Spring=Garden=Good

Spring is such a beautiful time for good food.  The wild—ramps, wild onions, fiddelheads, morels, dandelions, violet blossoms.  The cultivated—radishes, pea shoots, asparagus, chives, rhubarb, garlic scapes, tender greens, scallions.  That particular green of sunlight on leaves and the scent of fruit blossoms shake us out of hibernation.  It’s a wonder that we all don’t succumb to spring fever and skip out of work each fine day to forage and tend and till.

Spring is a time when we can set ourselves up to eat well all year-round by grafting fruit trees, planting our gardens, signing up for a CSA, or using that tax refund for a food dehydrator or pressure canner.  It’s gardening that’s on my mind this spring the most.  With a freshly tilled new garden at home and an increasingly popular community garden program at work, I’ve been reflecting on the powerful positive impacts of gardens. Which is why, of course, they’re spreading like wildfires in Milwaukee and across the country—supported by community activists and public health officials alike.

People garden for many reasons—the pleasure of being outside, the remarkable taste of fresh food, the connections made with other gardeners, the security offered by a plot of food, the money saved by growing your own groceries, and so on.  Intuitively, people feel that gardening is good.  And there’s been some good scientific research into the benefits of community gardens to support those intuitions.  A few of the benefits I like to remind people of if there’s even a whisper that they think its all just feel good fluff:

• Gardening is a promising practice for diabetes prevention and control through healthy activity and food.
• Children & adults who garden eat more fruits and vegetables.
• A garden program promotes healthy food security.
• Gardening reduces stress and calms the nerves.
• Gardening helps youth with self-esteem.
• Gardens strengthen communities.
• “Horticultural Therapy “can help with mental health issues, such as post traumatic stress disorder, depression; and anxiety and may help ex-convicts with rehabilitation
•  Gardening can reduce food miles & support local economies & cultures

Gardening can also promote food biodiversity.  The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity estimates that “300,000 vegetable varieties have become extinct over the last century.”

By growing heirloom and endangered foods in our gardens we can help save these foods from extinction.  The vegetables that have been boarded onto Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste are a good place to start if you’d like to grow endangered veggies—they are rare and delicious and storied.  Some Ark of Taste vegetables (seeds may be sourced through Seed Savers Exchange for most of these) that may be well suited for growing in Wisconsin include:

• Amish Deer Tongue lettuce
• Grandpa Admire's lettuce
• Speckled lettuce
• Tennis Ball lettuce (black seeded)
• Early Blood Turnip-rooted beet
• Beaver Dam pepper
• Bull Nose Large Bell pepper
• Fish pepper
• Hinkelhatz Hot pepper
• Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying pepper
• Sheepnose pimiento
• Amish Paste Tomato
• German Pink Tomato
• Sheboygan Tomato
• Red Fig Tomato
• Aunt Molly’s Husk Tomato (ground Cherry)
• Valencia Tomato
• Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg Bean
• True Red Cranberry bean
• Hidatsa Shield Figure bean
• Yellow Indian Woman Bean
• Hutterite Soup bean
• Mayflower Bean
• Turkey’ Hard Red Winter Wheat
• Roy’s Calais flint corn

If you want to learn more about growing food and/or want to be a part of an organized initiative to install home and community gardens in Milwaukee, consider being a part of the 4^th Annual Great Milwaukee Victory Garden Blitz. Their motto at VGI: “Move Grass. Grow Food.”  My thoughts exactly…

Procuring Nourishment

A trip to the farmer's market this morning, and an afternoon spent in the garden yesterday, left me musing about the procurement of food. The word procure, comes from the Latin term procurare, meanings, "to take care of."  Pro = for + cura = care.  Just how much care do we, en masse, spend in obtaining our food?

Farmer's market shoppers with reusable bags brimming with gorgeous produce aside, I see evidence all around of just how little time, thought, or care goes into to how, why, and when people get something to fill their bellies or quench their thirst.  The good food movement is on the upswing, but most Americans remain out of touch with the source of their nourishment.

Once upon a time humans spent a great deal of time and care feeding themselves.  Now we leave it up to a small handful of very powerful food corporations (which bring us factory made burgers and industrial grade sweeteners) to do it for us.  In the neighborhood in which I work, as I walk to our health center's community garden plot, I find garbage cans and sidewalks littered with fast food wrappers and empty sweetened beverage containers and people guzzling high fructose corn syrup like it's going out of style.  Not to point fingers.  Federal policies and corporate campaigns have led to these easily obtainable, cheap, processed foodstuffs.  Each convenience store and gas station I walk past proudly announces they accept food stamps inside.  Peering down the aisles of these stores, I find little that would qualify as healthy options.  You know this scene.

Ironically, or maybe tragically, only two farmer's markets in the Milwaukee metro area currently accept food stamps.  There does exist the Farmer's Market Nutrition Program for seniors and WIC participants, but the elders I know who signed up for the SFMNP came home with a $25 coupon for the season.  Twenty five dollars won't get people their recommended daily servings of vegetables for an entire season, maybe not even an entire week.  Why is it, I keep asking myself, do we subsidize cheap food on the agricultural level with corn and soybean subsidies?  (see Gov Ag Policies and Obesity.)  Wouldn't the sane thing to do, from a public health perspective, be to make it as easy as possible for all people to get the foods that help to prevent and control obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and such?

Bottomline: The change we so drastically need to make in our food system can't just come from the top down in the shape of smarter food assistance & subsidy policies; it must come from individuals and communities as well.  This is why local groups such as the Victory Garden Initiative, Growing Power, Walnut Way, and even our little Circle Garden project are so important--because it is these initiatives that teach people to be more self sufficient by growing nutritious food...to take more care in finding something to eat.

Midsummer's Bounty

It’s mid summer and I dream of pickles….

These days, my spare hours are devoted to finding ways to cook, preserve, and eat our garden’s bounty. Freezing, canning, pickling, drying, have joined chopping, sautéing, roasting, grilling, and baking to become frequent visitors to my partner's and my routine.

This blog was started to explore issues surrounding eco-nutrition, but for the moment at least, I will change course to share a few visuals from my own eco eating adventure.

This season, I have neglected not only blogs, but hobbies, errands, travels, dear friends and favorite family members for a garden, an orchard, 4 chickens, and a couple of borrowed sheep…

Eating Green for Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!

The old adage "Reduce-Reuse-Recycle" is still as important as ever, but more and more people are considering the powerful effects our food choices have on the earth as well.

Ten Things You Can Do To Eat Green

1. Eat Local. Local foods are high in flavor as well as "low carb"- low in carbon emissions.
   
2. Buy Organic. Not just for the birds and the bees; our entire ecosystem (ourselves included) benefits from responsible agriculture.
3. Grow your own food. In your garden you can plant heirloom seeds, grow them organically, and eat them quite locally in your own backyard.
   
4. Eat less meat. Feed lot meat is carbon-intensive. Go grass fed or vegetarian.
   
5. Cook more often. Make more time to be in the kitchen. Highly processed and packaged foods take a lot of energy to make and transport.
   
6. Compost. Take your food scraps out of the landfill and turn them into "black gold" for your garden.
   
7. Bag it yourself. Instant karma. Bring bags with you when you shop.
   
8. Pay more, eat less. Consider paying a higher percentage of your income on food. Food insecurity is a real issue in many households in this country and the world beyond. However, we spend less time working to get food on our plates than ever before in history. (Is that cable t.v more important than the organic milk?)
9. Plan ahead. From packing a lunch to preserving apples, planning ahead can help you avoid buying energy intensive convenience foods that you don't really want.
   
10. Educate. Share meals and ideas. Request local, organic, and sustainable foods at your favorite restaurants and grocery stores.