Home › PAN Magazine

Bringing Back the Backyard Garden

in

A backyard vegetable garden in Berkeley, California. Laura GibbDuring World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, at the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt, encouraged citizens to plant “Victory Gardens” around their homes and neighbors cooperated to turn vacant lots into community cropland. In 1943, 20 million U.S. gardeners produced eight million tons of food. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park became the home to 250 gardens producing fresh, local food for city residents.

In Britain, home gardens have been part of the urban landscape for generations and today, many European Union countries are encouraging city gardens by providing seeds, tools and outright grants. Belgium gives its gardeners checks worth thousands of euros to purchase soil, compost and seeds (or to build rooftop gardens and rainwater harvesting systems). Belgium’s government also pays homeowners to transform basement space into shelters for bats that control insects better than chemical treatments while producing nutrient-rich guano for the garden.

Home gardens take toil but save oil. While your average tomato travels 1,500 fossil-fueled miles from farm to fork, produce from an urban garden seldom needs to travel more than 1,500 inches. In 2007, about 22% of all U.S. households (25 million homes) had some sort of backyard vegetable garden, according to the National Gardening Association. And this year, the Garden Writers Association reports, 39% of America’s flower gardens also will be growing vegetables—up 5% from last year.

A word of warning. Before starting a home garden, test your soil for common urban contaminants like arsenic, motor oil, and lead from paint chips and leaded gasoline. Soil tests can cost as little as $10.

The nonprofit Food Project tested more than 125 home gardens in Massachusetts and found 83% were contaminated with lead concentrations more than double the EPA’s safe level. The quickest way to surmount this problem is to build raised planter beds filled with new, clean soil.

If you don’t have a yard, look for a nearby community garden. Many older residents have fruit trees they can no longer harvest, so groups like Urban Youth Harvest in Oakland, California, pay kids to do the work. In July, these plucky teenage “gleaners” harvested 600 pounds of apples, figs, oranges and blackberries that would otherwise have gone unpicked—and, 99% of the time, the fruit is pesticide-free. This year, Silicon Valley’s Village Harvest gathered 80,000 pounds of backyard fruit and new online “forage” sites allow gleaners to swap and barter produce in cyberspace.

“Dear Mr. President-Elect”
In a New York Times “Open Letter,” author Michael Pollan proposes a new federal appointment—White House Farmer. “Tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant … an organic fruit and vegetable garden.” Eleanor Roosevelt planted such a garden in 1943, inspiring a Victory Garden movement that helped feed the nation in wartime. Pollan notes that Eleanor’s garden was planted “over the objections of the USDA, which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.” Pollan hopes the new U.S. president will inspire a new Victory Garden movement—“one seeking ‘victory’ over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population.”

-- From “Farmer in Chief” by Michael Pollan, New York Times, Oct. 12, 2008

Garden Resources

Books

on the web

Bookmark and share this page:

Back to top