NEW 2012!! DC Garden Services — Local, Cheap or Free!

Here are the results for the DC Garden Services survey that have been compiled enthusiastically by Josh Singer of Wangari Gardens. If there is any service you know of that you would like to add to this list, please let us know and we will be happy to add it to the document! Thank you!

Josh Singer (joshsinger3070@gmail.com) or dcfieldtofork@gmail.com

LAST UPDATE: May 9, 2012

To download the document, click on the link below:

DC Garden Services Surveys final (Word Document)

OR

DC Garden Services Surveys final_MayUpdate (PDF Document)

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Production (growing) For an individual or family, production can go from a pot or two of herbs on the window-sill, to plants on the fire-escape, or for those blessed with lots of space, a mini, urban farm such as Novella Carpenter’s urban farm in Oakland. There are also communities which have been revitalized using urban agriculture as a vehicle, such as Nuestra Raices community in Holyoke, Massachussetts.

There are also lots of people in urban areas with spaces to grow food, but whom, for any number of reason, don’t plant a garden. In Brooklyn, New York, a decentralized urban farming network has been established to raise food using other peoples’ land, providing benefits to both the land holders and the community. In cities like Milwaukee, where there is available land, but income is limited, Growing Power and the Rainbow Farmer’s Co-op provide education, income and produce for the communities and local economy. In Washington D.C., Common Good City Farm has the same goals.

While the thrust of education in the overdeveloped world has shunned anything to do with working with one’s hands and head, if fact, agriculture may be a lot more challenging than sitting a desk doing menial work. And the place to begin is with the children and their families and community.

And its not just the back or front yard that’s appropriate, as the recent article “Rooftop Gardening: Urban Farming, a Bit Closer to the Sun” points out. For those who are more into landscaping than gardening, it’s also possible to use edible plants to enhance your yard or to look at other approaches such as those presented by the Permaculture Association [Britain].

There are probably more resources available on gardening than anyone in their right mind would want to wade through, and besides, experience is the real teacher. But for those who might be new to the idea, a recent article by Rosalind Creasy and Cathy Wilkinson Barash: Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet! provides lots of ideas, as does a recently published book by R. J. Ruppenthal: Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting.

Blogs, Websites and Other Resources

Check out our partners who are extending the “Field to Fork Network” in Northern Virginia!

• American Community Gardening Association seeks to build community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the U.S. and Canada. 
• City Farmer News: For the past 32 years, City Farmer has encouraged urban dwellers to pull up a patch of lawn and plant some vegetables, kitchen herbs and fruit.
• CitySprouts‘s mission is to develop, implement and maintain beautiful, resource-rich school gardens in collaboration with public school communities. Integrated into the curriculum, CitySprouts gardens inspire teachers, students, and families with a deep, hands-on connection to the food cycle, sustainable agriculture, and the natural environment.
• Civil Eats is a blog about with food justice news and features on innovative projects from throughout the U.S.
• Community Food Security Coalition is dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food to all people at all times.
• DC/MD/VA Community Gardens is a listing of all community gardens in the DC area.
• Ecology Action‘s mission is to train people worldwide to better feed themselves while conserving resources.
• The Ecology Center provides the public with reliable information, tools, hands-on training, referrals, strategies, infrastructure, and models for sustainable living. Our programs enable people to adopt practices that are environmentally and socially responsible.
• The Ethicurean is a group blog about the quest for tasty things that are also sustainable, organic, local, and/or ethical — SOLE food, for short.
• Future Harvest-CASA is a network of farmers, agricultural professionals, landowners and consumers living and working in the Chesapeake region. Future Harvest-CASA promotes profitable, environmentally sound and socially acceptable food and farming systems that work to sustain communities.
• Rooted In Community (RIC) is a national grassroots network that empowers young people to take leadership in their own communities.
• Cornell Gardening Resources – http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/
• National Gardening Association – http://www.garden.org/
• Gardenerd – http://www.gardenerd.com/
• Wikihow: Gardening – http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Gardening
• Gardening for Dummies – http://www.dummies.com/Section/Gardening.id-323646.html
• Permaculture Institute – http://www.permaculture.org/

This page is in progress, and we need your help! Please send your favorite links to dcfieldtofork@gmail.com. Thanks!