It's OUR Earth

GreenWay article for
Hazelwood Homepage
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Gardeners working together in Hazelwood The world crisis with rising food prices has called forth efforts among gardeners in Hazelwood to work together to increase food security for our neighborhood. Recognizing the importance of learning from each other and educating our children about where food comes from (the ground) and how to make good soil (return organic waste back to the Earth) - Hazelwood Flats Neighborhood Garden coordinator Barbara Williams - with the help of Pastor Leslie Boone of the Hazelwood Presbyterian Church - is forming a sustainable non-profit organization. Adults working together with young people focused on growing food, we are finding that there is power in numbers. Water for the gardens we start, topsoil, compost, tools - all are easier to obtain and use efficiently when we share and work together. In order to facilitate more neighborhood gardens,we are assessing the ownership and suitability of specific parcels of land. By our willingness to work together and give to the community we have gotten a great deal of cooperation, volunteer labor and donations, and interest in working with us. Already it's clear the garden on Ladora Way is not enough. More people want either garden space or to help with the gardens. And more want the food we produce than is possible with The Hazelwood Flats Neighborhood garden. There are a good number of empty lots, and we want to expand this year's delightful beginning with more gardens for more people by next Spring. Working together to grow food in the city is a fulfillment of a dream for me, and I dare say many others yearn in similar directions. The new desire to grow food is re-establishing to some extent a local food web and its economic aspects. We are seeing in more clear detail that a new garden sets up a new dynamic, with property values and a new sense of community expanding into the neighborhood. The whole area is raised up. The place we now live in was at one time so biologically rich that it became the most productive manufacturing center on Earth. The abundant water provided transportation. At one time the rivers were so overflowing with life that almost half of people's food came from them. This city has been a world leader in so many developments. Now we can pioneer the new movement toward decentralization of food production, which is in part a return to the way things were. The agricultural system the world has now is only a recent development, and has many problems. The pollution and cost of producing food at huge distances from where it is eaten makes this crazy current way sure to collapse. Why would we buy food shipped from 500 miles or more - of poor quality because no longer fresh and grown with chemical fertilizers and pesticides - when we can grow some of our own food in our own back yards and neighborhood gardens? Wouldn't this be more sane, especially knowing that costs are sure to go up in synch with the price of gas? We Americans have been bamboozled and herded into eating processed and adulterated food, and then we wonder why disease rates are going up. Let's take back a part of our heritage - the soil under our feet. The food we eat comes from the ground, and that's where we need to return at least some of our organic waste in order to make fertile soil to grow more and better food next year. Along with the earthwide ecological destabilization that is making transformation of our energy system necessary, a quantum leap in the value of waste biomass is becoming apparent. In both high and low tech ways, our productivity and health will depend on what we do with the organic sector of our waste. In order to both awaken and prepare ourselves for this new more sustainable economy, we need to educate ourselves and our children about the food web. ======