Veggie Gardening Revolution: YOU & ONE SEED!

Thomas Jefferson was a gardening enthusiast, but his passion for growing food went beyond his own backyard. Apparently he believed that America was incapable of true democracy unless 20 percent of its citizens were self-sufficient on small farms. This would enable them to be real dissenters, free to voice opinions and beliefs, without any obligation to food producers who might hold their survival at stake. ~ Katherine Martinko

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You can start with any container you wish right outside your door, upstairs or downstairs, on the roof, for the freshest tasty organic veggies! (Haxnicks container)

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Winner of the 2012 Green Thumb Award for Outstanding New Product, the Vegtrug’s back-saving design allows you to garden while standing. Bad knees, bad back? No problem! Get outside, raise your spirits, improve your health! There are no age limits to veggie gardening!

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Any wall or fence will do! Be creative!

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Garden anywhere! The Balcony is perfect! Every which way but loose!

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Strawberries in Pallets on the ground…

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…to Rain Gutters overhead!

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Grow Fast food in space saver Tower Gardens at home, to feed the homeless, at the office or hospital!

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At owner/architect Norman Millar’s Arkhouse in the Los Angeles area, the rooftop veggie garden gets plenty of SoCal sun in between polycarbonate panels. Photo: Robin Horton.

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It’s a “liberating DIY revolution,” as writer Megan Mayhew Bergman calls it. In her article “Democracy needs gardeners!” which is an inspiring call for Americans to dig up their lawns, convert empty spaces, and utilize available windowsills, Bergman urges Americans to start gardening as an act of patriotism.

The Back 40 or a gorgeous Food Not Lawn front yard! Do it!

Guerrilla Gardening has changed the face of many a landscape, raised neighborhood pride, and often feeds many!

Started in 2009, Seattle’s 7 acre, 2.5 miles from downtown Seattle, Beacon Food Forest includes an Edible Arboretum with fruits gathered from regions around the world, a Berry Patch for canning, gleaning and picking, a Nut Grove with trees providing shade and sustenance, a Community Garden using the p-patch model for families to grow their own food, a Gathering Plaza for celebration and education, a Kid’s Area for education and play and a Living Gateway to connect and serve as portals as you meander through the forest. It’s all done by volunteers and the food is free for foraging!

Small to large, Community Gardens, often urban, but not always, give landless apartment dwellers, children, disabled and seniors the blessed and grateful opportunity to garden, enjoy the outdoors, events – weddings, concerts, art exhibits, share friendship, learning and beauty with each other!

Urban garden, Fort Mason Community Garden, San Francisco, CA

Per the GrowNetwork.com: Only a few generations ago, our recent ancestors all kept their own seed supplies. I’m not talking about ancient history… I’m talking about your great-grandparents. They traded their favorite seeds with their friends and neighbors, and they passed on the best seeds to their children. In doing so, they bred vegetable varieties that were tailor-made for their local climates. And they maintained a healthy level of genetic diversity in their food supply.

It’s important we do the same! SeedSaving is as simple as collecting seeds from your best plants. Over the fence seed trading has always been done. These days it can be buying from online seed houses, seed exchanges, like Southern Exposure that intend to preserve heirloom plants. You might trade seeds online like at Seed Exchange – GardenWeb! You may want to contribute to a Seed Library 
or get started with free seeds from a Library. Santa Barbara CA’s Foodbank offers free seeds and instruction to people in need to help them grow their own food! Local annual Seed Swaps are usually held in January so gardeners can plan their gardens, have plenty of time to start seedlings for spring planting.

Seeds are a precious resource. Take good care of them. In any natural disaster, they are the first thing I would take with me other than my dog! If you are political, work to secure our right to have non GMO seeds and the right to collect our own seeds.

Uncommon and common EVENTS! Local and international festivals, presentations, symposiums, exhibits and more! From Permaculture to rainwater catchment – graywater, soil building, seed gathering trainings, garden design, container gardening to farming, community gardens, vertical gardening, local food, edible flowers, bees, pests & diseases, organic, perennial vegetables, sustainability, to research! And then there are your favorite veggie & fruit festivals, the Gilroy Garlic Festival, The Avocado Festival, Pumpkins, Apples, Strawberries, Tomatoes! All bring out our very best and inspire more conscious gardening!

In the US, the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa CA is September 6th, 7th & 8th, 2016. There will be over 100 national and internationally acclaimed on-topic speakers. You can learn and grow with some of the top names in the pure food movement and young people speakers from age 17 up! Three Day Pass only $30, kids 17 and under free! 3 Days isn’t really enough! Three proud sponsors include the City of Santa Rosa, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Mother Earth News!

The terms Permaculture, then Food Forests/Forest Gardening, have come into use. They have changed the ways gardeners approach gardening and their interactions with each other! Simply put, permaculture is the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

Forest gardening is a low maintenance sustainable plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables. Making use of plant guilds, companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow in a succession of layers, to build a woodland habitat. Forest gardening is a prehistoric method of securing food in tropical areas. In the 1980s, Robert Hart coined the term “forest gardening” after adapting the principles and applying them to temperate climates. (Wiki)

The keyword here is sustainability! It’s a contribution to the planet. It makes living here a good quality option for our children. This is a revolution that makes sense and is well worth fighting for! Plant seeds today!

SAN FRANCISCO PERMACULTURE GUILD BLOG

Take super good care of yourself and your loved ones. Fuel your body, mind and Spirit with the very best!

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The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. We are very coastal, during late spring/summer in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

See the entire July 2016 GBC Newsletter!

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Seattle’s Urban Food Forest Open For Foraging late Summer 2014!

 

So what is a food forest?! Simply, it is a perimeter, usually U shaped, of trees with veggies growing in the hot less windy protected center area. If done like nature, it is seamless, with low veggies, then shrubs, then understory trees, then the taller trees. You can’t tell where one ‘layer’ begins or ends. In sustainable style, the trees are for wood or food, like nut trees, multi variety grafted dwarf fruit trees, native elderberry. The shrubs might be native hollyleaf cherries, blueberries or a thicket of black berries, roses for rose hips, currants, guavas, rosemary. Many times, people have been in flourishing native gardens and not even known it. 

Beacon Food Forest is using land donated by Seattle Public Utilities, and has a $100,000 grant from the city. Glenn Herlihy, one of the creators, says the forest could eventually produce “quite a bit of food,” and he hopes it will be a place where the community can come together. The forest will include a teaching space, conventional community gardening plots, a barbecue spot, and recreational areas. 

Set to become the nation’s largest forageable space, it will cover seven acres within city limits, offering FREE FOOD, everything from plum, apple, and walnut trees, to berry bushes, herbs and vegetables. 

Herlihy hopes visitors will practice “ethical harvesting”–taking what they need, or what they can eat right away. But for those feeling greedy, there will be a “thieves garden” containing lower-grade stuff. “We also plan to have a lot of people around, so you’re not going to feel comfortable taking a lot of stuff,” he adds.

The Video! Beacon Food Forest, in turn, has inspired London’s Mabley Green, close by the Olympic Park, to create their own food forest of fruit and nut trees with vegetables, raspberries and herbs on the forest floor. The latest news I could find on that was dated Mar 10, 2014 – the project has been approved to the tune of £860,000, that’s $1,445,942 US! They want it to be the world’s largest “edible park!” Chairman of the user group, Damian Rafferty, says the edible garden would help tackle childhood obesity rates, of which Hackney has some of the worst in London. “We also want Hackney mums to be able to say to the children, ‘Run to the park and pick some apples for the tea.’ It’s about bringing a bit of rural into an urban area.”

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. – Chinese Proverb

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Love, Flowers, Healing – Happy Wesak!

In honor of Wesak, the May Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon, of Love and Wisdom, the Buddha, I share this story with you for your contemplation….

It is said that people in Tibet seek healing from physical and emotional wounds in a unique way. They sit downwind from flowers. It is a therapy that has been carried on for centuries, based not on superstition but on natural medicine. Sitting downwind from flowers, one can be dusted with the pollen from new blossoms, pollen that some say carries certain healing qualities.

Linda Ross Swanson tells the story of a 52-year-old Tibetan refugee named Tenzin who lived in Seattle. Diagnosed with lymphoma and unwilling to undergo the usual chemotherapy treatment because it brought back memories of having been tortured as a political prisoner in China, he was brought to a hospice. There he told workers of the Tibetan method of healing, and one of them agreed to help.

On a sunny afternoon the hospice worker picked up Tenzin and his wife, packed some provisions traditional to Tibetans—black tea, yak butter, salt, cups and cookies—and dropped the couple off at a nursery. They found a suitable spot, sat downwind from the flowers and, under the watchful eye of curious nursery employees, enjoyed their afternoon tea. They did the same the following week at another nursery.

The word got around, and soon nurseries all over Seattle were vying for Tenzin’s presence. They called him when new plants arrived, placed chairs to match the wind direction and provided the tea. Customers filled flats with flowers and put them carefully around the couple, and some began calling nurseries to ask how he was doing. Day after day throughout an entire summer Tenzin and his wife sat downwind from flowers around Seattle.

At the end of the summer, Tenzin went in for a follow-up CT scan. There was no trace of cancer. The doctor confessed he was astounded and could not explain the miraculous change. Tenzin had his own explanation: “I know why the cancer left. It can’t live in a body filled with love. When I began to feel all the compassion from the hospice team, from the nursery employees, from all the people who wanted to know about me, I began to change inside.”

I share this story not to promote folk medicine but because I believe love cures people—those who receive it and those who give it. Love is life’s healing agent. When searching for a way to heal—if not cancer, then at least a wounded heart—sit downwind from flowers. Allow people to touch you with their goodness and kindness. Allow them to be touched by yours. There is healing there.

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You have just read “Downwind from Flowers,” written by Dr. Michael Halleen and re-printed here with his permission.  It was published as Monday Moments on April 7, 2008. His book, You Are Rich, is a collection of sixty Monday Moments  and is available for sale at $12 each. Contact Dr. Halleen at mhalleen@att.net for more information.

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