of meat, is associated with high cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Traditional diets that use plant and animal products from a natural and local sources do not cause the diseases becoming endemic in Western Civilization. When people from these groups begin to eat things like white flour and sugar, however, they begin to develop diseases associated with Western diet

Food Quality

Healthful foods do not have added ingredients like sugars, fats, preservatives, coloring, starches, selected vitamins, or hard-to-pronounce chemicals. Food producing animals, fowl, and plants live in conditions natural to them and are not given added antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, or inappropriate foods. The meat from pasture-raised grass-fed has a ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids that is correct for humans, whereas grain-fed cattle meat does not. Eggs from chickens having access to fresh vegetation and small animals like snails and insects have yolks with a higher vitamin content indicated by their brighter yellow color. The foods consumed by animals affect the quality of the food products they provide. The quality of animal products that we consume affects our health.

Biological knowledge tells us that we are connected to other living things by food chains which are parts of larger food webs. Traces of toxic chemicals that cannot be broken down and excreted by an organism move through a food chain, concentrating in the tissues of the animals consuming the most meat (the top predators). That happened when the pesticide DDT got into the food chain: The first sign we noted of this was that fish eating and water-bird eating birds like the pelicans and peregrine falcons had eggshells too thin to protect reproduction. As no young could be raised, the populations of these top predators declined rapidly. The peregrine falcons were put on the endangered species list, and concerned environmentalists began captive breeding programs to prevent their extinction. Food additives that cannot be broken down during digestion do not go away; they stay in living tissues engendering problems, including disease.

Organic foods not only are grown without pesticides but often have improved quality, especially if they are consumed while fresh. After a winter of imported, store lettuce, I cut the first of my organic spring lettuce and could actually smell the difference! I can often tell that organic produce has a slightly more concentrated flavor. When plants are grown organically without high-nitrogen fertilizers, their cells can be filled with more concentrated nutritive materials with lower water content.

Fully ripened fruit tastes better, and certain varieties taste great. These facts are often lost to many of the younger generations. Who has noticed the difference between a California dried apricot and any others? Those of us who became used to the fabulous rich treat of a Royal Blenheim apricot cooked or dried can attest to quality affecting taste! Other types of apricots are grown commercially because they ripen at the same time and are of similar size. The Blenheims may be partly green on one side and rosy on the other and come in different sizes. On the grocery shelf, they look odd to buyers expecting uniform fruits– a uniformity obtained at the cost of quality of flavor and, often, nutritional value as well. The fortunate tomato lover is familiar with the expected taste of vine-ripened tomatoes. Our local supermarkets advertise “vine-ripened tomatoes” year round including a bit of the stem for verisimilitude. I do not experience a real vine-ripened taste, however, until it is local tomato season. There is a big difference between an aromatic Meyer lemon and other lemons. I hope we discover more of these wonderful tastes lost to us through the elevation of appearance, quantity, and convenience over the actual purpose of food: to nurture not only the body but our pleasure in eating.

The Food Movement

There are many different movements under the umbrella of the food movement. According to Michael Pollan in an article entitled “The Food Movement Rising” in the New York Review of Books (June 10, 2010), these movements include school lunch reform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against genetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food; efforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” ( the claimed "right" of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces); farm bill reform; food safety regulation; farmland preservation; promotion of urban agriculture; school gardens and cooking; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the various efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing in terms of indoctrinating younger generations.

Pollan goes on to say that the movement coalesces around the recognition that today’s food and farming economy is unsustainable both environmentally and economically. The current food system consumes about one-fifth of the total American use of fossil fuel: today’s farming relies on chemical fertilizer derived from petroleum, tractors for extensive plowing, and long-distance shipping of foods from grower to consumer. In contrast, organic farming actually sequesters large amounts of carbon in the soil by composting, giving the potential to help solve environmental problems, especially when long distance transport is diminished through local farmers serving consumers.

Today’s health care system is overwhelmed with chronic illnesses many of which are created by the Western diet of highly processed foods laden with added fats and sugars. It is estimated that three-quarters of US health care spending goes to treatment of chronic diseases, which are preventable and linked to diet.

There are people who think fast food works against family values and who regard the slow food movement as a way to bring back much more than good nutrition. Food and its preparation is a vehicle for enjoyment as well as a way to experience interaction within family and community. The process of cooking and eating together are foundations for a considerate society, as the kitchen may be the place where sharing, communication, consideration, collaboration, and creativity can be practiced. The new solution to the hurried and harried mother who turns to convenience food to feed her hungry family is to have everyone in the household participate in kitchen activities. This new solution involves the preparation of fresh vegetables, whole grains, meats raised in natural clean environments like grassy fields, and fish raised sustainably.

The food movement has the potential to affect our daily lives in positive ways while improving our health and the health of our environment. There are many opportunities for involvement depending on individual preferences. We all enjoy good food.

Books that may be of Interest
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore-Lappe

Food Rules, by Michael Pollan

Laurel’s Kitchen, by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Bronwen Godfrey

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

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