Giving back to the Community

This year I’ve noticed a significant increase in edible gardening. Maybe not entire garden spaces devoted to food crops, but certainly a portion of the sunniest spots are being looked at more and more frequently as possible locations for a tomato plant or two, some spinach or beans or blueberries; one or more containers on a patio relegated to the production of a season’s worth of fresh salad greens or herbs.

I think there are many reasons for this phenomena – the most recent being the alarming rise in the cost of food. Over the years the price gap between conventionally grown and organic produce had been narrowing; but as the price of one has spiked, so has the other, and consumers are finding themselves facing some difficult decisions about how to be able to afford to feed themselves and their families the best quality of food possible.

We have discovered how good fresh, locally-grown food tastes and how good it makes us feel. We are not willing to give that up lightly, to go back to lesser quality and taste if we can help it.

So there is now a greater impetus for folks to put their hands to growing some of their own food - the request for community garden plots has currently far outstripped the availability - but people are finding a lot of creative ways to combine edibles in their own ornamental gardens, adding containers especially for edibles and decreasing lawn space to allow for more food space.

More and more schools and community groups are including edible gardens into their landscapes, often making small community gardens of their own, to encourage families to participate in the growing and sharing of fresh food. The efforts on the part of many schools and organizations to help especially low-income individuals and families to be able to have access to fresh, healthy food is to be applauded.

There is an organization that, for nearly twelve years, has been working diligently to establish edible gardens in the homes and schools of our lower-income communities.  Growing Gardens (link) has, with a very small staff and the help of hundreds of volunteers, been able to make steady and important progress in the fight against hunger in Portland.

Peggy Acott

Enjoying the harvest

Everyone helps!

Always plenty to do!

In April, Portland Nursery and fellow gardeners made donations to Growing Gardens. Those donations were generously matched by the Feinstein Foundation.  We are proud to introduce Growning Gardens to you as our next Community Partner Profile.