Of Food Miles, Sustainable Food Systems, & Victory Gardens

Reading a bit online this week about how blog posts and articles related to the growing concern about food miles oversimplify things.  Yes, most food travels 1,500 miles from farm to table. This is a potentially serious environmental problem...the carbon footprint issue and all. And did you know that, in the U.S., our food production contributes to 17% of our total fossil fuel consumption?

On the other hand, local farmers who make repeated weekly trips for CSA deliveries and to farmers' market stalls burn considerable amounts of fossil fuels driving to the 'burbs and city centers. In the end, they may spend as much fuel (if not more) per unit of food as long haul drivers. Yup, this well-intentioned,  informal, localized method of distribution is just as bad for the environment--some might argue worse. 

Another argument for the Victory Garden revival right there, I think. If you grow it at home, no transportation issues with which to contend.

At the same time, it's a great case for why you should lobby your local grocery store produce manager to buy large amounts of local produce so that area farms can flourish. Farmers' markets are wonderful, but we frankly need more corporate and small biz owner support of local farmers to make this sustainable agriculture concept viable. Often they've got the infrastructure (and many times the trucks) in place to make the shift to local work quickly and efficiently. (Remember: No Farms=No Food!)

Back to the gardens, however...here are a couple of questions rattling in my mind of late: How do we teach a maximum number of people to grow their food, especially newcomers? How do we quickly put a support system in place as even more Americans turn to gardening next spring to deal with inflation? 

We need garden mentors...lots and lots of garden mentors...in every climate zone, every region, working in a variety of media and settings. 

Expect more on that very topic here tomorrow...

Explore More:

• Do Food Miles Make a Difference to Global Warming? (Reuters, 17 October 2007)

Profiles in Victory: Liz Galvin (Los Angeles, CA.)

A community gardener's view of the Pacific

(Courtesy photo)

As part of the ongoing Profiles in Victory series, I'm pleased to welcome this week's guest blogger (and apprentice community gardener!) Liz Galvin of Los Angeles. As someone who'd love to see her 'burb create a community garden, I find reading Liz's blog really interesting.

Here's Liz's post:

A co-worker asked me awhile ago why I grew vegetables. "Is it to save money? Or because you like organics?" I nodded yes, because I had no other short answer for her. Upon reflection, I would now say that I grow vegetables to restore a childlike sense of wonder in and connection to the living world, a sense that had gone missing in my eight on and off years of apartment dwelling in this country's second largest city, Los Angeles.

Before I came by my little beds in a community garden (where I am an associate gardener working on someone else's plot, and as of this writing, after 8 months, number 192 on the waiting list), I didn't know it was a sense of wonder that I was looking for. I just knew that I was burned out on L.A. and wished that I could move back to Minneapolis, where I'm from, where a median earner has a shot at buying a small house with a little patch of yard—not a fashionable little house, but something. In Minnesota, gardening, like home buying, parenthood, marriage, is an activity that signals a certain phase of adulthood. Like me, most of my high school and college friends have at least one parent who grew up on a farm. In that way, our generation of 30- and 40-somethings forms a bridge between our parents' era, when 17% of the nation's population farmed  and that of our children, who may never meet the one percent of the population who now grow our food. Gardening becomes a link to family and history, though if you ask my friends or cousins why they mess up their suburban lawns with tomatoes, green beans, and herbs, they'll probably just shrug and say "homegrown tastes better."

What I've learned during stints living abroad is that when you're truly sick of being in a place, when "home", wherever that is, seems like the answer to any question, the thing to do is to dig deeper, learn more about where you're at. I realize now that my mom did this when my parents moved to Atlanta. She became a master gardener and deeply immersed herself into xeriscaping. I'd always assumed this was just to solve the problem of what to do with her half acre yard and its weird orange clay soil, so different from what she'd known for 57 years, but now I see this was her way of growing roots. Learning about heirloom and native plants is, I think, one of the best ways to connect to a place's history, spirit, and ecology.

Just like my mom in Atlanta, I'm trying to grow metaphorical roots in L.A. through planting literal roots, though focusing on food, not flowers. Because I buy produce at farmers markets, I already had a general sense of when different vegetables grow here. But I couldn't have predicted how exciting it was to see my first pole beans twirl up a trellis, or how sad I now am that my short but prolific bean season is over, but then how I'm also eagerly mulling over what I'll grow next. These cycles of enthusiasm and loss replicate the seasons I grew up with, superimposing rhythms on a climate that can have a maddening, confusing sameness to it. (When we see, for example, a billboard advertising a movie that opens in October, Midwestern transplants in L.A. take a full three to five seconds to determine whether October is next week or three months off—I've heard this referred to as "seasonal vertigo.")

Los Angeles was not built with public green space in mind—developers assumed that everyone would have their own private patch of land. My key to the community garden's gate gives me access to 6 acres of plots and paths between them, a great place to garden, take a walk, or sit beneath a pine tree and look at the horizon. When my parents lived in Atlanta, I used to plant a small bed of pansies for my mom when I visited at Christmas —a thrill, coming from the Midwest in December, because handling unfrozen dirt was an exotic treat. Maybe growing vegetables in a community garden in the middle of L.A. has the same appeal: I'm excited to have a connection to the earth precisely because earth, in its non-concrete form, is so rare here. Maybe the next time someone asks me why I'm growing vegetables, I'll just say "because I like to dig in the dirt."

Check out Liz's blog: Growing Roots in L.A.

Liz's Recommended Links:

• Gardenerd - A knowledgeable organic gardener writes about her home veggie garden in West L.A., where I am.
• Homegrown Evolution & Ramshackle Solid - These two bloggers write about their homes, veggie gardens, and forays into self-sufficiency in the Silver Lake neighborhood of L.A.
• Urban Homestead - This blog is part of a constellation of sites developed by Pasadena's Dervaes family, at the forefront of the urban homesteading movement. On a 1/6th acre lot, this family produces enough food for themselves and to sell to local restaurants. Best, Anais, who seems to be the one in charge of the blog, is an engaging, informative writer.

Eat the View NEEDS YOU!

To get some national airtime for their cute "This Lawn is Your Lawn" commercial, EatTheView.org needs YOU (and pretty much everyone in your email inbox!) to view the commercial and vote here: http://vimeo.com/1519380

Remember ETV's objectives? To establish edible landscapes in high-profile places, including the White House lawn. Go, go, go!!

How Will You Celebrate Kitchen Garden Day '08?

Video Source

It's not to late to participate! Kitchen Garden Day '08 is Sunday, August 24.

Media & Web Watch: Eatin' & Livin' Better in the Neighborhood Edition

Pick of the Week: Time to sign-up for the October 2008 Eat Local Challenge!

Pick of the Week #2: Great little exercise at Andrea's Recipes: Grow Your Own, showcasing homemade-from-homegrown food. 

From the site, here's the 411 on the program, which will be a year old in October:

Grow Your Own is a twice-a-month blogging event that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products. Anyone with a blog can participate! Do you write a food blog? A gardening blog? A farm blog? A hunting or foraging blog? An eco blog? A frugal blog? Anything whatsoever related to home and garden or fun activities to do with children? You can write a post about some of the edibles you have raised, grown, or found and cooked with. Having a food blog is not a requirement for participation.

In the News:

• Not your Mother's Garden Club (Herald Times Reporter (Manitowac, WI, 17 August 2008) - Interesting story but got a real kick out of this line, quoting a Wisconsin lady named--seriously--Rosie Bugs. (Dontcha know the journalist had fun typing it up?)

"People are much more aware of the pests and problems … than ever before," Bugs said. "New plants are coming out that are more resistant to disease and insects."

•  A Modest Proposal for Sustainable Eating (San Francisco Chronicle, 16 August 2008)

• Eatdrinkbetter.com's Stuart Stein has a book review of Renewing America's Food Traditions by Gary Paul Nabhan.

•  Metro Gardeners Getting More Greens for Less Cabbage (Detroit Free Press, 13 August 2008)

• Victory Gardens Popular Again (Fosters.com, 13 August 2008)

• Community Gardens Galore (Ohio.com, 11 August 2008)

• A Growing Crop of Gardeners (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 24 May 2008)

• New release by New Society Publishers: ECO-preneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits by Lisa Kivirist and John Ivanko. Looks interesting. Read more about the book here. Author blogs are here and here, respectively.

Blogosphere:

• Victory Gardens and the Sustainable Living Roadshow at Inhabitat.com: Blogger Moe Beitiks makes a salien point: "I’m both jaded and inspired by the concept of sustainable living. It’s clear that the culture of climate chage is complex– there is no one solution, there is no ultimate green. But the idea is a unifying one - It’s something that’s becoming easier to do and realize."
• Texas Locavore...check it out!
• RedMo's talkin' rain barrels in Texas again. Read it here.
• More Texas Talk: Texans Against Hunger and Texas Food Bank Network.
• Bright Future: a "partisan free zone" covering a range of topics (energy, environment, health, etc.) and featuring forum and blog to which anyone who joins the site can post.
• The People Who Feed Us: Periodic profiles of (mostly) New York city area farmers. Would be great to see similar projects in other areas.
  
• What Matters to Me has a pro-Eat The View post worth reading. Also, while poking around on the WMtM blog, I found a link to this commercial site, Earthbox, which is kinda cool.
• There's a church group (Central Vineyard) in Ohio who recently pooled fresh veggies from their respective gardens to feed the needy. Read about the project here. Here's another faith-based group, Justice Gardens, that is part of a gardening ministry. (The two blogs are related...so I'm listing them here together.)
• From Quilting and Patchwork, here's a recent post about Victory Garden quilts.

Weekly Farmer's Market Report

After last week's encounter with the lady buying grass-fed beef for her pups, I was a little anxious about making it to this morning's market. Thanks to a much needed hair appointment, I arrived later than usual. Would I make it in time to score some meat? Did the dogs like last week's purchase?

So I pull into the lot around 10:15 and, lo and behold...there she was. Mrs. Gotrocks! Diamonds and brassy, sassy blonde Texas gal that she is. Golly, I love her authenticity! In a sea of suburban sprawl, newly clear-cut Interstate frontage lots...she's a reminder that this is, after all, TEXAS! 

But she hadn't made it to the grassfed beef guy yet...or else he just had more stuff on hand this week. That's right! We've got locally grown beef for homemade hamburgers tomorrow. Can hardly wait. As soon as it cools off, I can't wait to buy a whole chicken from the guy and roast it, make soup stock and generally get every dime out of my purchase!

Here's a complete round-up of what we scored at our market:

• Three bags of peas (creamer, black eye, and purple hull)

• Plums and peaches

• Aforementioned beef (yay!)

• Tomatoes

• Eggs

Did you find anything good this week?

Confession: On the Road to Locavore Land, I Bottomed Out

I wrote the following a couple of weeks back, but kept putting off posting it...not sure why...so am going to park it here today.

Last night, we enjoyed a lovely dinner of air-chilled organic chicken (raised in-state!) with locally grown mushrooms and green peas alongside a cucumber and tomato salad marinated in homemade vinaigrette.

As of 1 pm today, I’ve eaten one banana and half a frozen bagel on the way out the door, one slice of Domino’s pizza at a playdate and some water, lemonade and cranberry juice. Oh, and a couple of organic tortilla chips flavored with New Mexico hatch chiles because neither breakfast nor lunch were satisfying (surprised?). Right now, I’m resisting the urge to nosh on Cheddar Bunnies (which are better than Goldfish because they don’t have that weird burnt flavor).

Yeah, this “eat local” thing…it can be a hit-or-miss adventure. Especially if you’ve got conflicting roles: parent, spouse, daughter, writer…blogger.

Mind you, my intentions are good. While our community is just coming--shouldn't that be "returning"?--to the locavore table, we do try to do our part to foster sustainable food systems. We grow a tiny Victory Garden, shop the farmer’s market, buy local at the grocery store when we can, and steer clear of chain restaurants most of the time (there are exceptions). I’d love to stay that we abstain from meat, but this is Texas…and I’m something of a carnivore apologist. All those years of eating beef at my grandparent’s ranch…even a vegetarian stint in college couldn’t change my tastes. I’m down to eating it just once or twice a week and eat it knowing that beef raising is huge contributor to global warming. Forgive me? Especially if I switch to grass-fed beef?

Truth is, for all the high-minded chat about locavorism, it’s a simple fact of life that to change habits and tastes, we have to accept that we live and eat in a world that is only slowly catching up with our idealism. In fact, it may fall short of meeting our expectations in the end. After all, not every community has the infrastructure…let alone the soil and climate…to promote full-tilt locavorism yet. And personal habits take time to change. (Plus, few foods stand the heat of a back seat in summer here. Organic Cheddar Bunnies, alas, fit the bill without leaving me in perpetual terror of something either getting stuck or being consumed on the sly days later.)

That said, when I have one of these days…when I backslide and land bum-first in preservative-laden processed food land…I just remind myself of what a good friend once told me. I'll paraphrase:

Learning to eat local is a lot like going on a diet. For lasting change, you have to change your habits slowly and expect some setbacks. When you do, shake ‘em off and move on.

So, in a couple of hours, after a much needed siesta (all those carbs are makin’ me sleepy) and a bit of play time with my son, I’m planning to boil a bit of water with fresh, chopped poblano peppers for about twenty minutes, run it through the food processor, and use it to cook some Texas-grown rice, enough to last a couple of days. Tonight, we’ll prolly eat it with the rest of last night’s chicken, which was flavored with tarragon, rosemary and parsley from our container herb garden. And I think we’ve got some cukes and ‘maters in the fridge.

You know, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. 

Uh-oh. 

Someone better hide the Cheddar Bunnies.

Food For Thought: Hmmm...what's the food mile calculation on a Cheddar Bunny? Do I even want to know?

Image source: FreeFoto.com.

Friday Food For Thought: Ball's Preservation Tutorials

Remember when I told y'all to can it? Well, you can figure out how to do it over at Ball's web site using a couple of cool tutorials. Since the company's been selling canning supplies and such since 1884 (my mom has an old cookbook from them), they know their stuff. 

Very nifty! 

Explore More:

• See historic canning paraphernalia courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society's Collection