Permaculture White House
The title of John Laumer’s article posted on Treehugger.com signals the leaner times toward which we’re heading: “Get A Pressure Cooker and Eat Your Leftovers”
A Reuters quote in the article states:
U.S. consumers should brace for the biggest increase in food prices in nearly 20 years in 2008 and even more pain next year due to surging meat and produce prices, the Agriculture Department said on Wednesday.
Eight years ago my husband Richard and I, the eccentric new kids on the block, snuffed out our front and back lawns with sheets of cardboard and turkey mulch and planted edibles. Lately, in my strolls around the ’hood I’ve noticed more than a few shrinking or altogether disappeared lawns, some sporting edible replacements. It appears as though rising food and energy costs have finally hit mainstream and human adaptability may be kicking in.
When the New York Times reports on the resurgence of victory gardens in America (Victory Gardens, 8/24/2008), and the Wall Street Journal features an article and video about suburbanites digging up their lawns to plant edibles (Load Up the Pantry 4/22/08), and books, magazines, and YouTube buzz with information about everything from kitchen gardening to food preservation to backyard chicken raising and beekeeping, change seems definitely afoot.
And yet a society like ours, which is pampered with packaged convenience and sustained by cheap energy, has a long way to go toward achieving a durable and secure food system.
Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, says that home food production in US actually dropped by 20% between 2004 and 2005. This is not good news, given modern agriculture’s dependence on finite, expensive fossil fuels. It’s all the more reason to revive the practice of home gardening, and it’s why Doiron established Kitchen Gardeners International in 2003.
Kitchen Gardeners International is supported by over 2600 people in 50 countries and is growing steadily. Its annual International Kitchen Garden Day (this year’s was August 24th) is a worldwide celebration of the joys and benefits of growing food at home. KGI’s Eat The View campaign is aimed at getting a kitchen garden planted on the White House lawn—a practice with precedents in American history (Abigail Adams tended the first Presidential garden, Woodrow Wilson grazed sheep during WWI, and Eleanor Roosevelt cultivated a victory garden on the White House lawn during WWII).
For more information check out Kitchen Gardeners International’s website at http://www.kitchengardenres.org or go to http://www.EatTheView.org.
Janet Barocco is a gardener, home herbalist, massage practitioner, and author of “Growing a “Healing Garden” (1995). She is married to Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute. Their suburban garden is featured in an episode of the online series Peak Moment Conversations. (“Suburban Permaculture,” episode 100).
