New Stories From 'Urban Agriculture Notes'
Random header image... Refresh for more!

These Garden Mentors Are Growing Equity

Share a Seed Founder Reana Kovalcik (right) chats with Erin Palmer, ANC 4B02 Commissioner. (Photo credit: Hannah Packman, Slow Food DC)

Master gardeners are helping fight food insecurity by supporting home gardening to build healthier communities.

By Lisa Held
Civil Eats
June 11, 2021

Excerpt:

Will the pandemic gardening trend fizzle out more cities open up and many Americans start returning to the office? Most signs point to no.

Seed demand has been even higher in 2021 than it was in 2020, and garden and seed leaders say that enthusiasm for growing food remains high. As a result, a wide variety of initiatives have sprouted up in the past year to support new home and community gardeners.

“I feel like I’ve been in a bajillion online summits,” said Jovan Sage, a gardener who works at the intersection of food culture, herbalism, fertility, and seed advocacy as a board member for Seed Savers Exchange. The most recent was The Great Grow Along, a virtual event that featured experts from around the country leading sessions on growing food in raised beds and container gardening for pollinators.

“I talked about medicinal herbs and how people could grow them in their own backyards . . . and then everybody put out information that could help people grow things. Seed Savers has put [out] some great information. A lot of companies started trying to figuring out, ‘How do we help people during this time?’”

Among the many other resources newly available to aspiring gardeners is The Foodscaper, an online magazine filled with articles that help people grow food at home, including guides to transforming lawns into gardens and growing fruit in tight spaces. And gardening experts all over the country are offering educational services. Carmen DeVito in New York City and Jamie Brennan in Boise, for example, now provide virtual consultations and coaching. Not everyone is digging into pots on their own patios, either: When Nature’s Path opened its 2021 Gardens for Good grant program to support community gardens, the organic food company received 350 applications—about 10 times the number it received the previous year.

Read the complete article here.