See You in a Hundred Years (or, Maybe Tomorrow)

Riots in Egypt fill the news, and details about the USDA approval of completely unregulated genetically-modified alfalfa fill my in-box.  German trains collide.  A bomb explodes in Moscow.  And the 25-year-anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle explosion takes me back to Wall Street, where I found out about that disaster while huddled around a storefront TV with a crowd of strangers when I was out for my lunchtime walk all those years ago.  My younger daughter tells me her teacher was in kindergarten at the time, in Florida near the launch site, at recess, and watched the death scene as it unfolded in the sky.  I am somehow reminded of this picture one of my daughters created years ago about the Fall of Icarus.

Between these headlines and the thoughts that they provoke, I notice this week it's still light now at 6 PM.  The mint has returned.  The harvests under my hooped and covered garden beds are becoming more frequent and bountiful.  The birds are back, chirping away out there, including that one that says, "Heeeeere.  Heeeeeere.  Spring in heeeeere" (or so it sounds to me).  

The community garden seems to have dodged the bullet and has appeared, in its same location, on the just-released master plan draft for the park in which it is located.  

The greenhouse is producing so much I had to spin the greens in my washing machine to dry since there was too much to dry in a towel on my kitchen counter.  

Expansion plans are in the works at a nearby school garden and the food pantry garden at the church, and the first food pantry seeds have been planted at the Atlanta JCC garden space to which we've recently been granted stewardship (until camp time). 

One garden needs mulching.  Another needs fertilizing.  And, let's not even mention the two pomegranate trees in my garage.  And so there's much to do, and the forecast of a 70-degrees Fahrenheit (21-degrees Celsius) day seems certainly promising.

Yet . . .  

I see the sun streaming through the window, and the book I'm reading laying on the ground, open to the dog-eared page where I nodded off the night before.  Titled See You in a Hundred Years, it's about a couple who left their New York City home and bought a small farm in Virginia, and proceeded to live there for a solid year as if it were 1900.  No electricity.  No car.  No modern conveniences, which means anything that was not in existence at the turn of the last century.  I bought it the last time I stepped into my city's Borders book store, before it closed for good, just weeks ago. And I had been completely enjoying it, finding the story informative, funny, touching, and inspiring, and the writer (Logan Ward) stylistically elegant.

I pick up the book and curl up in the sunshine like a cat.  I finish it, savoring it like the creamy leek sauce I had tossed on pasta the night before, the aroma of which still fills the house.  It feels decadent to do nothing but read on such a gorgeous day, yet I know this moment is fleeting, that the next few weeks will have me digging and planting at least a little every day to maximize our Team Food Pantry potential at spaces scattered all over town.  When I finally emerge to 2011 again, I head outside, the glare of the day hurting my eyes, and my neighbor across the street who had seen me slogging in the garden in the rain and the snow says, "Too nice a day for you to garden?"

I know the sunny and warm days will come soon like the box cars of a speeding freight train, strung together one after another after another.  And I know the headlines will keep bombarding as well.  And so, this moment in time, when the earth is just starting to tremble with new growth, gives me pause. A  moment to be grateful.  To imagine what is possible, and the good that will surely come if I am open to noticing it.

I hear the gentle strumming of my younger daughter's guitar and see her swaying with it on the hammock, and I know she gets it, too, the value of this particular moment.  She doesn't yet see it, as I do, as the simple essence we can borrow from the past to strengthen us for what is yet to come.  She just sees it as nice.

A little later, we head out to Barnes and Noble, the only bookstore now in my 42,000-citizen city.  And I see the new Urban Farm magazine, the one that has my article (and sidebar) in it.  I buy one, head home and take my turn on the hammock.  I lay the magazine on me, and listen to the "Heeeere.  Heeeere.  Spring is heeeeere."  And I fall fast asleep.

See You in a Hundred Years (or, Maybe Tomorrow)

Wal-Smart?

So we drove past the now-closed Borders book store in my city, and my younger daughter asked, "Where will we go for our books now?" 

And I said, "Well, Barnes and Noble is just around the block."  

And she said, "What if that store closes, too?"  

And I said, "Well, I suppose most people are ordering online now, and that's why these stores close, so do you think it matters?"  

And she said, "But I don't like to order online.  I like to see a book before I buy it."  

And I said, "Well, there used to be small, independent bookstores where you could not only see a book, but the owner would get to know you and would recommend books to you, and maybe even order ones special just for you.  Also, a lot of money would stay in the local economy, since the bookstore owner used a local accountant and bought local goods and donated to local non-profits, and so on."

And she said, "That sounds really nice.  What happened?" 

And I said, "Big book stores like Borders came in and drove out the small, local stores."  

And she said, "But now Borders is closing, and the small stores are gone."

Silence.  Just silence after that.  What more could we say?

The irony of this, of course, was that we were on our way to Walmart, which is in the same shopping center as the closing Borders.  I strongly dislike Walmart, and my daughter had no memory before yesterday of walking in its doors.  As Walmart expands to urban centers by adding smaller-scale models of its stores, I expect that many more vibrant local economies will be decimated.  Walmart joins Coca Cola and McDonald's on my list of companies for which I don't vote with my dollars.  However, all three are making big sustainability changes, and all three have the ability to change the world dramatically with even the tiniest of improvements.

"But is it merely mitigation for the damage they've already caused?" I asked Tyson at the Farmer D Organics retail store the other day when I went to pick up organic fertilizer for Team Food Pantry's ever-expanding efforts. 

She replied, "Even if it is, isn't that better than doing what they've been doing?"  Good food for thought.

The Community Food listserv from Tufts University has been having a terrific conversation about Walmart all week, in regards to its Thursday media announcement about its commitment to improve the health of its food.  People like Anna Lappe, Jill Richardson, Jennifer Nutt and Hank Herrera have me thinking, thinking, thinking about all sides of this issue.  I have many questions, and many opinions right now.  But the one that keeps nagging at me is: What happens to local farmers when they sign with Walmart?  I fear it may go something like this: 

* Local farmers sign at a competitive price

* They then expand to meet Walmart's orders

* The competition gets forced out

* Then Walmart drops its price to the local farmers, with whom they had required exclusive contracts

And then, frankly, those local farmers might as well be running commercial chicken houses that can never get above water without producing more, more, more for less, less, less.  They have, as they say, sold their souls to the devil, and society pays the price long-term.  Or maybe not? 

Anyway, enough of that for today.  The folks I listed above, plus many more, have written far more knowledgeably and eloquently on this topic than I am going to attempt to do here.  Books and article galore have been published.  Movies have been made.  If you're interested, I recommend you explore them thoroughly.

As for me, two things brought me to Walmart.  One, I had entered a raffle at the City of Dunwoody music festival to win a Smart Car.  I was told that if I went to the dealership and test-drove the car, I would get my $25 back.  I went, and I did.  I didn't realize I would get the money back in the form of a Walmart gift card.

Two, while researching Walmart's sustainability efforts, I discovered it had self-produced a 90-minute DVD.  I ordered it online for a dollar and had it delivered to the store so I could save shipping (and to force myself to go in there).  (And, by the way, you don't pick it up at the Customer Service desk conveniently located in the front.  You have to go way, way, way, to the back of the store.)

So I picked up the DVD (in fact, I bought two, in case anyone wants one--email me) and my daughter and I walked around aimlessly trying to find something "sustainable" to buy with the gift card.   I was thisclose to donating it to a food pantry client, but then got an idea about how I could make the $25 go further.  I said, "How about we buy something to plant in the food pantry beds?"  So we went to the garden center (having just seen a robust environment outside at Farmer D's, complete with sustainably-harvested cedar raised beds, backyard chicken coops, fruit trees, and a hoop house busting with transplants).  And here is what we found.

Feeling sort of depressed (and the cold lighting and decor at Walmart doesn't help with this --how does Target and Costco manage to avoid this effect?), I was just about to give up when we rounded a corner and found this display shoved up again an end-aisle, facing a back wall.  Organic seeds!  Two dollars each!  My daughter and I picked out ten packages, and they will be planted in food pantry beds all over my city, from which we've continued to harvest all winter (except during that snow week).

I watched the DVD, and frankly, I have to admit, it is some of the best coverage of a wide range of sustainability topics I've seen yet.  Divided into a series of segments, the DVD covers cotton, coffee, seafood, jewelry, product energy, China, logistics, packaging, buildings, waste, recycling, engaging people, systems thinking, network problem solving, and more.  

I found the DVD overall to be blatantly honest.  For those of you involved in this stuff, I think you will be surprised at it.  For those of you still just dipping your toe, this DVD is an extremely efficient way to get an overview of some of the main topics involved, supported by really engaging global visuals and interviews.

However . . .

I held my breath waiting for the section on food, which was labeled on the DVD cover as "heritage agriculture."  Heritage agriculture?  I wondered: Is Walmart promoting heritage meat and heirloom crop varieties?  Or perhaps "heritage agriculture" is its euphemism for how farming used to be (you know, organic).  

Well, turns out the term "heritage agriculture" is used by Walmart to refer to the "reintroduction of agricultural products in regions where they used to grow."  So, for example, a farmer who grew only tomatoes is now encouraged by Walmart to grow collards and cabbage as well. The words "organic" and "sustainable" were never once used, in stark contrast to the rest of the DVD.  So, my red flag went up. Something's fishy here.

As one Comfood commenter said, "When you control the food, you control the world."  As another said, "My urban farm provides better food for the same or less cost, delivered to the doors of those who need it, and we have no need to make a deal with Walmart." 

But . . . 

Walmart's sustainability efforts in just a few short years have removed literally gazillions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions, reduced pesticide use (for instance, when Walmart offered just one organic cotton item in its stores, it immediately became the largest purchaser of organic cotton in the world), and encouraged (teetering on requiring) the systemic change in how thousands and thousands of companies do business throughout their entire supply chains. Walmart's goals are huge--100% increased efficiency in its fleet of trucks by 2015, based on a 2005 baseline; ZERO waste by 2025; and frankly, an entire revolution in how products are manufactured.  

Food is perhaps another story, and in all honestly, I'm not sure enough people are going to wake up to this in time to make a difference for our society.  Yet people are hungry, and they are eating garbage food, and society is bearing the burden in increased medical costs, impaired learning, reduced quality of life, decreased national security, and many more truly debilitating effects.  Change is needed.  Lots of changes, in lots of ways, and reduced sodium in products that millions of people are going to buy no matter what sounds like part of the total mix, if you ask me.

The answers are unclear.  The "bad guys" have the potential to be the "good guys."  And frankly, if you accept annihilation of humanity as a real possibility (see pages 26-28 in my book for more about this), then you can let go of fear and focus on making your own personal, positive impact and trusting the journey.

 

And so the question becomes "What is your role in the world's food story?"  Find where you feel like you can contribute authentically (I, for one, don't want to be eaten up by negativity) and do your best.  You may find some helpful info here.

I've learned that what I do best is plant seeds.  And so I will, in the two gardens pictured here (unless we lose the community garden--that answer will come very soon, and what will be will be), and in many more places. (In fact, that's why I'm posting today instead of Sunday, as usual.  Tomorrow I'm preparing beds for planting, starting at the crack of dawn.)

Yes, I know all the bad stuff about Walmart.  Yes, I'm torn.  But . . . . I also wouldn't be surprised if you find me at Walmart.  And McDonald's.  And in the belly of the beast at Coca Cola's headquarters right here in Atlanta . . . within the next five years.  In fact, I hope you do, because that will mean there has been a true paradigm shift in our world. 

It's hard to imagine right now.  But imagine we must.  There are many paths to a sustainable future on our FoodShed Planet, and I am open to all of them (even antiseptic-sounding urban-based vertical farming, complete with sterilized clothing).  And when I see things I support, I'll vote with my dollar.  As I did yesterday.  I told my daughter that perhaps the sales inventory report will show a slight increase in the sale of organic seeds for the day we were there.  And perhaps that will make a difference, infinitesimal at first, but then louder and louder like the singing of the Whos in Whoville. 

So, we'll see.  But I am far from sold.

Wal-Smart?

"This Is a Test"

Maybe this still happens.  I don't watch TV enough to know.  But when I was growing up, every so often (too often, it seemed), TV programming would be interrupted, replaced by a horribly annoying buzzing sound, colored bars and finally these words: "This is a test of the Emergency Response System.  Repeat.  This is only a test."  Wait--here, I'll show you the buzz and bars:

Well, this last week in Atlanta, GA, was a test of my family's personal Emergency Response System, and the only color was white.  Snow.  And the snow days repeated.  Day after day after day after day after day.  The whole metropolitan area was pretty much shut down for five solid days after five little inches of snow.  Schools, businesses, government, the works.  And even now, almost a full week later, many sidewalk sections are still non-traversable to anyone the slightest bit unsteady (think seniors).  After 21 years in Atlanta, I have made a decision.  It is time to buy a snow shovel. We failed on being able to clear our own driveway and street, and the constant refreezing at night created a slick ice sheet that just kept getting thicker.  (And, FYI, I'm from NY so I know snow--don't make fun of Atlanta snow problems, although I know it's horribly tempting, until you've lived here--it's a very different beast).

We passed with flying colors, however, on food.  My freezer, stocked with summer and fall harvests, got a starring role and by mid-week, I had already put on the table:

* a potato, onion, feta, sage-and-mint pesto galette;

* muffins with collard greens (from those weeks when we got way too much in the CSA box) and pear puree (from pears from Rebecca's tree);

* okra latkes (with the okra acting to bind the ingredients together since I was out of eggs--no backyard chickens allowed in my city yet);

* fresh-picked lettuces with caramelized figs that I had picked from a public tree in the fall;

* heirloom tomato sauce for the pasta;

* cheesy grits casserole from Charlotte's grits;

* fresh salads every night from under my hooped garden beds.

And my older daughter said, "Why do we have so much beautiful food?"  It was a rhetorical question.  She knew the answer.

My glib pride didn't last long, however (as glib pride never does). You see, we skipped the food pantry harvest this week.  The three of us who usually harvest all live several miles (in opposite directions) from the park where the greenhouse is, and driving wasn't an option and walking was treacherous (if you've never been to Atlanta, think steep, curvy hills covered with a solid sheet of ice).  Besides, we probably would have only been able to harvest enough greens for maybe four families (although Mother Teresa's words nagged in my head: If you can't feed everyone, feed just one).  

And so we decided to "put safety first" and have a more robust harvest next week.  We justified it all very swimmingly.  One of the women in charge of the food pantry lives right across the street from it and she went just in case anyone showed up, so she could give them a bag of dried goods and frozen food.

Well, turns out 60 families showed up.  That's almost as many as usual.  It has unsettled me all week. How they got there, I do not know.  But they did.  I suppose if you are hungry enough, you find a way.

Later that day, braving a short walk, I made my way to the store and bought a Wall Street Journal, which had a cover story titled: Prices Soar on Crop Woes: U.S. Cuts Global Grain Supply Outlook; Higher Prices Expected at Grocery Stores. It included mention of a report from the World Economic Forum, citing rising demand for water, food, and energy as a risk facing the world, and quoted an economist who predicted retail food prices to rise in the U.S. between 3.5% and 4% this year (as opposed to the 1.4% in 2010 that was definitely visible in my grocery receipts). (For you meat-eaters, beef and pork prices are expected to rise 10% this year.)  Australia's weather, the collapse of wheat exports from The Black Sea, rising demand in Asia, dried-out farm fields in South America, subsidized corn for ethanol, it's all connected.  We are all connected.

And so I wonder about those 60 families.  How can we be sure we have something fresh and healthy for every family, every week this year?  And how can we help them start to provide this nourishment to their families themselves?

* We've started conversations about bringing gardens to apartment complexes.  But all talk, no action, does not put food on the table.  (Bravo to Post Properties for including organic vegetable gardens at 16 of its apartment properties nationwide, 11 of which are in metro Atlanta).

* I asked the city if I could put in a raised bed in a public right of way near an apartment where many of the food pantry clients live, but was told that my request was taking a long time because the city has had to issue citations to others who put raised beds in rights of way. (FYI, the City of Seattle allows raised bed gardening in public rights-of-way with a permit.) 

 

* We've been involving the food pantry clients directly in the garden we installed right there at the food pantry, and we are learning as we grow.  Here is a short video that the diocese created from the Wednesday before Christmas that shows many of the people who probably showed up this week as well. (You see the garden at 1:42 in the video.)

* The Atlanta Jewish Community Center garden is ready for fertilizing and planting in about two weeks (and big thanks to Lynn and Jody for letting us use it).  That space is equivalent to about 10 raised beds, so that can really make a big difference this spring and fall (the space is used for a camp during the summer).

* Cafe Intermezzo, a local business with three metro-Atlanta locations (including at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, for you world travelers) donated money to put in a raised bed at a school where many of the food pantry clients' children attend, and a Girl Scout working on her Gold Star project has volunteered to spearhead it, so that's my next relationship to try to build. (Cafe Intermezzo owners Page and Brian Olson also donated the money for the organic fertilizer for the JCC garden as a gift to their children--big thanks!)

* And we'll find out in just a couple weeks whether or not the city is going to "move" our community garden as part of its new master plan for the park. This happens to other gardens, and some of them survive and even flourish.  But it would mean a break in service to those in need, and that (along with other things) concerns me.

But there comes a time in your life when you realize that you only need to ask the questions and the answers will come, and this week the answer came from Rashid. 

I asked him: "How do you give money and passion and the non-renewable resource of time when there isn't long-term location security for a garden?" This could mean an urban farm, a community garden, or a backyard in a rental house (have you seen what Novella Carpenter did with hers?)  And he answered, simply, that you don't worry about that.  He told me, "Pattie, you plant anyway."

This past week was a test of my family's personal Emergency Response System, as well as my community's. (Wanna' increase your community's sustainability?  See here.) With much gratitude for the food, and food for thought, that I experienced, I know what I am continually called to do, no matter what decisions happen beyond my control.

And so, I am, once again, ready to plant.

"This Is a Test"

And Then I Met Eugene

I sat in my car on a street in a part of Atlanta to which I'd never gone, in the Old Fourth Ward, divided from the towering skyscrapers of downtown Atlanta by a highway, burned by a fire in 1917, rebuilt with "Sweet Auburn Avenue" as its heartbeat, but struggling through the years to really turn the corner from poverty and crime (although there is a terrific Comprehensive Land Use Plan that shows great promise on all fronts).  And I waited.  My email messages to Rashid had been, no doubt, annoyingly noncommittal.  I'll come if it doesn't snow.  I'll come if Bob can drive.  I'll come if . . .

Enough, already, I told myself after my third email.  Rashid's son, Kamal, had sent me the plan for this new urban farm, the new Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture, and it is mind-blowing (see a terrific video from the groundbreaking halfway down this post). It is eight acres in about as urban a setting as you can imagine, where an apartment complex named Wheat Street Gardens used to stand and now an actual Wheat Street Gardens is being planted, where a skyscaper with the word "Equitable" looms not far away as a harbinger of a new spring for this neighborhood, this country, this world.

But more importantly, Rashid had sent that simple message.  To come.  And for reasons that I no longer question, I just knew for sure that I must.

So Rashid arrived and we "walked the land" together (which is owned by the Wheat Street Baptist Church--the little church in this photo to the right), the glorious morning sun dancing off the edges of 50 25-foot-long raised beds (yes, that's 5,000 square feet just in raised beds), several plots of plowed rows as meticulously laid out as all of Truly Living Well's farms, a butterfly pattern of soil ready for herbs and flowers. Wood poles already in place to hold the blackberries and muscadines that are coming soon. Worm bins already at work.   A crew starting work on a greenhouse, which will be finished by Tuesday.  Another spot for a hoop house.  And one for an office.  And another for a market.

"Not bad for a month, huh?"

A month.  And then it hit me--Rashid has only been working at this newest satellite location for that amount of time, and he's been in Atlanta for only about five years.  What he has accomplished has been nothing short of outstanding.  

And then I met Eugene.

How had I not met Eugene Cooke before? Rashid and Eugene had worked together in California (where Eugene created food forests) and then Rashid had gone to Africa.  When the opportunity to farm in Atlanta came up, Rashid called Eugene and together they started Truly Living Well Natural Urban Farms.  And sure enough, if you look back on any of those Rashid videos, you'll see Eugene. 

Eugene reminds me of a martial artist, confident in his power and abilities yet cognizant of his responsibility to use them where they can do the most good.  He is the quiet one in the room.  Until he's not.  And then he is ablaze with passion and purpose.  He speaks beautifully, with depth and meaning.  And, I have to admit here in all brutal honesty, he sees right through me, sharply.  I felt raw in his presence.  He has no accommodations for pretense, and as much as I like to think I don't have any, I was forced to come completely clean.  Like Rashid, he demands honesty, in words, in actions, in intention.  And, by the way, I find this essence permeates the urban agriculture movement (and, in fact, it's one of the main things I like about being involved), perhaps because it draws people like Eugene and Rashid.  Or perhaps because unadorned honesty is necessary, because, really, when it comes down to simple truths, a radish seed doesn't lie.  It just is what it is, authentically.

I asked about that building right on the edge of this urban farm.  Turns out it's the Ebenezer Baptist Church, along with the original building where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached, and the King Center is right behind it.  Twenty one years I've been in Atlanta, and I didn't know that?  My goodness, that's embarrassing, especially since I worked for four years a stone's throw away from this location at CNN Center.

While Rashid and Eugene and I were talking, we could see a steady stream of people heading to the King Center and tour buses circling the block, stopping to glance at this garden oasis rising in the midst.  Two million people a year, Rashid told me.  

Eight days from today, January 17, is the 25th anniversary of the national celebration of Martin Luther King Day.  That day is considered a day on, not off, as people are asked to consider participating in service projects for their community.  And if you are in Atlanta, I can think of no better service project than this one--planting fruit trees at the Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture, with Rashid and Eugene and many other hands and hearts from around metro Atlanta and beyond.  Here, let Eugene invite you instead:

Thanks, Rashid and Eugene. For all you do. And all you are.

And Then I Met Eugene

One World, One Garden, One Seed, and One Moment in Time

I picked this book off my shelf and opened it, remembering how I had fallen upon the author, 24-year-old Elisha Cooper, and purchased a copy he autographed for me, exactly ten years ago at a lovely shop named Kate's Paperie on Lower Broadway to which I always went when returning to New York City.  I read the book cover to cover in the cold, in the snow, a bag of pumpkin tortellini in my hands from Dean and Deluca across the street (at which I used to work on weekends, when it was on Prince Street), a distant view of the World Trade Center in front of me (which I didn't know would be just about the last time I saw it).  

I thought the book was brilliant, with simple yet astute observations, like the ones on the page shown below, from my beloved Union Square Green Market, where I first fell in love with all this local food stuff so many years ago, just out of college, before the husband, before the kids.

And now, ten years later, I still feel the same way about this book, but now I wondered: what became of Elisha Cooper?  Turns out he's married now, with two daughters.  He's still in New York City, and he's published something like a gazillion books and essays, including, as kismet would have it as to how Elisha Cooper fits into FoodShed Planet, this book, Farm (which he generously sent me--thank you, Elisha) about a year on a family farm (on which he grew up--no surprise there since his first book is dedicated to his goat):

In my research of Elisha Cooper, I discovered that he signed that first book of his for two weeks solid at Kate's Paperie and he sketched each customer along with signing his name in each book.  I didn't know that, that that caricature in the front of the book was me.  And so this ten-year-old book holds a hidden snapshot of who I was, then.

And this gets me thinking about these last ten years.  And I realize that 2011 is not only the 10-year-anniversary of the whole 9/11 thing, but it's also the 10-year anniversary of my participation in CSAs (community-supported agriculture, where I prepay a local farmer for weekly delivery of just-picked crops) AND my 10-year anniversary of my home vegetable garden. (I committed to home gardening because of 9/11.  It was something I could do.)  So it's a big year for me, a year that will humbly honor those who have helped change the world for the better, and will personally celebrate what has amounted to an entire change of course for my life.

I intend to revisit some of the folks you've gotten to know a bit better through my blogs:

* People like Paul Dolan, Farmer D, David Baron, Lindsey Mann, Rashid Nuri, Jason Mann (no relation to Lindsey), Rebecca Barria, Luma Mufleh, Betty Londergan, Farmer Sue, Ryan Hreljac, Ed Bruske, Liz and Tim Young, and Mike Lorey.  

* People like Kelly of the Persimmons, Kate and Maggie from Australia, John of the Bottle Tree (wait 'til you hear what he's been up to!), and yes, even that FoodShed Planet favorite, Richard of the Worms.  

* People like my older daughter, who is tethered to home now by nothing more than a thin strand of thread around her toe, it seems, and my younger daughter, who has known nothing but this in her life, this harvesting of relationships, this touching of hands and hearts from field to fork and back again.

I intend to continually share with you stories like these books I just finished reading, about what's possible in one city, one nation, and one world:

1. The truly fantastic book, Growing a Garden City, which literally made me gasp to see what one city, Missoula, Montana, has accomplished as an integrated urban agriculture prototype for the nation.  It humbled me to see how far behind we are in my city, even though great gains have been made these past two years.

2. The terrifically diverse collection of interviews with sustainable agriculture efforts around the United States in Farm Together Now (which, unbeknownst to me when I selected this book, is the one Michael Pollan chose as the best of 2010) (and also, let me add that this book has the sensually-pleasing look and feel of my Jamie, so I immediately loved it).

3.  And the swing-open-the-doors-of-possibility book, Vertical Farm, which frankly, is destined to be an absolute classic.  In fact, you've probably seen numerous visuals from this book already and you probably think that these vertical farms already exist in urban centers, but not one of them does yet.  But they will.  Soon.  And although I'm not a big indoor-farmer sterile-environment kind-of person, I believe the technology presented in this book is a critical component of the global food system of the future.

On my other blog, I am moving beyond the newest city in the United States (Dunwoody, Georgia, now two years old) to focus on the larger metro Atlanta area as Atlanta's mayor, Kasim Reed, strives to move Atlanta into a top-ten city for sustainability (new posts every Wednesday).  

But on this blog (new posts every Sunday), I intend to honor the simplicity of one world (ours), one garden (mine), one seed (hope), and one moment in time (now).  And to hear, and heed, my calling for this year, as one small part of our FoodShed Planet.

I also have some national articles coming out this year (more on that another time), and I'm working all year on a passion project so close to my heart that I'm actually not even going to talk about it (but for those of you locally, it's the reason you'll see less of me this year).  I have one more exciting development to report, but probably not until next week.

But now, back to the garden, where I somehow always return.  As the rain poured down on me yesterday, New Year's Day, one week after the first Atlanta White Christmas since 1882, I hoed and planted and fed kelp to my over-wintering arugula, lettuces, tatsoi, and kale.  

With the sweet smell of soil filling the air, I visualized the new additions I'm considering for 2011 to my garden--the muscadine vines, asparagus bed, expanded medicinal herb patch, and pomegranate tree.  (Espaliered pears?  Maybe next year.)

I identified which 4' x 8' bed would be fully committed to growing food for those in need as part of the new community of home gardeners making up the Atlanta Urban Farm.  I remembered the red metal children's bed frame in the attic and thought, yes, that would be good to bring down and plant in.

My fig tree already has buds, I noticed.  The garlic is up.  The sorrel is exploding with abundance.  And a composting pumpkin made me smile to remember that tortellini from so many years ago.  Perhaps I'll make my own this year.  Really, anything is possible.

One World, One Garden, One Seed, and One Moment in Time