Urban Homesteading hits the Mainstream Media!

Woohooo! ABC News program NIGHTLINE ran the following story last night on their show.

A Family Farm in the Midst of Suburbia

IT is SO exciting to me to see that our message of self-reliance and resourcefulness is now going beyond our circle of like-minded people. The more we get our story of food empowerment out to "the people", the more likely we are to see real change that will improve everyone's lives.

Next week my daughter's 1st grade class is walking the two blocks to come and visit my garden. So many of these children think that food comes out of a box or from the "golden arches". These school kids are simply the product of generations of Americans who have been taken in by the ease of fast-food and the simplicity of processed food products. I look forward to showing them another way to think about food and backyards!

The first year that I had this garden underway, my daughter was 3 years old. When the tomato plants started putting on fruit, I showed them to her excitedly. "Look, " I said, "look at the tomatoes!" I was shocked when she said, "Mom, those are NOT tomatoes! Tomatoes are RED!"
Wow, she really needed a garden. Now green tomatoes are her favorite. And she has her own raised bed or two and is in charge of edible flowers in the garden.

We need to get our kids involved in food production. It is the only way to truly break the chain of apathy and dependence on long-distance produce and overly processed convenience food.

What can WE do?

Everyone wants to talk about the rising costs of food and fuel. We all have worries about the impact of these rising costs and the possibility of food shortages.

"Historians know that nations that cannot keep food supplies cheap, abundant and secure are in trouble. Food is national security. Food, fuel and the rise and fall of nations are inextricably linked. If the cost of fuel rises, the price of food will rise as well. That's the big picture." ~Rose Hayden-Smith

Amid cries of "Bring back the Victory Garden" and the news that according to the World Bank's food price index, our Global food prices have risen 57.5 per cent from a year ago, I have been reading the 1919 book, The War Garden Victorious by Charles Lathrop Pack.

It has been interesting and eye-opening to say the least. Pack was the founder of the National War Garden Commission which was formed in 1917. The express mission of the Commission was to develop latent resources of food supply and to that end to arouse the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food they could not use while fresh. Thus began the War Gardens of WW1 and later known as Victory Gardens in WW2.

"Put the slacker land to work" became the slogan of the National War Garden Commission. In response the people in 1917 put to work more than 3,000,000 pieces of such uncultivated territory. In 1918, the total number of war gardens is conservatively estimated at 5,285,000. The food value was estimated at $525,000,000.

The huge PR campaign was promoted through leaflets, instructional pamphlets and posters. War gardeners were called on by the beautiful figure of Liberty to "Sow the Seeds of Victory." Another slogan, a clever paraphrase on the title of a famous song, told them to "Keep the Home Soil Turning." West Virginia started the message: "Food Must Follow the Flag," which became a household word throughout the United States. The Marion (Indiana) War Garden Association put to the home food producers in this fashion: "Earn the Right to stay at Home–Plant a Garden." The honored title of "Soldier of the Soil" gave the home tiller the feeling that he, too, was performing a service for his country although he was not wearing the uniform; and when he was informed that "Every Garden is a Munition Plant" he knew that he was helping the boys over there to fight their battles, for "The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits of Peace."

The patriotic spirit is contagious and the war gardener helped mightily to spread it.

The success record of the Victory Garden Project is well documented and it was not only the US Government that encouraged the participation of Americans but Big Business and the media as well.

The government and civilian groups such as the Red Cross and the Scouts organized committees to coordinate gardening efforts and allocate seeds, fertilizer and other resources. Gardening classes and literature were made available to the public. Because food production was critical, the literature emphasized getting the highest yield from each garden and the most nutrition from the crops by raising plants rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals.

The response was phenomenal. In 1917, Americans raised $520 million worth of garden produce in vacant lots, backyards, and unused land. Victory Gardens yielded as much as 40 percent of the country's nonmilitary produce. But the gardens did more than feed the civilian population. They gave people a chance to participate in the war effort and brought them together. People from all walks of life and every ethnicity and age group mingled in the many committees and the thousands of community gardens.

In Dallas, Texas there were around 20,000 war gardens in 1918. These citizens produced 17,500 cans of vegetables in just a few weeks from their garden plots. Temples, Texas had 5000 war gardens. In one growing season alone, the town produced an astounding quantity of black eye peas—one ton. The town of Marion, Indiana only had a population of about 29,000 people and it had 14,081 vegetable plots.


During World War II, a similar gardening movement swept the country. Most commonly these were known as Victory gardens. The White House lawn became a garden in which carrots, cabbages, and tomatoes were grown at the urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. As part of the war effort, the American government called on citizens to plant 18 million victory gardens. The response was overwhelming. Some 21 million were established, and actually produced around 40% of the country’s vegetables.

Things that amaze me most about this movement:

1. The extent of government involvement
2. The extent of big business involvement
3. The extent of media involvement


I doubt that we will see this kind of involvement today. However, We don't really need the government or big business to start a grassroots effort. And how much more grassroots can you get than planting a garden.

I want to focus on what WE can DO.

Plant a garden and have some control over the effect of rising prices both food and fuel on your family budget!

Bringing back the Victory Garden makes sense. It's low cost; seeds are inexpensive. I personally do not find the labor of a garden to be drudgery. It is a pleasure to get away from my desk and work the earth and enjoy the sunshine and to watch to literal fruits of my labor come to the table and feed my family. For every bit of produce that comes out of my garden, I save untold dollars at not only the grocery store but at the gas pump, in wear and tear on my car, and at the doctor's office. In addition, I get a share in saving the environment by leaving a smaller footprint and I get the empowerment that comes with taking some control in my life and becoming more resourceful and successful.

Think of the task of starting a garden as an creative adventure. The educational resources to make your garden venture a reality are plentiful...the internet offers abundant information sites, blogs and forums that focus on new and experienced gardeners. Don't forget the local library and garden club workshops. You will meet teachers and like-minded people at plant sales and garden shows. The Cooperative Extension Office in every county has a Master Gardener who you can call on the phone and ask questions! No outsourced customer service here!

The foods you grow are fresh and minimally processed and therefore will have a higher food value than any vegetable you can buy at the chain grocery store down the street! The flavor will amaze you.. it is hard to believe that it can make that much of a difference but the proof is definitely in the tasting. Let your garden be a protest against bland grocery store produce that is bred for its ability to be shipped long distances and to have a longer shelf-life. Most of our grocery store produce travels 1200 or more miles from field to our table! When you do buy produce, make sure that you get as much as possible from the local farmers market or locally suplied produce in your grocery store. I encourage you to start looking at WHERE your food comes from. Grapes from Mexico. Lettuce from California. Garlic from China! Let me tell you garlic is SO easy to grow.. I planted 250 cloves in October and will start harvesting in a month or so.. no work... just plant and mulch! And that garlic will last us through next winter.

Grow heirloom varieties whenever you can. They are hardy, of superior taste and novel appearance, they benefit the environment because planting them increases the genetic diversity. The focus on mono-culture crops and genetically modified foods has seriously limited crop variety. Heirloom varieties tend to be more naturally pest and drought resistant.

Your garden need not be big to make a difference. Consider a small strip of ground or a series of containers filled with tomatoes and peppers. For less than the price of a tomato you can buy a plant already started at the local garden center, ready to go in the dirt. Potatoes can be grown in plastic bags! There are many creative and productive ways to garden.

Gardening is an excellent way to increase food security (the amount and quality of food) in America. Access to Good Food should be a right, not a privilege.

In a changing world, the ability to grow food, to share and enjoy it, and to live in a healthy world full of beautiful gardens may be the best legacy we can our children and grandchildren. The human race will not know peace till each everyone one of us has access to healthy food, and clean air and water.

Join the movement. Here are a few resources to get you started:

http://www.ringsurf.com/ring/UrbanHomesteader/

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

http://urbanhomestead.org

http://www.earthlypursuits.com/
books and history of victory gardens

http://www.victorygardensforall.org/

http://buncombe.ces.ncsu.edu/

http://www.victorygardendrive.blogspot.com/

http://freedomgardens.org/

http://www.victorygardendrive.blogspot.com/

http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/

http://www.myfootprint.org/en/

http://adventuresinmyurbangarden.blogspot.com/


The main points of Modern Victory Movement encourage people to:

1- Raise & preserve as much of their food as possible.
2- Conserve energy, fuel, freshwater & other natural resources.
3- Reduce personal consumption of all goods & resources.
4- Repair, reuse & recycle to as great an extent as possible.
5- Plant trees as part of reforestation projects & edible landscaping.
6- Improve soils through wise use, composting & vermiculture.

Time for Victory Gardens is NOW again!

"If you have a back yard, you can do your part and help the world and yourself by raising some of the food you eat. The more you raise the less you will have to buy, and the more there will be left for some of your fellow countrymen who have not an inch of ground on which to raise anything. " - Bolton Hall, Three Acres And Liberty (Published by The MacMillan Company, New York. 1918)

Every Day Is Earth Day

My almost 7 year old and I were on the way to school the day after Earth Day and she let out with one of those "out of the mouths of babes" kind of statements. She usually comes up with these pronouncements after one of her rare quiet moments. She says, " Momma, actually, EVERY day is Earth Day. Why do we only have ONE day a year that we call Earth Day?" Well, she is right. Every day IS Earth Day. I explained how every day she is a day older but we only celebrate her birthday one day out of the year...
I told her about how I remembered the very first Earth Day in 1970. I was only a couple of years older than she is now. I told her how we got out of the classroom that day and cleaned up the school yard and planted trees and learned about the importance of taking care of the environment. I asked her what she had done for Earth Day at her school. I was disappointed, they watched a movie about Earth Day and wrote a journal entry. Not bad stuff to do but I would have felt much better about them getting out into the environment in some small way...
It all got me to thinking about the ways that we can honor the Earth each and every day. As a gardener who is concerned with the empowerment that comes with growing your own food, I realize that the things I do each day to support my garden also support the Earth. Those everyday things like composting and recycling the waste in my life and working to leave a smaller footprint.
Over the weekend, in full scavenger mode, I salvaged a great stack of plant pots from the neighbor's trash. I snagged them for my transplants. I also picked up a bag of grass clippings that another neighbor had put out on the street. Grass clipping are a fabulous addition to help any compost pile go thermophilic. And the score of all scores, two carloads of old hay from a construction site which will be put to use as mulch throughout my garden. Mulching helps to not only keep down weed infiltration, but keep the soil cool and moist. I have also added three more 60 gallon rainwater barrels to the two that I already had going to increase my rainwater catchment and minimize my need to use city water on my plants.
We also watched a movie called The Eleventh Hour . Watch the movie and check out the website for important information on the actions you can take to make a difference every day for our environment. Everyone should see this movie and then you will KNOW just how important it is that we all realize that EVERY DAY must indeed be Earth Day before it is too late.

Eat Local Quote of the Day

Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people. ~Elizabeth Berry

Bring Back the Victory Garden

The April issue of WNC Woman is out and filled with great food articles but the one that caught my attention is Bring Back the Victory Garden written by Diana Cerce. Diana has been at this gardening/homesteading thing for a while at URBAN OASIS in West Asheville.

from the article......

Rather than grow a garden as a way to support war, let the victory instead come from knowing exactly what we are eating. Feel empowered by the relationships formed from participating in the full cycle of a plant's life, from garden to table, instead of contributing to the war effort. The new Victory Garden can reduce our dependence on government subsidized agribusiness adding a sense of security with each new vegetable, herb and fruit garden we add. Let the civic morale be about the satisfaction of knowing we as a community gardening together can become more self reliant. Growing food gardens in the city can promote community interaction as well when we poke our faces over the fence to ask "How's it growing in your garden today?" We can still make the Victory Garden part of our daily life, though now with the added benefits of becoming part of a community.

I am loving that more and more folks are interested the empowerment that comes with taking control of our own food supply. The gal who tends the plants at a local hardware store told me yesterday that people are planting tomatoes and peppers instead of flowers this year. It just makes sense...beautiful and edible.

Notes from the Organic Growers School

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Organic Growers School here in the Asheville Area. It was an amazing experience. I took three classes in the URBAN GROWING section. Two of the classes were about urban orchards and trees. These classes included specific varieties that are successfully grown organically here in Western North Carolina. I know that I will refer to these notes for years to come as they are filled with great information that I will guide my choices as I add fruit trees and fruiting shrubs to my edible landscape.
The third class was Cultivating Urban Abundance. Monica Williams was the presenter. She lives in West Asheville and gardens there on her urban lot. The course description: Urban home gardens have great potential for yielding abundant food, medicine, inspiration, and beauty. Even the most degraded lots can thrive by using the simple soil building techniques and sustainable practices presented in this session.
She encouraged us to begin with setting our intention. Her example was "My purpose is to create an abundant garden with a prayerful and grateful heart in order to heal our wounded soil." The setting of an intention helps to guide us through the choices we make throughout the life of our garden projects and shapes our vision. It can become the touchstone in times of doubt and frustration.
Next we looked at the "Blessings of the city".

1. Moderate Climate
2. Many Niches and Micro-climates along buildings and edges
3. Abundant Resources.

Under Abundant Resources we explored both the people around us and the materials to be found in the city. The vast numbers of people located in the city offer us opportunity for networking, co-operative efforts, shared labor and costs.
And material resources abound.

1. Compost-ables... leaf bags, wood chips, coffee grounds, restaurant compost, etc
   
2. 5 gallon buckets
   
3. firewood
   
4. fencing
5. straw
   
6. construction material
7. etc

Specific Techniques and practices for cultivating abundance:

1. Compost
2. Mulch beds
3. Water catchment
4. Winter gardens
5. Diversified gardens
6. Small Animals

One thing that I think that we all have in common, is the need to feel validated. This course really validated for me that I am on the right track with my garden project. The only technique listed above that is not already happening, is the bit about having small animals. Although, I have been thinking about how a goat and a few chickens would really round out the vision. I am not ready for them yet.
But everything else on her list is well underway in my urban plot.

Quote of the day

Broad acres are patent of nobility and no man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.
~Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900)

Do Away With Your Lawn

Earlier this winter I was looking for another book on gardening from Amazon and stumbled on the book FOOD NOT LAWNS. It's title really grabbed me and the subtitle sold me on it! "How to turn your yard into a garden and your neighborhood into a community". This book embodies my own personal goals. I waited with excitement for it to come in the mail and when it did arrive, I simply fell into it. I had already implemented so much of what this book talks about and yet H. C. Flores still has shown me even more ways of looking at lawns and their effect on our environment. She has also given me new resolve on the importance of what I am doing in my own front yard...not only the food I grow but the opportunity I have to show the people whose lives mine touches another way to think about the part we each play in our environment.
from the book

Whether you live in an apartment, in the suburbs, on a farm, or anywhere in between, growing food is the first step toward a healthier, more self-reliant, and ultimately more ecologically sane life. Gardening may seem like just a hobby to many people, but in fact growing food is one of the most radical things you can do: Those who control our food control our lives, and when we take that control back into our own hands, we empower ourselves toward autonomy, self-reliance, and true freedom.

Reading this book has sent me on an internet research quest to find out more about this phenomenon we call the urban lawn. I have come up with lots of interesting stuff which I will share here with you..

from http://www.mightyfoods.com/archives/2006/10/food_not_lawns.html

Turning our yards back into utilitarian spaces may be one of the most important things we do to combat the industrial food machine. It is the very best example of eating locally and has a positive impact on us by cutting down food miles and educating people (most importantly youth!) about the origins of ingredients.

Some amazing facts about lawns gathered from various sources:

* Nearly 50,000 square miles of America is covered in lawns.
* Americans spend $27 billion per year caring for lawns.
* A 25' x 40' lawn needs 10,000 gallons of water each summer.
* 30-60% of all urban fresh water is used for watering our lawns.
* Pesticides and fertilizers used to maintain lawns can increase water nitrate levels.
* Run-off from watering lawns pollutes our streams and rivers.
* Ground water nitrate levels are one of the largest landfill contributions to the greenhouse effect.
* A conventional mower pollutes as much in an hour as driving 100 miles in your car.
* Annually in the US, we use 800 million gallons of gas to fuel our lawn mowers.
* Mowing grass depletes fossil fuels as it emits high levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds.
* According to the EPA, 17 million gallons of gasoline are spilled each year while refueling lawn equipment. To put that into perspective, that is more than all the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
* We send over 160 million tons of lawn clippings as solid waste to the landfill each year.
* Americans annually use 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides on their lawns.
* The average urban lawn can produce several hundred pounds of food a year!

The most amazing thing that I turned up is the Urban Homestead site of the Dervaes family in Pasadena, CA. Another great example of what you can do on your city lot. They grow 6000 lbs of food on a 1/10 acre lot! This site alone has made me realize that I want to weigh everything that we harvest this year to see just how much I am growing. Inspirational~!

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/01/01/whats-new-for-the-new-year-project-1/

Once again, the driving force behind Path to Freedom , Jules Dervaes, has led the way with a radical challenge. Can we urban homesteaders deliver? PTF will be trailblazing a new path as we ask: How much food can be grown on such a small scale?

Back in 2003, we at Path To Freedom first shocked ourselves and “the world” by growing 6,000 lbs (3 tons) of fruits, vegetables and herbs on our 1/10 acre growing space and proved that we could approach a high level of self sufficiency both directly and indirectly from our city lot.

Can 1/10 of an acre (about 4,300 sq ft) grow a cornucopia of 10,000 pounds without using ANY organic NPK fertilizers? We are talking about a piece of land equivalent to 66′x66′! Such an urban food production feat has not been undertaken and documented with stats to prove its possibility. Are we crazy? Crazy, you say? Yes siree, bob. Whether or not this happens all depends on the weather. God willing, we hope to be blessed with abundant rainfall and good weather to reap a bountiful harvest! Stay tuned to this journal for the out-of-this world developments.

How did I get here?

It is a snowy day here in Western North Carolina, as I find myself reflecting on where I come from, I am realizing that the choices that I make for my family are based not only on the state of the world today but on my own personal history.
When I was in kindergarten, my family went on a Sunday drive in the countryside on Long Island and stumbled on a goat farm. Now this was back in the 60's and there really was still some country left on Long Island in those days. I remember duck farms and potato farms and other small farms. But we managed to stumble on a goat place and stopped to check it out.. Well my Mom fell in love with the idea of raising goats. Funny how well I can remember that day even now. It was all she could talk about on the way home. But we lived in a township that did not allow farm animals and so began the search for a place where we could have goats. We had always had a big vegetable garden and I remember their first discovery of the hornworms on our tomato plants and the big stir that they caused. Mom and Dad gathered them in a jar and pulled out the reference books so that they could look them up and figure out what they were. So odd looking and morbidly fascinating to us kids. It's been 40 years and yet I still remember that jar and the writhing worms!
Anyway the talk at our house was all about goats after that Sunday drive and "back to the land" and homesteading and where could we do it. I love this part of the story! My parents decided that Pennsylvania sounded like a good place to "do this" and so they got a map of Pennsylvania and blindfolded Mom and she "stuck a pin in the map"! She landed on Middleburg, PA. And we went on our first of many farm hunting trips to Pennsylvania shortly after. We looked at farms in Middleburg and then other Pennsylvania towns and then into New England. Nothing was quite right and eventually another Sunday drive turned up a very old house in Sayville, NY also on Long Island (not far from our original place) that was in a township that did allow farm animals. It was an old center-hall colonial house build pre-revolution and had been in the same family ever since it was originally built. It had no electric and no plumbing, three outhouses out back, an old chicken shed and another big out building. I think it was an acre. They added all of the modern conveniences and my Dad, a cabinetmaker, faithfully restored each part of the house to the period that was built in. It was an amazing process of research and restoration. It was a combination genealogy and archeology project. Old houses always have a story to tell hidden in the construction techniques, add-ons and items lost in the floor boards or tucked away in other places. But add to all those clues, the house and shed were filled with old letters, magazines, newspapers, clothes and more. These people did not throw anything out and Mom was able to piece together the family history of these original inhabitants.
So our first family homestead was on a town lot in a small town setting. We had goats and chickens and a big organic garden. We kids always had our own garden plots that we were our responsibility. We ordered most of our seed from Gurneys back then. Each of us would choose one vegetable that we wanted to grow and we'd each also get several "penny packs". In those days Gurney would package for kids the "penny pack". It is not in their catalog anymore. But Dad always guessed that after a day of packaging seed they must have swept the floor to fill these "for kids only" packs as you never knew what you would get from these seeds. It was a magical things for a kid to have this wonderful mystery only to to be solved as the plants came up and revealed themselves.
Books like Grow It and Stocking Up and magazines like Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening were standard family reading.
Our in-town homestead continued on until I reached the 7th Grade when my parents became restless for that "back to the land" life. They had a real desire to "get out of the rat race" and move to the country.
We started this farm search, as we had begun the first hunt, in Middleburg, PA and there, nearly 10 years later, we found our place. It was an overgrown Christmas Tree farm where the land either went up or it went down.. not much level land there but it was 53 acres with a barn and other out buildings. The 100 year old covered over log house had electricity but no plumbing. Okay it had plumbing.... a hand pump in the kitchen, a galvanized wash tub in the "back room" for bathing, and an outhouse on the hill between the garden and the house.
Whenever I tell this story, I hear that old John Prine song running through my head..." Blow up your TV, throw away your paper, Go to the country, build you a home, Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, ...." because that is just about what we did. No more TV, we grew most of our own vegetables in a terraced garden. Besides the goats, we raised chickens, ducks, and geese. We always had at least one beef calf and a pig or two for meat. We tried rabbit and strange but memorable things like beef tongue. For staples we shopped at the original Walnut Acres in PennsCreek, PA in our same county. (The original Walnut Acres, both the central Pennsylvania farm and the mail order food company founded in 1946 by organic pioneers Paul and Betty Keene, went out of business in the summer of 2000. The name and label is now owned by the Hain Celestial Group.)
This is how I spent my teenage years, milking and feeding the animals before school each day, helping in the garden and with the canning and preserving food for the winter. I am the oldest of five children and I know that I was often not a happy participant in this family experiment and way of life. But today, as I look at my life, I realize just how formative those years were in my view of the world and the choices that I now make for my family. When I look back into my deepest roots, I realize that my own urban plot and the path that I am on today first began in my family's homestead garden so many years ago.