Garden News – Community Gardens and Public Spaces

Hello everyone,

You know, I got to thinking about my last post on gardening, that it’s easy for me to talk about the advantages of having even a small garden, but that many people here in Campbell live in apartments or town homes and don’t have access to places to grow even a few plants. That’s where the idea of community gardens comes in.

A community garden is a dedicated space where people without yards, who wish to, can grow a little garden of their own. A place where they could have a chance to grow a few flowers for the kitchen table or some fresh vegetables for a special meal. I remember when the concept was in the news in 1977 and I was very excited about it. What a great opportunity for Campbell residents with limited yard space! One such community garden was created in Campbell at . I came across a good .

So now, 35 some odd years later, we have only the one community garden here in Campbell as far as I know. I contacted them and was informed that there is a long waiting list of people who wish to participate. More than a five year wait if you’re not already on the list!

The person I spoke to was not aware of any plans to create more gardens anytime soon. I find this unfortunate. Obviously, there is a great interest in community gardens and I feel that Campbell should make an effort to provide more space for this type of arrangement. A quick internet search on community gardens in San Jose revealed 19 established locations and a waiting list for each.

I think it’s time that we ask ourselves what do we really want to see in our public spaces around town. Do we really need another retail development or standard city park with the paved walkways and vast expanses of well manicured lawns? While I cannot argue that the area desperately needed a park for folks to bring their kids to play, I can’t help but wonder if the newly created on Union Avenue could have been made into a Heritage Orchard and/or a community garden easier and at much less expense.

So what can we do to create more space for community gardens in our city? One idea I had was that every new housing development that goes in should include an area planned for use as a community garden. Perhaps they would need to build a few less housing units or parking areas, but the space would go to a far better use in my opinion.

Another idea is that property owners in town with extra, idyll land could loan some of their property to their neighbors for use as community gardens. If any people with spare land are reading this post, I would ask you to consider this option. I’m sure an arrangement could be made where you would get a share of the harvest and you’d know exactly who the gardeners on your land would be. They’d be your neighbors.

Another neat concept that I’d like to touch on in this post is the idea of a “Crop Swap.” This is where those of us that have extra produce in our gardens can meet up with other gardeners in town to trade one type of produce for another. No money changes hands, just produce or flowers grown by the participants. Sort of like our own little farmers market! 

This works well for folks who have an over abundance of one type of produce, but would like some of another kind. If anyone out there is interested in this type of arrangement, please leave me a message below in the comments section. I would be happy to organize it. I usually have extra Santa Rosa plums towards the end of June and extra Fuji apples in the Fall.

So, to conclude my post this week, there are many reasons to grow some of your own food if you can, but I’ll give you three really good ones.

FoodCost                                                                                                                    

I don’t thnk I need to tell anyone that our food prices have skyrocketed over the past couple of years, but you might be surprised to find out one of the reasons behind it. It’s not that the actual cost of food has gone up that much. It’s all about the fossil fuels!

They are used for transporting goods and importing them from other countries. Also, either oil or natural gas is directly or indirectly used for the production of most commercial fertilizers and pesticides. I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to not have this material either on or in my food. Plus, oil and gas prices are forecasted to be going even higher this year.

What do you think that will do to prices at the grocery store or even at the farmers market? There is a good book out there on this subject that is definitely on my reading list for this year. It’s called “Eating Fossil Fuels” – follow the link and check it out! 

Avoiding GMO or GE Ingredients

Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO’s) or Genetically Engineered(GE) ingredients are already very much present in our food supply. Especially in processed foods found at most grocery stores. They are described as:

those that are altered at the molecular level in ways that could not happen naturally. This means plants and animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs. These techniques use DNA molecules from different sources, sometimes different species, and combine them into one molecule to create a new set of genes (e.g. mixing of flounder genes into tomatoes so the tomatoes would be resistant to cold temperatures.)

Most of the corn and soy ingredients in packaged foods are genetically modified in some way, yet the FDA has resisted requiring labeling for such foods. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about why that is, but by growing our own food we can avoid eating these products if we so choose.

There is an organization that is trying to get these products labeled and reports that 93% of those surveyed would like to have a GMO label on foods that contain them. Please check out the website and sign their petition to send to the FDA.

Food Security

The average grocery store has only about a three day supply of stock on hand. In the event of a natural disaster or other supply disruption, I think it would be a good idea for all of us to have a good source of fresh fruits and vegetables close by if at all possible. It wouldn’t take long for the store shelves to get pretty empty if the delivery trucks couldn’t get here or were delayed for very long. Especially if people didn’t play fair and started hoarding food.

Well that’s about it for now. Next time, I’ll write a bit about buying as local as possible. It seems like that will be an important issue this year and going forward.

Until next time.

Steve A.