Gardening
More neighborhood green space reduces risk of heart disease, greatly narrows health gaps and death rates between rich, poor, UK researchers learn. Governments should promote and invest in green areas, which provide opportunities for stress reduction and physical activity. And: Plunging hands into the dirt therapeutic for gardeners (click 'See also').
By Michael Kahn
Reuters 2008-11-07 (entry)
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Multi-year rotation plan critical for the health of all vegetables; best idea to keep track comes from garden book: Group vegetables according to families. Thus all the members of the Solanaceae family - tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and peppers - are grown together, then moved together to a different bed the following year.
By Shirley Barker
Berkeley Daily Planet 2008-10-16 (entry)
Replacing an asphalt lot, a three-acre garden in view of Wall Street becomes a go-to place for teens and has drawn more than 5,000 students with their classes. Gardens were begun by two employees of Red Hook yourth court who started a nonprofit, Added Value, and now employ teens who 'weed it, turn it, rake it, seed it' - and sell the bounty at a farmers' market and to Brooklyn restaurants.
By Jim Dwyer
The New York Times 2008-10-08 (entry)
As oil prices rise, dirt no longer cheap, nor are dirt bags, since plastic is a petroleum product. Potting mix ingredients come from all corners of the world and are vulnerable to rising freight costs. Fewer housing starts mean less shredded bark, which pushes prices up; fertilizer, too is in great demand by farmers growing corn for ethanol.
By Joel Achenbach
The Washington Post 2008-08-17 (entry)
Alice Waters leads 150 in planting of updated version of a World War II victory garden at San Francisco's Civic Center. Slow Food Nation Victory Garden will be centerpiece of the group's conference over Labor Day weekend. Produce will be distributed to local charities.
San Francisco Chronicle 2008-07-13 (entry)
Considering rising cost of food, the carbon footprint, the food shortage, the moral queasiness about biofuels, food safety issues and the Midwest floods, activist wants to see next president think global, eat local - from the 18-acre yard of the White House.
By Ellen Goodman
International Herald Tribune 2008-07-04 (entry)
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Though growing season is upon us, resources on tending, weeding, compost making, harvesting and cooking vegetables still available in Chicago. Good starting point is Edible Gardens in Lincoln Park Zoo's Farm-in-the- Zoo, which are garden demonstration models for home and school gardens, and popular field trip destination.
ABC7 News Chicago 2008-06-17 (entry)
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Backyard gardener works on three scales: With raspberries, boysenberries, he heads to the back door of Chez Panisse restaurant for that night's dinner. His wild mushrooms - often chanterelles - are sold at California's Monterey Market. And in Afghanistan, he helps restore orchards destroyed by war.
By Deborah K. Rich
San Francisco Chronicle 2008-06-28 (entry)
Gardeners across UK, Wales, warned not to eat homegrown produce if they used Dow herbicide-tainted manure. Extent of problem, which could extend to market gardeners, unknown. Affected crops include potatoes, raspberries, onions, leeks, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables, which wither or become deformed.
By Caroline Davies
The Observer (UK) 2008-06-29 (entry)
Seventeen-pound gourmet watermelon auctioned in Japan for $6,100 as buyers compete for prestige of owning first ones of the year; buyer says he wants to support local agriculture. Biggest watermelon from the day was later priced at $5,945; other watermelons of the season will likely cost $188 to $283. Two cantaloupes last month sold for $23,500.
The Associated Press; The Star (Malaysia) 2008-06-06 (entry)
Planting a garden helps reduce impact of food, fuel costs on family budget. In studies that compared the dollar value of home-grown produce to the cost of the seeds and supplies, the ratio was as high as 17 to 1. Easiest place to start: Grow what you like to eat.
By Betty Cichy
PhillyBurbs.com 2008-05-21 (entry)
In reaction to wasteful use of land and suspicions about food sources, guerrilla gardeners plant without approval on land that's not theirs. The movement, part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, turns neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts. First two requirements: sun and water source.
By Joe Robinson
Los Angeles Times 2008-05-29 (entry)
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Food again is vital to our national security. We don't want a repeat of food riots that occurred during the Civil War, the Panic of 1893, and the Great Depression. As it did in World War I, government should allocate funds to promote national school, home and community gardening. Back then, Uncle Sam said, "Garden!" and millions of Americans picked up their hoes.
By Daniel J. Desmond and Rose Hayden-Smith
Ventura County Star 2008-05-04 (entry)
Spring displays a disquieting undertone this season, not born simply from the news that the cost of rice has climbed out of reach for many but because it seems that time is ripening a little too quickly. Already, we have sweet, dark-green Lancaster County asparagus, and if summer rushes, local strawberries due in late May might shave a week or two off that. Meanwhile, we give thanks for April's showers.
By Rick Nichols
The Philadelphia Inquirer 2008-05-01 (entry)
Growing mint in a backyard garden means one less purchase at the supermarket.
The climate-change crisis, caused by our everyday choices, is upon us. We can tell ourselves stories to justify doing nothing; waiting for politicians or technology to solve the problem suggests we're not serious. But planting a garden reduces our sense of dependence. It's solar technology, it's nutritious, it's delicious, it's practically carbon-free, it reduces trash, it burns calories, it builds community and it sets a standard.
By Michael Pollan
The New York Times 2008-04-20 (entry)
Gardening, and its connection to palate and soil, is timeless, whether you're planning to convince the new president to plant an edible garden (and a political statement) on the White House lawn, or laying your BlackBerry in a protected spot while you dig for authenticity. What's the same is the miracle, the buried gold, of tasting that first potato.
By Anne Raver
The New York Times 2008-04-17 (entry)
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Enthusiasts provide their favorite, mostly organic and heirloom, mostly edibles seed sources, culled from years of gardening. Evocative names include Purple Peacock Broccoli, White Satin Carrots, Touchstone Gold Beet, Red Noodle Bean, Momotaro Tomato, Chocolate Cherry Tomato and Thai Rom Dao Watermelons.
Fork & Bottle 2008-02-03 (entry)
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Following in steps our our ancestors, many of us are growing delicious food in backyard gardens, and using techniques that leave the soil enriched. For the price of a single packet of seed, we can grow a cornucopia of salad greens. The first step is to find a spot that gets full sun for most of the day, even if only a patio or deck.
By Ann Lovejoy
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) 2008-01-23 (entry)
The Brix scale, long used to define quality of taste and flavor in wines, can be used in fruit and garden vegetables, a group argues. The number, they say, reflects the sucrose as well as the concentration of minerals and proteins, and these factos combine to make taste.
By Dennis Sentilles
Columbia Missourian 2007-12-05 (entry)
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Baltimore's public garden guru, Miriam Avins, wins $48,750 grant from George Soros' foundation to facilitate urban gardens. Gardens, she says, improve communities' eating habits, strengthen neighborhoods by gathering residents together for work and help the environment by reducing water runoff.
By Adam Bednar
Baltimore Messenger 2007-11-28 (entry)
As farmers increasingly specialize in one or two crops, aging European gardeners become accidental guardians of biodiversity and flavor. Preservation is crucial because old seeds can be bred into mainstream food crops as climate changes and population grows, but new generation is eschewing agrarian lifestyle, and seeds are being lost.
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
The New York Times 2007-11-27 (entry)
In most parts of the U.S., now is the time to plant cool-weather crops for this season or next season's harvest: onions, garlic, lettuce, spinach, sweet peas, Swiss chard, turnip and mustard greens, broccoli, cabbage and kale.
By Dotty Woodson
The Star-Telegram (TX) 2007-10-27 (entry)
The gardener's January dream of abundant harvests turns less lovely in late summer, when the eggplant keeps bearing, the dill self-seeds (again) and the tomatoes are rotting on the vine, but there is hope in moderation - next year.
By Kathy Stoner
Napa Valley Register 2007-09-22 (entry)
Mountaintop removal coal mining, with toxic leftovers shoved into streams, foul residents' water and kill the fish; study traces mining pollution to children's nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and shortness of breath; long-term effects unknown.
By Eric Reece
Orion Magazine 2006-01-01 (entry)
Near the site of a murder that ripped a North Carolina town apart, the Anathoth Community Garden now grows, the gift of a black woman to a white church, and now the working poor find food at their door, and the town is finding a new peace.
By Fred Bahnson
Orion Magazine 2007-07-01 (entry)
Austin-based non-profit group adds school gardens and farm-to-fork program to agenda that includes teaching low-income residents garden programs and how to sell produce they grow at farmers' markets.
By Paul Brown
News8Austin (TX) 0000-00-00 (entry)
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Running an organic garden is easy with a large staff, but techniques, detailed in "The Elements of Organic Gardening," by Prince Charles, are simple - good soil, black plastic, and keeping the chickens out.
By Charles Elliott
The New York Times (may require subscription) 0000-00-00 (entry)
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Seattle's Lettuce Link, which teaches gardening, nutrition and cooking to low-income population, helps fill coffers of food pantries and hot meal food banks whose regular donors are on summer vacation.
By Ann Lovejoy
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) 2007-08-17 (entry)
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As Atlanta grows, community garden plots are feeding the burgeoning appetite for locally grown produce and mingling of cultures; advocacy group partners with administration to open parks for communal plots.
By Elizabeth Lee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 0000-00-00 (entry)
Whether in miniscule back yards or near abandoned houses, urban farmers find every sunny spot and put it to use in effort to connect to their food; backyard chicken and egg trend in Salt Lake City is nothing short of coop d'etat.
By Chris Adamson
Salt Lake City Weekly 2007-08-23 (entry)
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Like prima donnas, heirloom tomatoes wait an extra week to ripen, but these voluptuous misfits with the tawdry, nightclub-act names - Cherokee Purple, Banana Legs, Green Zebra, Hillbilly, Black Russian - have it in their power to hold us all in thrall for a good part of the summer.
By Tim Stark
Washington Post 2007-08-15 (entry)
Seeking the perfect tomato means eschewing perfectly formed orbs in favor of a weedy tangle of vines in which antique, thin-skinned heirloom treasures are hidden; this obsession is an art in the Merrimack Valley, where growers proliferate.
By Kristi Ceccarossi and Darry Madden
The Hippo (NH) 2007-08-23 (entry)
For fruit tree owners tired of picking peaches and apples, or plums raining down from their trees, there's Community Fruit Tree Harvest, which connects them to Seattle volunteers who can harvest the fruit and deliver it to local food banks and meal programs.
By Kathy Mulady
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) 2007-08-19 (entry)
Religious brother skips "jogging for Jesus," instead choosing to spend the last 25 years growing potatoes, beans, squash, carrots, beets, raspberries and other staples in a massive garden, most of which goes to community food bank in Canada.
By Andrew Hanon
Edmonton Sun (Canada) 2007-08-20 (entry)
Vermont school, working with local farmers and agricultural experts, plants garden designed to feed its 200 students homegrown vegetables at lunchtime, teaching a way of life, not only nutrition or fitness.
By Nicole Orne
Brattleboro Reformer (VT) (entry)
Too much basil calls for afternoon of stripping leaves from stems, grating Parmigiano-Reggiano, chopping garlic, drizzling olive oil and pureeing big batches of green magic that will take us through the winter with sanity intact.
Rob Kasper
Baltimore Sun (entry)
Community activists gather and build a garden for children in apartment complex; the program is part of a larger effort of education on nutrition, food security and self-sufficiency in Ohio community.
By Mike Ludwig
The Athens News (OH) (entry)
Taking cue from Cuba, Vancouver gardener and agricultural scientist sows seeds of what he hopes will be an urban gardening movement that provides a locally grown alternative to modern and usually distant agribusiness.
By Nicholas Read
Vancouver Sun 2007-08-13 (entry)
In northeastern Brazil, farmers use simple technologies and great persistence to harvest, pick, raise and slaughter, despite high temperatures, little rain and unfertile soil; they begin with a mud-patch, to hold rainwater to create oases of production.
By Isaura Daniel; translated by Mark Ament
Brazil-Arab News Agency (entry)
Gardening groups, with warming on their minds, re-work the USDA Hardiness Zone Map to better match high- and low-temperature regions and new realities.
By Nate Pardue
Foster's Daily Democrat (NH) (entry)
