Why Community
Gardens Are Bending The World
The great unbooted public are
unaware how the wheelbarrow is replacing the shopping cart. This has been the
way since Babylonian times in the developing world where, today, 200 million
urban folk (women and kids) feed 700 million people. Now the Western world,
rattled by economic downturn and heath concerns, is reaching for the trowel. We
are close to a tipping point when backyard growers produce more edible food
than industrial farmers.
Community gardens hit the hot
buttons – food security, diminished resources and health concerns. The 10’ by
5’ raised bed is the building block of community in urban wastelands. Gardening
is a common language shared by all cultures and these initiatives are a win/win
for everyone - the spiky hair crowd have the satisfaction of giving
agri-business a slap in the face, immigrants bring gardening expertise that helps
integrate them into the community and property developers can pocket an 80% tax
saving by having a commercially zoned property reclassified as a garden prior
to construction.
Gardening no longer means
lost weekends, mastering arcane skills and an aching back. Vermicomposting turns waste into worm castings,
which can be worked with a trowel. Growing in raised beds doubles the output
and community support cheers you on. Crunching into a luscious carrot, you have
the happy thought that it didn’t take 100 calories of energy to produce 10
calories of edible food like its sappy supermarket brethren.
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