Don't know what to grow in your container garden? →
Want more info about container gardens? Find out Urban Garden’s suggestions for making an attractive container and what will last in the weather.
Large-scale 30-year study (PDF) demonstrates that organic farming outperforms conventional agriculture on a number of economic, nutritional, and environmental factors
Re-new: Urban Farming
When I was 5 years old, my grandmother took me out into her yard and started teaching me how to plant a garden. At the time I thought nothing of it. I assumed that once we finished “playing in the dirt” we would go to the grocery store and buy our food like everyone else. What I failed to realize was that my grandmother came from a time and place where there were no grocery stores or readily available microwave dinners. My grandmother was simply doing what she was taught all her life…to do for self. My grandmother knew every step that the food she ate went through from planting, to harvesting, to preparation before she put it in her mouth.
In today’s society, we rely on everyone from grocery store managers, restaurant chefs and even the government to do one of the most basic things for us…FEED US. However, it appears that the outsiders that we entrust with our daily nourishment haven’t been doing a stellar job. Let’s examine the facts:
1. In the city of Detroit NO major grocery store chains exist (not much different from my grandmother’s upbringing huh?). Even if those stores did exist what would they provide? Listeria tainted cantaloupe. 2. Even more important, with the way the Michigan job market looks, could you even afford purchase the food they sold?? Today, October 1, 2011, thousands of Michigan families will be cut off from receiving welfare benefits. Those families will no longer be able to feed themselves.
Whether you agree or disagree with the welfare cut off, one fact is true for the majority of Detroit residents…If every grocery store closed today we would NOT survive! So before you turn up your nose and tell a story about how your grandfather supported your family with a 6th grade education and no welfare ask yourself…could you do the same thing??? We have educational degrees coming out of every orifice of our bodies but we have forgotten how to do a very basic task…FEED OURSELVES.
Urban farming is something that EVERY Detroiter needs to learn how to do. Start small with a window ledge herb garden. No matter what you decide to do you must consider how much longer you will continue to trust strangers to nourish your body before you decide to do it for yourself…
