April 30, 2008
Eating DC: Urban Gardeners
Written by DCist contributor Daniel Castleman
While most of the food world lately has been abuzz with discussion of “food miles,” or the calculation of energy required to transport food from the farm to the table, D.C. resident Ed Bruske has been measuring his travels in inches. Bruske, a former reporter for the Washington Post, local blogger, and personal chef, serves as the president of the D.C. Urban Gardeners, an all-volunteer organization promoting sustainable gardening in the District. Over the past five years he has transformed his small front lawn in Columbia Heights into an edible garden, brimming with fresh, organic produce for his family throughout the year.
This past Saturday, DCist got to check out Bruske’s lecture on “Spring Menus from an Urban Kitchen Garden”, the first in a series of monthly events on urban gardening at the D.C. Historical Society. Clad in a Hawaiian shirt that echoed his easy going personality, he enthusiastically explained to the intimate audience how they, too, could grow their own fruits and vegetables with whatever little space they have at home.
Bruske emphasized the importance of having a plan, no matter how small your garden will be. For those lucky enough to have a front or backyard of their own, make sure first to send some soil samples to a lab for tests. Not only will the nutrient readings of the soil help you figure out what you can grow, but also testing for lead is incredibly important due to the number of old houses with lead paint in the District, which creates lead runoff in the ground. Next, figure out how much sunlight your balcony or yard receives. Examine which direction it faces, and make sure to take into account any buildings that may block the sun during different seasons. Finally, do some research on seeds, either online or at the library, to help you determine the best time to plant. Plot out exactly where and what to plant, and start growing your own kitchen garden.
To further entice the audience to start growing their own edibles, Bruske shared a number of recipes for a variety of fruits and vegetables currently coming into season for our area. These included asparagus, fava beans, lettuces, peas, radishes, strawberries, rhubarb, herbs, and sorrel. If these aren’t already in your garden, all of these spring edibles should be appearing at local farmers markets.
Eating something you have cultivated yourself is not only environmentally friendly, but the freshness can also never be matched. Even if it’s something as small as a few pots of basil, parsley, and rosemary sitting on your windowsill, the personal satisfaction from growing it yourself makes it all taste better too.
The next Urban Gardening lecture at the D.C. Historical Society will take place on May 15, from 10 - 11:30 a.m.
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While growing and eating food locally might have benefits such as freshness, feeling of community, better taste, etc the notion that backyard gardens are making an impact on carbon emissions or "food-miles" is just false.
If you look at the situation in a single variable sense, it seems that walking to your garden to pluck a pepper produces less carbon than driving to Safeway. But, once you take into account all the energy use factors (fertilizer, water use, etc) the amount of energy it takes to ship wheat in from Illinois to DC is dwarfed by the energy efficiencies in scale the wheat farmer has over backyard gardens.
I like to buy produce at farmers markets and do think there is something to be said for the taste of veggies grown on smaller scales, but I don't kid myself that I am helping to curb carbon emissions by doing so.
I appreciate a veggie post after all these tempting free ice cream announcements.
Who the fuck's growing wheat in their DC lawn?!? That'd be like trying to grow carrot cake on a Chia Pet.
Most of the home gardens I know of around the area feature tomatoes, squash, berries, and of course herbs. Not necessary cash crops or staples, but fruits and veggies that grow easily and tastily in the garden. And those species don't need fertilizer, water, or costly/polluting/unsustainable energy to meet most non-farmers' needs.
Maltose, unless you require fuel-burning machinery or costly transactions to provide your garden with dirt, rain, and sun, you're sowing a sickly argument. You can get seeds and maybe a bag of mulch with one trip to the nursery or hardware store in the car, then have seasons' worth of food growing right in your backyard to reduce the need for trips to the grocery store or farmer's market.
But at least all that bullshit would make some good, cheap fertilizer.
I don't know how much energy went into our balcony planting, but I can say that we reaped a spicy radish and arugula salad from it tonight. Granted the radishes were the size of peas (perhaps because we didn't follow a gardening plan), but they sure were spicy!
wait a minute, doesn't he have to worry about this?
What's the deal with that big honking garden behind the Masonic "library" on 16th Street? Is that a neighborhood thing, or are the Freemasons growing triffids and pod people? That would go a long way towards explaining the lines at Cakelove. That last cupcake was dryer than Oscar Wilde, and I've had better cake in prison.
Nature isn't economics. While there are some efficiencies of scale, just because you're growing 50 acres of a plant doesn't mean it magically needs less water or nutrients.
Storebought shrinkwrapped Hostess Apple Pies always taste better than ones made at home from scratch, particularly if you leave the cellophane on during the baking process. I like burning plastic fumes. That's just how I roll. Then again, I'm a 9th Level Vegan who won't eat anything that casts a shadow and I "pocket mulch."
that is, bar none, one of the best simpsons lines ever.
I haven't been there in a while but I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of signs around the garden behind the Masonic Temple indicating that it is a community garden.
Checking the list of community gardens on the website in the article confirms it.
http://www.dc-urban-gardeners.com/communitygardens.html