green living
not only provide healthy food, but also create a more resilient food system. During the pandemic, many people jumped at the chance to put in a garden, and in cities, where available land is limited, creative solutions have emerged. Just about any space could serve as a viable garden, including a spare room, rooftop, shipping containers or an empty warehouse. With hydroponics, no soil is required and with vertical systems, planters are stacked, requiring a small footprint.
Growing Food Security The Benefits of Urban Gardening by Laura Paisley Beck
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Veggies Instead of Lawns
F
or a lot of Americans, healthy food is scarce. According to FeedingAmerica.org, more than 35 million Americans faced food insecurity in 2019. That number is expected to increase substantially due to the pandemic, which disrupted the food supply chain in ways that most Americans have never seen. The good news is that urban and localized gardening can bring fresh, healthy, organic, sustainable and affordable food to nearly every household. A 2013 abstract from Michigan State University published in Agriculture & Food Security states that urban gardens could
Phan Truong, known as A Suburban Gardener on Instagram, turned her entire yard into an organic vegetable garden and invited her Scaggsville, Maryland, neighbors to share in the bounty. “I had this table of abundance in front of my house, but people weren’t taking anything! So, I hid in my garden, waiting for neighbors to walk by, and then I’d rush the fence and encourage them to take food,” Truong says. “My husband thought everyone would think we were weird.” Now, instead of getting polite waves from afar, the garden has become a communications hub among neighbors.
Sharing the Abundance When Truong witnessed friends losing jobs and struggling, she was inspired to lend a hand by assisting some of them to plant their own low-maintenance, high-
REGENERATIVE ORGANIC AGRICULTURE Certified Organic Farm Focused SINCE 1947 333-Acre on Research, Education and Outreach ANNUAL ORGANIC FIELD DAY
UPCOMING
July 23 · 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM · $25
EVENTS
Spend the day on our farm enjoying go-at-your-own-pace stations featuring our research, organic farming and gardening practices! Stations include topics like beekeeping, industrial hemp, composting, livestock production and so much more! Can’t attend in-person? Register for our Virtual Field Day.
Learn more and register at RodaleInstitute.org/FieldDay
Free self-guided walking & audio tours of the farm available 7 days a week at RodaleInstitute.org/Tour Visit us online for webinars and a variety of virtual workshops!
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Lancaster-Berks
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SEE ALL EVENTS AT RODALEINSTITUTE.ORG 611 SIEGFRIEDALE ROAD, KUTZTOWN, PA 19530 610-683-1400
