War on Home Gardens - Canada Town Outlaws Food Self-Sufficiency

'A Canadian couple that has been growing a beautiful, meticulously-maintained front yard vegetable and herb garden has been ordered by city officials to uproot most of it by September 1 or else face lofty fines. CBC News and others are reporting that the town of Drummondville in Quebec is actually planning to ban all front yard gardens in the municipality beginning this fall; a move the spells the end of food self-sufficiency for many Canadians living in the area.'

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Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

'While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy - serotonin and dopamine. What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.'

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Superfoods you can easily grow at home

 

 Photo Credit:http://www.simply-thai.com

'We are all looking for that dietary edge, foods that are intensely nutritious and life-extending.

Print and electronic media are absolutely awash with superfoods lists (and The Vancouver Sun is no exception). What I notice perusing those endless lists is that superfoods cost a fortune and most are imported.

That’s fine if you are Gwyneth Paltrow and you have time to develop your Mediterranean-style menus with your pal Mario Batali. They’re rich, I’m not.

So in defense of your health and your wallet, here is my list of superfoods that literally grow from the ground should you take the time to plant a few seeds. These are veggies that are dead easy to grow and thrive in our climate, so much so that many will provide you with food year-round.

You won’t need expensive nursery seedlings or special training, just seeds. These plants are virtually foolproof.'

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Gardening at Home Linked to Increased Veggie Consumption

 

'Recent scientific research confirms that gardening may be linked to
higher rates of vegetable eating in older populations of adults.
According to a recent report from Texas A&M University and Texas
State University, older populations of adults who garden are more likely to eat vegetables than their non-gardening counterparts.

This study, published in Hort Technology,
surveyed adults over the age of 50. Over 250 questionnaires were
completed by adults aged 50 years and older, over the course of one
month. The online survey was created as an effort to encourage gardening
among older adults, and was part of a program involving what the
researchers called “gardening intervention.” '





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Who owns our health? Building a medicinal garden

'Dr Vivienne Lo has created a medicinal herb spiral in central London to address issues around the use of food and herbs as medicine in everyday home remedies or as dangerous substances to be regulated.'
Healing Your Liver with TEA

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Start a 1-Acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead

'Your 1-acre homestead can be divided into land for raising livestock and a garden for raising fruits, vegetables, plus some grain and forage crops. Illustration: Dorling Kindersley'

'Everyone will have a different approach to keeping a self-sufficient homestead, and it’s unlikely that any two 1-acre farms will follow the same plan or methods or agree completely on how to homestead. Some people like cows; other people are afraid of them. Some people like goats; other people cannot keep them out of the garden. 

Some people will not slaughter animals and have to sell their surplus stock off to people who will kill them; others will not sell surplus stock off at all because they know that the animals will be killed; and still others will slaughter their own animals to provide their family with healthy meat.'

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Charges NOT Dropped For Growing Garden

Ed. Note: Years ago, Cuba faced food shortages imposed from sanctions by allowing everyone to grow organic veggies anywhere the land wasn't being used. Now they thrive on organic foods more than any other nation. But that can't happen here in the land of the free?!

'While it only appears that the City of Oak Park, MI dropped charges toward Julie Bass for planting a vegetable garden in her front yard,  she wants to clarify that charges have not been dropped. She may not be spending 93 days in the slammer for growing veggies, but she faces similar punishment - for her dogs! But the garden fiasco is not over, more on that below.'

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Oakland gardener questions need for permit to sell produce

 

Author, farmer and Ghost Town Farm blogger, Novella Carpenter peels an onion in her backyard farm in Oakland, Calif. on Wednesday, March 30, 2011, Carpenter, cancelled her usual Wednesday Farmstand after Oakland City officials closed her down Tuesday stating that she needed a Conditional Use Permit for growing vegetables for $2500 in addition to the $2500 fine for noncompliance. 

Kat Wade / Special to the ChroniclePhoto: Kat Wade / Special to The Chronicle

 

'Carpenter milked goats, made cheese and ate much of the produce. She also wrote a popular book, "Farm City," about the experience and became an icon of the Bay Area's urban farming movement.

But the future of her Ghost Town Farm is in question. This week, Oakland officials suggested it may need to close. The reason: She sells excess produce and needs a costly permit to do so.
"It seems ridiculous," said Carpenter, 38. "I need a conditional use permit to sell chard?" '



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Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

'While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy - serotonin and dopamine. What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.'


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Top Ten Most Nutritious Vegetables and How to Grow Them in Your Garden

 

'A perfectly ripe, juicy tomato, still warm from the sun. Sweet carrots, pulled from the garden minutes (or even seconds!) before they're eaten. Growing your own vegetables is one of those activities that balances practicality and indulgence. 

In addition to the convenience of having the fixings for a salad or light supper right outside your door (or on your windowsill), when you grow your own vegetables, you're getting the most nutritional bang for your buck as well. 

Vegetables start losing nutrients as soon as they're harvested, and quality diminishes as sugars are turned into starches. For the tastiest veggies with the best nutrition, try growing a few of these nutrient-dense foods in your own garden. And don't let the lack of a yard stop you - all of them can be grown in containers as well.'

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Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas

'With the advent of industrialism and its widespread application to our food supply – factory farms, genetic engineering, and agricultural chemicals – the struggle between human freedom and authority has reached a critical juncture. In spite of the rapid growth of an alternative food system – local and sustainable food production, farmers’ markets, the public’s rising food consciousness – we become more dependent everyday on industrial agriculture whose representatives insist that it is the only way to feed a hungry world.'

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Toby Hemenway - How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization

'The revised and updated edition also features a new chapter on urban permaculture, designed especially for people in cities and suburbs who have very limited growing space. Whatever size yard or garden you have to work with, you can apply basic permaculture principles to make it more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful. Best of all, once it’s established, an ecological garden will reduce or eliminate most of the backbreaking work that’s needed to maintain the typical lawn and garden.'


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Seven Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food

'That’s right, having your own vegetable garden is now trendy. In fact according to the 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report conducted by the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) Foundation, over 41 million U.S. households, or 38 percent planted a vegetable garden in 2009. And, more than 19.5 million households (18 percent) grew an herb garden and 16.5 million households (15 percent) grew fruits during the same period.

The study found that there was a growth in edible gardening from both experienced gardeners and from an influx of new gardeners: 92 percent of respondents had previous experience and 7 percent (7.7 million households) were new edible gardeners.'

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