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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> 10ways
 10 Ways to Feed Yourself and Others
As the economy declines and food lines at community food banks swell, it’s
time for home gardeners to swing into action. We’ve babied heirloom tomatoes
and tender eggplants, swooned at delicate melons and crisp lettuces. Our weekend
hobby has been invigorating and a good physical workout. But now it’s time to
get serious. We can feed ourselves, our families, neighbors and strangers. It’s
up to us to help fill food banks, enlist neighbors in our gardens and apply our
knowledge, enthusiasm and experience. Here are 10 ways to get
started.
Expand the garden
Expand your garden and the concept of a garden. Perhaps the area you dedicate
to growing vegetables and fruits is tiny in comparison to your appetite. Turn the
front yard into a vegetable garden. If that’s more than you can imagine,
consider tucking trim and delicate plants like peppers or eggplants into annual
or perennial beds. Line a walkway with lettuces. Let peas tendril up a rose
trellis. Greens are as decorative as any ornamental plant and will companion
with roses. Tomatoes take a bit of space but they’re perfect climbing a fence
or adorning a trellised wall.
Look for new garden spaces
After you’ve stretched your notions of your own garden, look around at
others. Perhaps your church, synagogue, temple or mosque has a sunny patch
perfect for a garden. Organize those you pray with to form a garden group.
Consider park spaces, empty places around apartment buildings, alleyways or neighborhood
wastelands as potential garden sites. You can begin with a children’s garden
if it’s situated in a neighborhood where kids romp. Start with sunflowers,
tiny vegetables like miniature tomatoes, a groundcover of strawberries, brightly
hued zinnias and perhaps a small seating area for picnics. Do you belong to a
club or social group? Enlist them to find good gardening sites and join in as
weekend gardeners.
Organize the neighborhood
You may have neighbors who would love to grow some food but have no idea how
to get started. Identify the neighborhood longtime gardeners and appoint them as
coaches. They can canvass the street going from home to home suggesting the best
possible sites for six hours of sun, access to water and shelter from strong
winds. Encourage would-be gardeners to start small but think big. Success
usually comes in small bites but most gardeners are always dreaming of the next
bigger garden.
Bring in the neighbors and friends
Perhaps your neighbors would prefer to work in your garden. In exchange for
food, neighbors may devote weekends to tending your garden learning at your knee
how to garden effectively. Encourage them to bring kitchen scraps to your
compost pile if they have no desire for one of their own. Let them know your garden is
open to them at anytime: for weeding, planting, harvesting.
Get rid of pesticides and herbicides, chemical fertilizers
Encourage your neighbors to cut down on wasteful costs like pesticides or
herbicides. Offer them tours of gardens where no poisons are used. In no time
they can see for themselves that it’s possible to design a beautiful garden
without toxins of any kind. Forget chemical fertilizers, too. These expensive
chemicals do more harm than good. Building your own compost, mulches and
employing low-cost pest barriers like row cover will ensure success. Compost can be
vegetable scraps, yard waste, grass clippings and autumn leaves. These free
items will build great soil and give your plants all the nutrients they require.
Connect with your local food banks
What kind of fresh produce does your local food bank need that you can
provide? Perhaps tomatoes are in hot demand or they love winter squash because
it will store well. More and more food banks are encouraging their recipients to
pick up fresh produce for a healthy diet. Your excess produce can become an
important addition to someone’s diet that not only fills a stomach but
nourishes their immune systems.
Learn to preserve food
Our great-grandmothers canned food that could be stored throughout the
winter: tomatoes, corn and green beans. Dried beans provided heft to soups and
stews. Winter squash and pumpkins kept for months in chilled cellars. Potatoes,
carrots, turnips and rutabagas could be packed in sand. Those techniques
continue with renewed interest. But if canning appears both time and energy
consuming, consider other approaches. Drying tomatoes in a simple dryer with the
wattage of a light bulb is far more energy efficient than canning. If you’ve
got freezer room, freezing tomatoes is a cinch. Wash the tomatoes, cut them in
half to conserve space, place them in a freezer bag and you have the basics for
a winter tomato sauce. Drying takes less space: dried tomatoes, zucchini chips,
cherries and plums are just a few garden staples that dry easily. Of course,
winter squash remains a top choice for a delicious feast in midwinter that
requires no energy use at all.
Share seeds and plants
Nothing gets a new gardener going faster then presenting them with seeds or a
plant. We all order packets of seeds that arrive with too many for only one
gardener. After you’ve removed the seeds you know you’ll need, have a seed
swap with neighbors and gardening friends. This is the best way to try a new
vegetable--perhaps that kohlrabi you’ve always wanted to grow but didn’t
want an entire packet of seeds. You may find seeds of heirloom tomatoes or an
Italian broccoli that you’ve never eaten before. Seed swaps ensure that
seeds get used before their germination falters. And gardening friends who can’t
afford much variety in seeds will have oodles of new, exciting prospects to grow
in their gardens.
Set up classes
Enlist your fellow gardeners to offer free classes to new gardeners. Most of
us have at least one area of expertise: preparing soil, growing tomatoes,
understanding water conservation, rotation of crops, using cover crops, planting
a spring garden, starting plants from seeds, growing strawberries or
raspberries. Whatever the collection of potential classes, offer them to newer
gardeners through email lists, garden center bulletin boards, sustainable food
groups or farmers market kiosks. Eventually you’ll have enough interested
beginners to sit around a dining room table. Your enthusiasm for gardening is
bound to find fertile soil among your small gathering.
Form a network
As you meet and get to know more and more like-minded gardeners, form a
network. You will be able not only to share seeds, but divide plants, share
harvests, order seeds and materials as a group, exchange information and
expertise, care for each other’s gardens when necessary and pass on your
knowledge. Gardeners are among the most generous of people. It makes sense that
during tough economic times, their sterling characteristics will shine.
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