Article that appeared in In Good Tilth publication
This is not the original photo that appeared with the article. Photo by Patricia Herlevi
Green Gardening and Good Eatin’—Urban-Style
By Patricia L. Herlevi
A time existed when people moved to the city to escape associations with rural life such as growing one’s own food, cooking from scratch, and canning. The trend moved towards buying convenience foods at supermarkets and microwave ovens.
However, today urbanites grow victory gardens, preserve, and prepare whole foods that traveled 0 miles. Economics, climate change, and an interest in organic foods contribute, so do new generations of urban gardeners who long for their own plot. But for apartment dwellers this desire poses challenges.
Food writer and urban gardener Amy Pennington met these challenges. She launched GoGo Green Garden (gardening service), published the book, The Urban Pantry (Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable and Seasonal Kitchen), Skipstone Publishing. And she co-founded the website Urban Garden Share which matches up gardens with gardeners in Seattle. With the perfect blend of drive, creativity, and problem solving skills, Pennington offers DIY gardeners doable options, including access to their neighbor’s garden. Pennington also teaches her GoGo Green Garden clients how to prepare the bounty from their gardens, including pickling, cooking, and canning.
Despite her full plate, Pennington took a break to discuss innovative solutions for urban gardening. She proudly wears the label “locavore” and demonstrates possibilities of eating local and eating seasonal.
Good Tilth: Did growing up on a homestead prepare you for the work that you do now with growing and preserving your own food?
Amy Pennington: It’s interesting. I didn’t know it until I actually got my hands dirty as an adult, but yes, I think growing up on a homestead influenced me. When I started growing food as an adult, it was single-handedly the most intuitive and natural thing in my life. I taught myself how to preserve food over years of practice and figuring out what works.
GT: Which endeavor came first to you, organic gardening or preparing organic foods? Have you always had these interests?
AP: I don’t have a focus necessarily on “organic” food, but I do cook with whole foods, nothing processed. I think that cooking came first for me and as I explored food, I wanted more control over what I was eating and what I was cooking. I wanted a variety and I wanted to know where my food came from. In that way, I suppose gardening came in second, but close behind!
GT: Apartment dwelling presents challenges to people who desire to grow their own food. Some have grown food on balconies or in containers, but you came up with a better idea, growing food in a neighbor’s yard. Tell us the story of how GoGo Green Gardens was conceived.
AP: A couple asked me to grow food in their yard because they knew I was interested in whole fresh local foods. I did that for a few years before anyone caught wind of it. When I started telling people that I had a little garden job on the side, more people asked me to grow (food) for them. That’s how it all started.
I actually live in a small apartment so I grow food in containers at home, but not much. I supplement with food from the farmers market.
GT: What can gardeners do with an overabundance of tomatoes and zucchini? You just published your first book, The Urban Pantry, which takes readers through the process of preserving their bounty. You had been writing food-related articles for magazines for several years. What inspired you to take the next step and write a book?
AP: I was approached by a publisher (Skipstone Publishing), who knew who I was and what I did for a living with GoGo Green Garden. They asked me if I’d be interested in writing a book about stocking a pantry, the old school way of making everything from scratch. I jumped at the offer and sent some ideas their way. They loved them and the rest is history!
GT: You teamed up with Jesse Dawson, Gannon Curran and Colin Saunders (founder of Foodista online encyclopedia) to launch an eco-friendly website, Urban Garden Share which matches gardens with gardeners in Seattle.
I read in a Toronto Star article (listed on Pennington’s blog), in which Urban Garden Share was mentioned that there are similar websites for Canadian cities. Was your team aware of the other gardener matching sites when you launched yours or was this one of those 100th monkey moments?
AP: Gannon and I conceived the site about a year before we launched it. We were both in a 6-week intensive gardening class at that time, but lived in apartments with no garden space. From there, we did some research and I found a site in Vancouver, BC. While there was a site, I thought we could make improvements and launch in Seattle proper. I think we did a good job. We were one of the first sites out the gate and we’re continuing to expand.
GT: You had mentioned that Urban Garden Share will be launched in Whatcom County? How did that come about?
AP: Ever since Urban Garden Share-Seattle launched, individuals and groups nationwide have contacted us. They were curious about our success and our technology. From there we aligned ourselves with local partners and we will launch in Whatcom County, Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, and Boise, Idaho in July, 2010.
We’re happy to go anywhere so as long as a city wants the site, we’re game. It’s easy to share the technology and we did it all as a labor of love, so why not?
GT: The DIY green gardening, canning food, and cooking from scratch are part of a larger sustainable movement that also includes permaculture, less reliance on oil, as well as, transforming lawns into edible gardens. Besides food security issues, what benefits derive from edible lawns? There are still some people who don’t want to give up their grass-covered lawns.
AP: People love lawns. I think they are reminiscent of childhood—taking your shoes off and running across a length of green. The benefit of an edible landscape is that you can grow your own food. Why not use your immediate resources to contribute to your household’s bottom line? Even if you only grow lettuces over the course of a year, you’d save money at the grocery store.
I’ve always been baffled by people that have pristine lawns. Why not make them productive? A few fruit trees and some well-placed pots and you can easily cut into your household budget. Not to mention that you can grow some spectacular food that is otherwise unavailable commercially.
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This is not the original photo that appeared with the article. Photo by Patricia Herlevi
Green Gardening and Good Eatin’—Urban-Style
By Patricia L. Herlevi
A time existed when people moved to the city to escape associations with rural life such as growing one’s own food, cooking from scratch, and canning. The trend moved towards buying convenience foods at supermarkets and microwave ovens.
However, today urbanites grow victory gardens, preserve, and prepare whole foods that traveled 0 miles. Economics, climate change, and an interest in organic foods contribute, so do new generations of urban gardeners who long for their own plot. But for apartment dwellers this desire poses challenges.
Food writer and urban gardener Amy Pennington met these challenges. She launched GoGo Green Garden (gardening service), published the book, The Urban Pantry (Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable and Seasonal Kitchen), Skipstone Publishing. And she co-founded the website Urban Garden Share which matches up gardens with gardeners in Seattle. With the perfect blend of drive, creativity, and problem solving skills, Pennington offers DIY gardeners doable options, including access to their neighbor’s garden. Pennington also teaches her GoGo Green Garden clients how to prepare the bounty from their gardens, including pickling, cooking, and canning.
Despite her full plate, Pennington took a break to discuss innovative solutions for urban gardening. She proudly wears the label “locavore” and demonstrates possibilities of eating local and eating seasonal.
Good Tilth: Did growing up on a homestead prepare you for the work that you do now with growing and preserving your own food?
Amy Pennington: It’s interesting. I didn’t know it until I actually got my hands dirty as an adult, but yes, I think growing up on a homestead influenced me. When I started growing food as an adult, it was single-handedly the most intuitive and natural thing in my life. I taught myself how to preserve food over years of practice and figuring out what works.
GT: Which endeavor came first to you, organic gardening or preparing organic foods? Have you always had these interests?
AP: I don’t have a focus necessarily on “organic” food, but I do cook with whole foods, nothing processed. I think that cooking came first for me and as I explored food, I wanted more control over what I was eating and what I was cooking. I wanted a variety and I wanted to know where my food came from. In that way, I suppose gardening came in second, but close behind!
GT: Apartment dwelling presents challenges to people who desire to grow their own food. Some have grown food on balconies or in containers, but you came up with a better idea, growing food in a neighbor’s yard. Tell us the story of how GoGo Green Gardens was conceived.
AP: A couple asked me to grow food in their yard because they knew I was interested in whole fresh local foods. I did that for a few years before anyone caught wind of it. When I started telling people that I had a little garden job on the side, more people asked me to grow (food) for them. That’s how it all started.
I actually live in a small apartment so I grow food in containers at home, but not much. I supplement with food from the farmers market.
GT: What can gardeners do with an overabundance of tomatoes and zucchini? You just published your first book, The Urban Pantry, which takes readers through the process of preserving their bounty. You had been writing food-related articles for magazines for several years. What inspired you to take the next step and write a book?
AP: I was approached by a publisher (Skipstone Publishing), who knew who I was and what I did for a living with GoGo Green Garden. They asked me if I’d be interested in writing a book about stocking a pantry, the old school way of making everything from scratch. I jumped at the offer and sent some ideas their way. They loved them and the rest is history!
GT: You teamed up with Jesse Dawson, Gannon Curran and Colin Saunders (founder of Foodista online encyclopedia) to launch an eco-friendly website, Urban Garden Share which matches gardens with gardeners in Seattle.
I read in a Toronto Star article (listed on Pennington’s blog), in which Urban Garden Share was mentioned that there are similar websites for Canadian cities. Was your team aware of the other gardener matching sites when you launched yours or was this one of those 100th monkey moments?
AP: Gannon and I conceived the site about a year before we launched it. We were both in a 6-week intensive gardening class at that time, but lived in apartments with no garden space. From there, we did some research and I found a site in Vancouver, BC. While there was a site, I thought we could make improvements and launch in Seattle proper. I think we did a good job. We were one of the first sites out the gate and we’re continuing to expand.
GT: You had mentioned that Urban Garden Share will be launched in Whatcom County? How did that come about?
AP: Ever since Urban Garden Share-Seattle launched, individuals and groups nationwide have contacted us. They were curious about our success and our technology. From there we aligned ourselves with local partners and we will launch in Whatcom County, Louisville, Kentucky, Atlanta, Georgia, and Boise, Idaho in July, 2010.
We’re happy to go anywhere so as long as a city wants the site, we’re game. It’s easy to share the technology and we did it all as a labor of love, so why not?
GT: The DIY green gardening, canning food, and cooking from scratch are part of a larger sustainable movement that also includes permaculture, less reliance on oil, as well as, transforming lawns into edible gardens. Besides food security issues, what benefits derive from edible lawns? There are still some people who don’t want to give up their grass-covered lawns.
AP: People love lawns. I think they are reminiscent of childhood—taking your shoes off and running across a length of green. The benefit of an edible landscape is that you can grow your own food. Why not use your immediate resources to contribute to your household’s bottom line? Even if you only grow lettuces over the course of a year, you’d save money at the grocery store.
I’ve always been baffled by people that have pristine lawns. Why not make them productive? A few fruit trees and some well-placed pots and you can easily cut into your household budget. Not to mention that you can grow some spectacular food that is otherwise unavailable commercially.
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This article was originally published in the Spring 2012 issue of Permaculture Activist
Permaculture Bellingham: Growing a Sustainable Future
By Patricia L. Herlevi
During the summer of 2009, serendipity brought me to a home of a Bellingham, Washington couple, Christy Nieto and Eli Chase who practiced bio-dynamic gardening that included collecting gray water (outdoor shower), that they re-used in a large vegetable garden where chickens roamed. A group arrived at the Birchwood neighborhood home on bicycles to help with the garden. They participated with a permaculture bike tour hosted by Sustainable Bellingham, in which the bicyclists rode to five permaculture household helping with projects and ending with a potluck.
I became interested in Bellingham after rediscovering the city in 2007 and noticing its sustainable practices. When I attended Western Washington University in the 1980s a sustainable future for Bellingham seemed impossible, with its toxic paper mill Georgia Pacific that left a sulfur stench in the air and the city’s expanding waistline as development sprawled out towards the US-Canadian border.
Today Bellingham still deals with growth and economic issues, but it has adopted the density model similar to Seattle and Portland, Oregon. The public transportation improved dramatically in the past two decades with professionals and university students ride bikes to work and school. The language changed too including words such as “permaculture,” “compost,” and “raised beds”. While many people look to Seattle as sustainable model in Washington State, Bellingham has potential too, with its 75,000 residents, and its “green” university. Further out, in Whatcom County’s less progressive towns, permaculture households and farms cropped up. In particular, Inspiration Farm, a 7-acres organic homestead and location for permaculture workshops, lingers near the outskirts of Bellingham.
On the surface, Bellingham resembles Portland. First you notice the number of bicycles on the city streets and Bellingham residents visit the weekly farmers market where they purchase their organic staples from regional farmers. They frequent independently-owned eateries that feature locally-produced foods. Raised beds have cropped up in the city’s twenty-three neighborhoods along with, small orchards, backyard chickens and goats. Or they grow their own backyard orchards, tomatoes, berries, greens, peppers, and root vegetables, later preserving their harvest and sharing with neighbors.
In December 2011, serendipity brought me back to the household of Nieto and Chase, one of several permaculture household in the Birchwood neighborhood. Nieto gave me an hour-long tour of the 1.68-acres property that contains several gardens, an orchard, a greenhouse, an outdoor shower with a solar water heater, and a large chicken coop that houses twenty hens and four roosters at night.
“We moved in December of 2005 and by 2008 we had established the trees, beehives, veggie and herb gardens and chickens,” says Christy Nieto. “The fencing had been modified since 2008 to allow the chickens to free range without destroying the garden, and to keep the deer away from the fruit trees.”
The couple, who had previously enrolled in permaculture training in the Seattle area, started first with a large vegetable garden at their Bellingham location. “We created so much work for ourselves that it was difficult to stop and observe the first year.” But the couple seems happy with the results of their labor. “We have actually been able to take a break from major projects the last two years. This year Eli will set up a second solar water heater and placing both up onto the second story and into the plumbing of the house.
In two years we would like to have a greenhouse space year round growing and in five years, we’d like to create more living/work spaces for rental income so that we can spend more time developing the property and less time working in other people’s gardens.”
Since they eat a plant based diet, they save around $75.00 a week during the growing season because they don’t need to purchase vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, and eggs. “Being vegetarians we can survive on these foods plus dairy, seeds, and grain. Being foodies and living in such an agricultural county, we’re able to source many of our purchases from nearby farms,” says Nieto.
Nieto and Chase, along with 1,042 Whatcom County residents are members of Transition Whatcom (Bill Mollison’s Transition Town movement). Fourteen groups with Transition Whatcom focus on food security and the Permaculture Network attracted 203 members. Both long-time permaculture veterans such as Allain Van Laanen, founder of the urban educational Forest Garden (currently out of operation), and newcomers such as Nieto, Chase, and Paul Kearsley, co-founder of Homestead Habitats and a permaculture instructor, comprise a dedicated group of permaculturists in Bellingham. The urban sites stretch out for one plus acres or appear as raised beds near sidewalks or in school lots, as with the work of Homestead Habitats.
Depending on who you speak to, the reasons behind implanting permaculture practices range from protecting the environment to securing a resilient future to connecting with nature.
“Breaking the fossil fuel addiction is going to involve comprehensive redesign of our entire culture including how we eat, how we travel, where we work, and how we play,” says Paul Kearsley. “Though we may be able to see what’s coming, few people are eager to make the changes until it’s necessary”.
An optimist, Kearsley suggests, “If we can develop models which showcase benefits and give people positive experiences within the scope of permaculture, we can build a foundation for the type of social change that needs to happen.”
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