Backyard Food Gardens

Backyard Food Gardens

Plan-

1. Centered around a Spiral Gardens type nursery
1. Grows food plants along with herbs, fruit and nut trees
2. Weekly farmers market
3. In poorer neighborhoods
4. Sells cheap
5. Goal of bringing quality food to poorer, urban communities.
2. Expand to installing nursery plants into backyards
1. For free
2. For work or trade
3. For cash
4. Find donors, grants, government funds
5. Umbrella under a non profit
3. Care of gardens
1. for free, if needed
2. training provided to residents
3. multiple levels of support to be offered
4. Market services door to door
1. Local based work force
5. Expand nursery
1. library
2. kitchen- indoor and outdoor, solar oven
3. workshop space

i. seed collecting

ii. germination

iii. nutrition

iv. medicinal herbs

v. companion planting

vi. politics

vii. justice

viii. potlucks

ix. cooking

x. many more

6. Being neighborhood based, early nurseries would be role model for expansion into unplanted neighborhoods, using as much local resources, both materials and labor, as possible.
7. Ideas inspired over the past 2 months, moving to a 4 season growing environment, participating at spiral gardens, seeing the need to grow food where people are, educating the people about how food, and energy, is produced, and finally put to paper after the ‘food policy for the next administration’s dialogue at uc <st1:place w:st="on">Berkeley on oct 1, 2008. www.enviro.berkeley.edu/amr.
1. Food Policy for the Next Administration, Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley, Oct 1, 2008- notes

i. We must go back to the garden and have incentives, possibly through health care, for feeding people healthy food.

ii. Teach Children

1. How to garden- environment

2. How to prepare food- community

3. Basics of Nutrition- health

iii. Plant 5 arce White House Lawn

1. Hire a White House Farmer

2. Encourage Youth to become food producers

iv. We need a polyculture approach, a systems approach

v. We need millions of farmers to replace the oil and chemicals that currently grow food

vi. Take Chemistry class

1. Go beyond organic chem.

2. Green chemistry

vii. Fill key positions in Washington

1. Policy makes future and people make policy

viii. Be Heard- don’t be passive

1. City Council

2. School Boards

3. State Legislature

ix. We need a farmer in each family

x. Vote with your fork

xi. We need leaders who care about food

xii. See www.fooddeclaration.org

seems some folks in the east bay are doing this already-

my farm- http://myfarmsf.com/about.html

all edibles- http://alledibles.com/

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