Recently in Locavore - Local Food Category

There are several reasons why urban gardens using containers are effective:

1. They enable us to practice "intensive" gardening method through maximum utilization of limited space.

2. It is easy to practice "intercropping" (planting a variety of plants in one container) which ensures the health of plants due to diversity.

3. It is possible to "conserve" both soil and water as containers prevent run offs of soil and excessive watering.

4. Urban gardens "make use of urban wasteland" (vacant lots, brown fields, unused parking lots, and roof tops)

5. Urban gardening provides "meaningful employment" for persons with limited skills and formal education.

6. Establishing and maintaining an urban garden are very "inexpensive".

7. Urban gardens provide creative ways to "recycle" old tires and other containers that otherwise would be thrown into landfills.

8. Churches and social service organizations can use urban gardening to "rehabilitate, create income generation projects, and provide therapy."

Technology for the Poor publishes a wonderful website that describes effective, low cost ways of developing container gardens that are highly productive. Using wading pools and tires, among other repurposed "technologies" urban residents can sink their toes into the soil in parking lots, on rooftops, in vacant lots and in their tiny urban backyards.  And the productivity isn't just in food -- as delicious as it might be -- it has far ranging quality of life and skill building results.

The purpose of an intensively grown garden is to harvest the most produce possible from a given space.

The Arizona Master Gardener Manual on Intensive Gardening methods examines several ways to grow in small areas.

The practice of intensive gardening is not just for those with limited garden space; rather, an intensive garden concentrates work efforts to create an ideal plant environment, giving better yields with less labor.

A good intensive garden requires early, thorough planning to make the best use of time and space in the garden. Interrelationships of plants must be considered before planting, including nutrient needs, shade tolerance, above- and below-ground growth patterns, and preferred growing season.

Using the techniques described in The Arizona Master Gardener Manual on Intensive Gardening , anyone can develop a high-yielding intensive garden.

It can be done!  One home at a time!  Low impact family gardening makes a huge difference in our climate change strategy...and the health of our families:

Havana relies on 200 urban farms known as organoponicos

Cuba, on the brink of starvation when the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years
ago, now produces 90% of its fruits and vegetable needs, using organic,
low-tech inputs.  The Cuban diet is healthier and uses 1/3 the energy to
produce versus typical western food production.

Some of the plots are small - just a few rows of lettuces and radishes being grown in an old parking space.

Other plots are much larger - the size of several football pitches. Usually they have a stall next to them to sell the produce at relatively low prices to local people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8213617.stm

Growing food almost year round in the mountains of Colorado is a green solution for localized food. It's a bit beyond farming -- this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager.

"Locovores" eat foods from their local foodshed or a self-determined radius from their home (commonly either 100 or 250 miles, depending on location). By eating locally, most locavores hope to create a greater connection between themselves and their food sources, resist industrialized and processed foods, and support their local economy.

In trying to live a more sustainable, logical lifestyle, many locavores give themselves exceptions to a strict local diet. Commonly excluded items include coffee, chocolate, salt, and/or spices. To keep a local focus, they often try to find local coffee roasters, chocolate producers, and spice importers.

There is a growing interest in regional native foods and ethnic foods such as the Southwest's historic Mexican influence with herbs and peppers.  But there are additional native foods such as dried beans, squash, corn and nuts.

Locovores find tremendous challenge and adventure in discovering what grows in their own neighborhood and nearby communities.  They learn more about their ecosystems and how their use of water, their waste management choices and their choice of housing size, materials and styles all affect the natural food production capability in their region.  Everything is connected ... weather patterns, soil nutrients, drainage, insect infestations...and even those humble gardeners, migrating birds!

Locovores have much to learn from their wild neighbors -- both plants and animals.   What a great challenge to give your family -- trying to eat foods from driving distance from where you live!


"Leslie Allen has always been enthusiastic in her support of northern Nevada's local food lifestyle. As commercial horticulture program coordinator for University of Nevada Cooperative Extension (UNCE), it's part of her job ... yet her passion for this increasingly important field goes far beyond the norm. So much so, in fact, that Allen's love of what she does has found a new description."  She's a "Locavore" ... and proud of it.

A local eating study, known as "Locavore Nation," in which participants attempted to eat 80%  of their food from local, organic and sustainable sources. "Locavore Nation" was sponsored by America Public Media's radio show, "The Splendid Table."

After voluntarily subjecting themselves to eating 80% locally produced foods for a year, the 15 participants in the Splendid Table's "Locavore Nation" have been released from captivity and are free to go back to eating Corn Nuts and powdered mini donuts.

You can retrace their steps on the "Splendid Table" site, where the entire year's worth of blogs are still archived.

Learn more about Locovores at www.Locavore.ws