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Beet Street Gardens: Good Food and Safe Space. Dig it!

Beet Street Gardens is a demonstration project combining two of my greatest passions—community gardening and harm reduction. The basic model of Beet Street is to bring gardens to social service organizations which work with marginalized adults, teens, and their families.

by Katie Aldworth

Hey Urban Gardening Enthusiasts! Do you remember your first garden? Beet Street is going to bring first gardens to four organizations working with marginalized communities–a shelter for homeless teen mothers, a domestic violence shelter, a harm reduction organization working with sex workers, and (if funding allows) a shelter working to end homelessness for people living with psychiatric disabilities.

Our Inspiration: Beet Street is inspired by the model of many a community garden: get a community together and build a garden—a safe, healthy and transformative space–with a focus on learning (skills, sustainability, food science, and nutrition) and growing (soil, food, urban sanctuary, identity, community, economic opportunity). With this model, many community gardens in low-income neighborhoods are addressing very real economic and social divisions that are often associated with limited access to nutritious food, safe outdoor space, and recreational and skill-building opportunities.

Expanding Community: Among the hardest to reach people and families are those dealing with crises such as homelessness, domestic violence, drug use, and poverty. For many, there are several barriers to participating in existing community gardens. Perhaps most important to witness is the barrier of real and perceived discrimination and stigma while engaging in an unknown community space.

Taking it to the (Beet) Street: Beet Street Gardens will strive to address these barriers by building gardens on-site at social service organizations that are already known as a safe space for their participants. From March to October of 2010, Beet Street demonstration project will plant, maintain, and harvest—through teaching and collaboration—sustainable food-producing gardens at three organizations in DC. Workshops and information sharing sessions will be facilitated on the topics of gardening, food, health, nutrition, and cooking. The organizations–a harm reduction agency working with sex workers (HIPS, yay!), a shelter for homeless teen mothers, and a harm reduction based domestic violence shelter–were chosen based on need, their reputation with marginalized communities and commitment to harm reduction principles.

Goals: In this demonstration phase, the goal of Beet Street is simply to cultivate community and improve quality of life through gardening and information sharing. As these gardens and our relationship with organizations and individuals take root, we will expand services with the vision of providing economic opportunities and job training. The program will build bridges to the larger urban gardening community and green economy in a constant pursuit of positive change.

We are raising funds on Kickstarter and have raised our minimum goal of $5,500. Yay!! This goal was set when we were planning three gardens. Additional funding will help us bring a garden to this fourth organization and help to increase the capacity of all our gardens. Also, the more funding we receive, the more we will be able to pursue entrepreneurial activities to move people and the future of the organization toward self-sustainability!!

Check out the project on Kickstarter or become a fan on Facebook.

Posted on March 2nd 2010 in Access, Organizations | No Comments »

Rooting DC 2010: UDC’s Yao Afantchao on food, home, and growing

By Robert Thomason

When Yao Afantchao first left his village in Togo for the United States relatives and friends showered him with gifts of local foods so that he would not be without his native diet. Loaded with mangoes, the peanuts of his region and dried delicacies he crossed the Atlantic.

But when the US Customs Service inspected his bags at JFK Airport, his first lesson in U.S. food economics and practices was a shock. The foodstuff of Afantchao’s homeland was confiscated.

“That’s it; my life is gone,” Afantchao said recalling his feelings of the day and that loss. “The trip I made from New York to Philadelphia was the longest of my life.”

Since witnessing that initial clash between authorities and the food he loves, Afantchao’s stories about food have transformed as the nation’s population has become more diverse. He now works as an ethnic and specialty crop specialist with the University of the District of Columbia, helping immigrants find the foods they prefer and the local farmers to produce it.

As people arrive in the United States from other countries, they naturally bring their appetites with them. Although Afantchao in time re-acquired much of his accustomed diet, there was a transition period.

“We like to find our own food,” he said of the immigrant experience at the Feb. 20 Rooting DC conference. “People like to give you pizza and take you to McDonald’s. That is nice for a day. But ethnic food is not just food to the immigrant. It is also a source of culture.”

His eyes and palate have been on the look-out for these foods. “When I go to a home and they serve garden eggs, I am going back to that home,” quipped Afantchao, a large-framed man who sports a mustache and goatee around his ever-present smile.

As a community educator he travels widely in the region, from urban communities to rural Southern Maryland. He acts as a link between those willing to pay for familiar fare and the farmers who do or might produce it. One farm family he met was initially skeptical of planting crops they had never tasted and that had exotic names; 19 years later the farm is making money providing the specialty produce that immigrants and native-born consumers enjoy at their tables or in restaurants.

“Our foods are comfort foods,” Afantachao said. “In the United States, you are always willing to try something new. You are brave people.”

Working through UDC’s cooperative extension service and its agricultural experimentation service, Afantachao was on the team that helped determine a good choice of crops for this segment of the market. He mentioned a few main ones at the Rooting DC conference.

* Sawa-Sawa — A sorrel plant, or edible hibiscus, shic is good in salads. The red bud version makes a good tea.

* Jute leaf — a leafy green

* Avuvo — A plant in the Amara family that is expensive in Africa.

* Njamma-Njamma — A leafy green. Often outside Africa local greens, such as collards, are substituted and a dish by this name is prepared in West African fashion.

* Water leaves — good in stews with meat or fish

* Gboma – in the eggplant family

* Assorted hot peppers — Popular in many cultures

* Garden eggs – another eggplant

Thomason is the publisher of GlobalResourcesNews.com, a site about ecology and economics.

Big thanks and photo credit go to Beverlie Lord of Satsun Photography for the image above.

Cross-posted from Field to Fork Network.

Posted on February 25th 2010 in Events, Meta, Society | No Comments »

Rooting DC Report: Starting seeds, increasing access and Mrs. Vilsack

BIG thanks go out to Nathan Bynum for capturing the energy of Rooting DC 2010 on video. You can check out more of his work here.

Posted on February 22nd 2010 in Access, Events, Food Security, Organizations | 2 Comments »

Bringing it all back home: Reflections on a Bikeable Feast

I met Ibti at Rooting DC 2009. Last February, this plucky foodie had quit her job as an English teacher and was learning to ride a bike for the first time. A year later, she’s biked her way from DC to Vermont to Milwaukee to Seattle visiting sustainable farms and urban agriculture projects along the way. I’ve been following her on her blog, A Bikeable Feast, and as she heads towards Phoenix, I asked her to reflect on her experiences one year later and what she might bring back home with her. Here’s what she said:

I’ve been on the road for nearly 10 months now and seen quite a bit of the country’s diverse food systems. I do plan to make my way back to DC this summer and share what I’ve learned with those who might be interested in models for community-based food systems. As a sneak preview, Liz has asked me to offer a few thoughts on exceptional models that I have encountered thus far and how we might learn from them as we move forward with plans to make DC a thriving, community-based, food secure city.

intervale veggie pick-up The first example I would offer is The Intervale — the wildly successful farm community and farmer incubation project in Burlington, VT. During the growing season, community members gather at the farms each weekend to pick up their boxes of fresh, organic produce; Friday evenings offer live music, local brews, and flatbread pizzas; young farmers apprentice with experienced ones to learn the trade, share the cost of equipment, and develop plans for their own operation.

The site of the Intervale was actually a former floodplain and later a trash dump. It was cleaned out and cleaned up and now is in many ways the heart of Burlington’s burgeoning food system. Might we not develop a similar grouping of urban farms along the waterfront in, say, Southeast DC? I wonder. It could potentially turn this quadrant of the city from a food desert to a food haven. Just a thought.

The second model that comes to mind is the community food system in Madison, WI — another city of comparable size to DC (I think). There is a thriving local food culture in Madison, with many small farms and CSAs. And yet, instead of being in competition — as a traditional market might dictate — the producers support each other, sharing the idea that the more the collective farms succeed, the more able they are to feed everyone.

Farmers are notoriously independent and isolated. Not so with the young (and not so young) farmers around Madison. There are a few things that might explain this anomaly, but I think it comes down to community support. First, there is MACSAC (Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition), a group that works on everything from building farmer customer bases to subsidizing low-income CSA shares to facilitating internships at CSA farms. There are also groups like REAP (Research, Education, Action, and Policy) Food Group — a coalition that works to build a stronger regional food system and better-educated eaters through programs like Homegrown Lunch and publications such as the Farm Fresh Atlas. And, finally, there are educated consumers — CSA shareholders, restauranteurs, farmers’ market shoppers, co-op members — who support these devoted farmers.

A similar group could evolve in DC, I believe, with the development of an active, supportive food policy council. (And I understand from my ears on the ground in the District that there’s been some discussion recently of forming just such a group. Hey, I may be on the road, but DC is always close to my heart and I’m trying to keep up with the exciting new developments.)

The third notable example of a community truly coming together to improve food security in their area is the Noyo Food Forest, based in the tiny coastal town of Fort Bragg, CA. The NFF has partnered with a growing number of diverse, local programs and businesses to beautify the landscape, educate, and grow fresh fruits and vegetables.

There’s a Head Start garden, where lunch and snacks are grown for the low-income-based preschool education program and an NFF staffmember runs weekly activities for youngsters and their parents. (Unfortunately, the timing of my visit didn’t coincide with a lesson, but it sounds like a great program from what I can tell. Incidentally, improving child nutrition continues to be one of the strongest elements of Head Start programs across the country. It seems fitting that the tots and their parents learn how to grow and eat fresh, healthy veggies here.)
food - altoona, ia
Something that really impressed me during my time learning about the Noyo Food Forest was its amazing success with partnerships. This is partly because the need for pooled resources (money and land) brings NFF to the table with local groups but it is also because there are natural connections between gardening and so many aspects of community development. The Noyo Food Forest is working to empower folks to feed themselves, but the gardens are, in the process, fostering healthy communities as well. It’s the kind of program that could be replicated in many other places, adapted for different communities while maintaining its core philosophy of building healthier communities.

Awareness about food and nutrition is on the rise in our fair city, thanks in part to the unflagging efforts of the First Lady. (Love her! And I’m dying to visit the White House garden!) DC has the potential to really be a model for local food security and community that the rest of the country can look to. Let’s get to it!

Want to talk more about how to make DC a model of community food security? Come to Rooting DC 2010, DC’s very own, still free urban agriculture conference this Saturday at the Historical Society of Washington, 801 K Street NW.

Liz Whitehurst also works on the brand new Field to Fork website.

Posted on February 17th 2010 in Access, Farmers, Food Security | 1 Comment »

Introducing DC’s Field to Fork Network

DC’s Field to Fork Network includes dozens of organizations working in Washington, DC to foster regional change in how we approach our food. Members of the Network represent urban gardeners, farmers’ markets, distribution co-operatives, food banks, local government agencies, academic institutions, nutrition educators, community organizers, and cooks – our work encompasses everything between a gardener’s or farmer’s field and your fork!

Sounds a little bit like the DC Food for All, eh? The difference is that the Field to Fork Network is focused specifically on urban agriculture. Further, the Field to Fork website will be less focused on the local food news and city policy analysis you’ve come to expect from the DC Food for All, and more a space for you to learn how to get your hands dirty – literally. That said, we’re in this food movement together and we’ll be building a strong partnership between the two resources.

Organization as a Network will strengthen the linkages between community gardening, food preparation, and nutritional outreach, resulting in a “field to fork” network that will:

encourage the use of underutilized green space within the District for agriculture,
support diversity, abundance, affordability thus, consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables,
expand health and economic benefits by increasing access to fresh produce, and
engage participants and volunteers in outreach and educational opportunities throughout the year.

2010 marks the third year that many of these organizations have collaborated to put on Rooting DC, an annual day-long forum for urban gardeners. (To find out more and to support the conference, come out to the Rooting DC Happy Hour fundraiser tonight at Commonwealth Gastropub. 3rd annual Rooting DC tonight.)

Throughout the year, Rooting DC coordinators have written monthly email newsletters outlining upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, and workshops put on by the partners. Now in creation of the Field to Fork Network website, this information will be easily organized and accessible on-demand at www.fieldtoforknetwork.org!

Use this website to

gather resources for gardeners,
find upcoming volunteer opportunities in urban ag projects,
learn about upcoming workshops,
find info on bringing a wider of diversity of crops to your gardening community,
get recipes for local seasonal produce, or
just stay up to date on DC’s field to fork news.

We hope you will find this website a valuable resource as we grow over the course of the next few months. Please feel free to make suggestions for what additional information or resources ought to be included, by emailing us at DCFieldtoFork@gmail.com

Posted on February 2nd 2010 in Access, Events, Farmers, Organizations | 1 Comment »

Serendipitous Dining at DC’s own Karma Kitchen

I’m sitting across from Robert at the Polo India Club and although we’ve never met, we’re talking about Ecolocity’s Washington DC Area Foodshed map, spirituality, and my (pipe) dream of starting my own farm/cafe/community space.

Each Sunday, the Karma Kitchen, DC’s own gift economy cafe, takes over the Polo India Club and Robert and I are at the community table. Unlike a regular restaurant, you can choose to sit with friends or with strangers who have also come to join this experiment in dining and generosity.

What’s perhaps more unique than the community table at the Karma Kitchen is the cost: My meal–as much lentil daal, aloo gobi, and rice pudding as I want–costs zero dollars.

“Karma Kitchen is based on a universal idea,” says Aparna Kothary, one of the founders of the project in DC. “But we’re putting it in a restaurant setting.”

“Your meal is a gift,” she continues. “We don’t ask that you pay it forward monetarily. The Karma Kitchen is a catalyst and we’re looking for people to innovate in the way they pay it forward.”

Krishna Desar, who also helped start Karma Kitchen, describes it this way: “Every patron pays for someone else’s meal. Sometimes, in addition to paying for others’ meals, people will leave behind small gifts that they want to share with a community of people. We then tag other patrons with such gifts and spread more smiles.”

And it works: “We’ve been self-sustaining since we opened,” in February 2009, Aparna says. “It’s a testament to the generosity of the guests.”

The success of Karma Kitchen is also testament to Arbinda Rajbhandari, owner of the Polo India Club, who has been supportive of the experiment since the beginning.

In fact, the volunteers held their very first discussions at the Polo India Club. Nipun Mehta, who started the original Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, met with Arbinda and the founders when he came to DC for the Green Festival in November 2008. At that meeting, “there was a magical atmosphere in the room,” says Krishna.

The magic continues: “In the beginning, we did wonder about the operational aspects of a volunteer-driven restaurant,” says Krishna. Rajbhandari continues to open his doors to guests and his kitchen to volunteers each Sunday and according to Krishna, since the beginning, it has been amazing to see how smoothly everything runs.

Credit for Karma Kitchen’s operations also goes to the group of volunteers who serve the food, fill my water glass, greet the guests and wash their dishes. According to Aparna, there’s a full volunteer roster every week and often a waiting list as well. “Volunteering is part of the full experience,” says Robert.

“It’s a new kind of exchange,” he continues. “Receiving what’s given instead of demanding what you want.”

For more information on Karma Kitchen, check out their website.

Liz Whitehurst also blogs at About Homelessness.

Posted on January 27th 2010 in Access | No Comments »

Planting a garden in Columbia Heights

[Cross posted from Our Columbia Heights]

A few months after I moved to Columbia Heights, I planted a garden in front of my rowhouse. As people walked by, they taught me about my neighborhood.

Two white men in their mid-30s who lived down the street shook their heads in disbelief. “A coupla years ago,” they said, “people were dealing crack on your porch. Now you’re planting tulips.”

A seven-year-old called out to me from the youth center across the street: “Do you want some gardening stuff?” She had just been to a seed-starting workshop, but “I’m not that into gardening,” she said. I traded her a trowel and a shovel for a glass of water and an apple.

A property owner from down the streets stopped by: “I wish my tenants would do something like this,” he said. He talked about the rabblerousing of the previous residents on the block, especially those in the now vacant apartment next door. I think he was happy to see me because the color of my skin might increase the value of his home.

An older man stopped and asked if he could work for me, because his son needs medication for his asthma and he just spent all his money on diapers and he just needed eight dollars and his son has trouble breathing.

I’m not the only Columbia Heights resident who has built community by growing things. While doing research for the Our Columbia Heights project, I came across this Washington City Paper piece from 2000. It confirmed what I had heard: what’s now the Giant grocery store used to be a community garden, one where folks grew collards, tomatoes, kale, African pois melons and and callaloo from Jamaica.

The piece ends on a note that in hindsight, is a bit tragic and a lot ironic. Gardener Esther King says:

This area will be saved. There are certain key people who aren’t being dealt with. I was dealt with many times. People are always working on others to make them cleaner, stronger, more good people. Those developers just need to be taken aside and dealt with.

My garden never really grew. See, I’m one of those young white transients–you know, the ones all those condos were intended for–and I left for the summer. When I returned in the fall, weeds had taken over. Someone had uprooted a basil plant, one of the few plants still living.

The more I learn about the history of this neighborhood–the conflicts, the struggles, the delays, the incredible changes–the more I realize how much digging needs to be done. There are so many stories that are aching to be told.

For now, I’m just listening.

Liz Whitehurst is currently helping plan Rooting DC 2010 and will soon be volunteering with the Washington Youth Garden. She would rather be weeding than typing.

Posted on January 14th 2010 in Community, Neighborhoods | 2 Comments »

Growing Possibilities: A New Census of Community Gardens

A squadron of bicyclists armed with satellite mapping instruments swept through the District this summer on a unique mission: locate all of the city’s community gardens and interview garden managers for the first ever census of community gardens here.

There are nearly 40 community gardens in DC, but until now, there has been no readily available estimate of the square footage of public land being cultivated for food in the District of Columbia, nor is there a coordinated land management strategy citywide. These are among the issues this census, undertaken by the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, was intended to address.

Green East Community Garden

As I bicycled around town with the Farm Initiative’s staff and volunteers, I discovered that the city’s community gardenscape is well hidden. Community gardens are secreted between alleyways, under a highway overpass, behind a tall fence covered in vines. Others hide in plain sight: there were fruit trees and raised beds in a triangle of land across from the Air and Space Museum. Just blocks from Nationals Stadium, a neat plot of land in full sun teemed with life.

Independence Garden

The Kingman Park-Rosedale Community Garden had the tallest basil plants I had ever seen. As he pulled radishes from the ground, a young gardener at Independence Community Garden near the Air and Space Museum told us that he lives alone and he grows more than he can eat. At King’s Court Community Garden on Capitol Hill, garden manager Pat Taylor gave us basil and squash along with her insight into community organizing strategy.

These gardeners had food to share: possibilities for partnership between community gardens and food access programs such as Ample Harvest or the Grow a Row at the Capital Area Food Bank abound.

The census underscores stark realities about food access in the District. Wards 1 through 6 have a greater concentration of community gardens as well as a greater concentration of supermarkets and food retail centers.

A preliminary map of NFI's findings

But there are signs of change. Ward 8, for instance, recently added a new community garden, Shipley Community Garden at 23rd and Savannah streets SE. Health advocates east of the Anacostia River are looking at food gardening as a way to address childhood obesity.

Another new urban garden, Justice Park, is slated to be built on a vacant lot at 14th and Euclid streets NW in Columbia Heights. The city’s recreation department recently announced $25,000 in funding from Whole Foods to help install garden planters at 56 recreation centers throughout the District.

As more community gardeners sprout up, NFI’s educational programs can teach them how to grow food sustainably. At their half-acre space near Fort Totten, they also host weekend workshops and volunteer workdays.

If you would like to support community garden programming east of the river, you can make a tax-deductible donation to the Neighborhood Farm Initiative. (Please make a note of “NFI – wards 7 & 8″ in the comments section.) A portion of any funds raised with this tag will be donated to the Shipley Community Garden tool fund (they especially need a tiller), and the remainder will be used to cover educational program material for Spring 2010 gardening programming held in Wards 7 and 8.

Meanwhile, data for the community garden census is currently being compiled and analyzed. If you know of a community garden in operation as of September 2009 whose manager was not contacted by NFI for inclusion in this garden census effort, please contact NeighborhoodFarm@gmail.com.

Liz Whitehurst also writes for the Bread for the City blog, Beyond Bread.

Posted on December 3rd 2009 in Community, Government Issues | 1 Comment »

Permaculture: Design for Sustainable Living

What is more important: feeding hungry people or growing food sustainably?

Permaculture is a design system for food production that emphasizes both earthcare and peoplecare. Even in an urban environment, permaculture has lessons to teach about growing food more sustainably.

I was among a group of gardeners and environmentalists who came together recently at Common Good City Farm to discuss the ethics of permaculture as well as learn some practical skills. Farm founder Liz Falk and Steve Gabriel, Educator and Program Coordinator for the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute led the three-day course, which is part of the farm’s ongoing series of educational programs.

Permaculture teaches us to design agricultural systems and living arrangements that more closely resemble nature. Its principles can be applied to designing a garden, a neighborhood, even a city. In fact, we spent part of one of the course making plans for a re-design of the farm and an entire DC neighborhood.

But first, we spent Saturday caring for the earth by planting an edible forest garden. In a natural forest, tall trees protect shade-loving plants from the sun and mushrooms spring to life in the wet areas at their bases. A permaculturist looks at these relationships and decides to mimic them by planting in “guilds”—or close-knit groups–instead of rows.

We planted strawberries and blueberries near fruit trees and mushroom spores around their trunks, creating a guild of plants that will feed and protect each other. As we dug, it started to pour rain. Our outdoor classroom space became a small pond. As we scurried around picking up shovels and taking down tents, the rain turned us into a guild.

We turned the storm into a lesson. After observing how the rainwater dispersed in natural patterns, we discussed how we might design the space to work with the water’s flow instead of against it. When the flood ebbed, we dug a rain garden based on our observations.

In addition to the guild and the rain garden, we:

Discussed projects in cities across the U.S. that represent different permaculture principles, including City Repair in Portland and the Neuestra Raices in Holyoke, MA.
Talked compost, from how to make compost tea in hours to building a vermicomposting bin for an apartment kitchen.
Built cold frames–small, mobile greenhouses from wood, PVC pipe and sheet plastic that help extend the growing season.
Innoculated shitake mushroom spores—sometime next year, mushrooms should be growing out of the hickory log we placed them in.
Remediated the soil using a technique called sheet mulching, which uses recycled cardboard boxes, compost, and wood chips to improve the quality of soil during winter months.
Had World Café-style conversations about how to engage neighbors meaningfully and how we can identify and distribute the surpluses we produce.

[Photo by Rafamerchan on Flickr, of a different workshop at Common Good.]

By combining concrete skills and big ideas, conversation and labor, we learned to embrace lessons that the earth teaches to feed and protect each other.

Liz Whitehurst writes for the Bread for the City blog, Beyond Bread, and is currently cover cropping at Sligo Creek Farm.

Posted on November 20th 2009 in Community, Organizations | 2 Comments »