50. Home-Grown
Last Tuesday I was just about to sit down for second breakfast when my cellphone rang. “Hi, I’m in your backyard,” the lady on the other end said.
“I just see your beautiful Swiss chard out here and I was wondering, what do you do with all of this? Do you sell it somewhere?”
A week earlier, I was out back in our Wise Avenue micro-farm replacing my broadfork handles when an old man in a truck pulled over to start a similar conversation. He asked about lettuce & carrots, and told a story about his older sister. She fell off a ladder this time last year, and her injuries canceled her 2019 gardening season. But 2020 is another chance to get back on track, and her tomatoes are started in the basement under lights, ready to head out to their summer homes. She just had some raised beds built, but he must not trust his sister’s gardening abilities, because he made sure he had my phone number for when tomatoes come into season.
The LEAP farmshare aggregated CSA nearly doubled in size this spring and is currently maxed out. And LEAP’s new role as guardians of the 4+ community garden properties in Roanoke has its COVID related challenges (lack of volunteer labor, health and safety protocols for gardeners and shared tools, just to name a couple), but filling the garden plots with folks who want to grow food and flowers is not one of them. Gardeners are using these spots as reasons to leave home for some fresh air. A quick walkthru of the Morningside Community Garden yesterday revealed plots turned over, well watered and full of baby tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and beans. And the community raspberry bushes are filled with tiny pale green buds!
A few weeks into pandemic life, we used our front yard to give away a glut of garden seeds to anyone who would take them. Some were a year or two old, but perfectly good sunflowers, lettuces, radishes and sweet corn went quick. Lima beans were the only thing left after a half hour. People stopped on bikes to browse, and a few cars spotted our “FREE SEEDS” sign and crossed the street to get some. Most of the seed packets came courtesy of LEAP, who inherited the relationship with local hardware stores for leftover seed stock at season’s end. And we got some more seed and did the exact same thing the following weekend with the same result. People are pumped up about growing food this season!
These are just anecdotes that I see as a trend around me lately. Before March, it was pretty rare for passing strangers to strike up a conversation while I’m working in a garden. People did not call the phone number on my yard signs very often. But suddenly seed catalogs are selling out and I’m pretty glad to see so much enthusiasm for local- and home-grown food lately. I think the experience of COVID-quarantine has given a lot of us some time to think about what’s really important, and many seem to have come to the conclusion that food sovereignty is one of hose things. I think that’s neat, and I agree.
For those who are looking for a little assistance as they start their garden this year: I can help! On Thursday, May 28th, the folks at Carilion Clinic Community Health and Outreach are going to help me teach my Farmer’s Spotlight: Planting class on Facebook live! And if you tune in live at 6:00pm, I’ll be able to answer specific questions about your garden! So sign up for that class here!