9:20 AM
Rooster
With every new flush of spring garden growth comes the promise of a stronger community. Gardening is once again gaining popularity, not just as a relaxing pastime, but as a tool that communities have at their disposal to help them grow strong, independent, food secure, and beautiful.
No gardener is an island. When groups of folks get together to build gardens we learn from each other, we get to know each other, and we make our lives more sustainable with every seed planted. Neighbors working together routinely turn blank sod grass lawns, and empty city lots into organic food producing, eco-system enhancing gardens.
The time for this kind of transformation is ripe in American life. As food and health care costs grow, the need for inexpensive access to healthy organically grown food is more and more apparent. Suddenly folks throughout urban areas are realizing that their sod lawns aren’t doing anybody any favors, and that the time for change is upon us.
We’re not in this life alone. The planet acts as a whole living system. The health of each part of the planet is dependent on the health of the whole planet. Due to global climate change it’s become apparent that we’ve got to stop pretending that we’re the only important creature here. It’s not only time to grow our own communities, but those communities of wilderness that we’ve been a part of removing and keeping at bay for so many years.
When we honor the land that we live on by planting native species, when we honor the planet we live on by growing our own food as close to home as possible, and when we teach each other how to do these things, we share vibrant sustainable lives.
This month Giving Tree Gardens has been hard at work putting these noble green ideas into action. We’ve built food gardens with kids, installed native rain-gardens with community members, attended garden club meetings, taught seminars, and talked with every green thumb passing by. This volume of The Seed will highlight some of these community-building efforts as an example of the awesome power of neighbors in action.
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