(City Hall - Plant Veggies not Flowers) Poverty Reduction and Environment Protection
Reducing poverty, adding natural nutrients to top soil, involving community, promoting healthy eating, reducing city spend, recreating a well connected and safer community.
Most cities and towns have multiple flower gardens that are taken care of by city workers. Call your local city hall, ask them to plant hardy vegetables in garden spots instead of the usual flowers.
A few times a year, the community can get together for a harvest. The harvest can then be sold at farmers markets, donated to needy families, or whatever idea someone else may have.
Poverty Reduction
This idea will help reduce poverty if the harvested food is donated to those who need it.
Rebuilding
Adding natural nutrients to top soil building a healthy garden for future generations.
Community Involvement
Involving community by allowing everyone to participate in weeding, harvesting, etc...
Promote Healthy Lifestyle
It will help to promote healthy eating with people walking by a bunch of veggie gardens all day.
Save Money
It will reduce city spend by having community volunteers do some work.
Education
Demonstrations and informational tours and meetings can be held at garden spots for educational events related to growing your own garden in the city.
Harvesting
Harvesting and using your own seeds will eliminate purchasing expensive annual flowers that die and wither each year.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure for maintaining these gardens already exists in most cities and towns across America. Very little needs to be done to make this idea possible.
Safer Community
Recreating a well connected and safer community. Getting to know more people in your community will create a safer atmosphere and more people will watch out for each other more.
I agree
No opinion
I disagree
Add your comment
Paying the city workers to plant tomatoes might really get my goat if I'm a tomato farmer trying to compete with them.
And really, growing a garden is so easy if you have the time, why would you want to share it with other people? Who decides who gets the good produce and who gets the crap? No, I think a garden is very 'chicken-little' thing, that is, the products are very dependent on how much work someone puts in. So sharing them is likely to be difficult.
But, yes, I do know that community gardens exist in some areas. I have acreage myself and I grow a garden. I'm happy to share, but only after I've picked the stuff I want myself.
The idea is not to divide upon the greediest who wants the best of the crop. Poverty Reduction and Environment Protection is the main goal here. A link to the Vancouver community garden on Davie and Burrard shows how successful it can be. This is in the heart of down town on Burrard and Davie which is one of the most busy intersections in Vancouver. Here you can see how successful this project is.
We are not looking to replace farmed veggies but just to supplement needed food for those in need. When a project like this starts, a new community of people get together and help. Its called "volunteering" and more people including myself are starting to do it more and more.
A quote from "hrench" - "I'm happy to share, but only after I've picked the stuff I want myself."
That is fine on your own land but it would be a bit selfish for community projects such as this. Only usable food would be given away or sold and the crap would be turned back into the soil for a natural nutrient rich future garden.