Outrageous Gardens!

The Global Oneness Project (www.globalonenessproject.org) amazes me. As they say on their website they’re “traveling the globe interviewing creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the fundamental understanding that we are all connected and thus bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world.” The GOP (yes, that’s its acronym) collects all these inspiring and educational stories, interviews and short films and offers them up–free of charge.

It’s yet another piece of this movement in which I’ve registered myself and this website: true sustainability is about US, not about ME. I alone cannot sustain much. Sharing information and ideas–freely and easily–is, in my opinion, at the very core of this change called sustainability. Knowledge withheld or basic skills we teach at a premium price is not sustainability. It is within the collective of our skills and knowledge and experience that we create a safe, secure and nurturing environment. Here’s a video from the GOP on a community development initiative in South Africa. “In the inner-city of Johannesburg, The GreenHouse Project is turning one urban park into a seedbed for sustainable communities. The program takes a holistic approach to the city’s challenges, integrating green building and design, efficient and renewable energy, recycling, organic farming and nutrition.”

A recent article on hunger aid and humanitarian assistance in the Nov/Dec 08 Utne Reader reprinted from Foreign Policy magazine presented a very well-written argument supporting the rationale behind this website: “Humanitarian groups and well-meaning charities keep failing countries afloat. They also create a crippling cycle of dependence.” (more…)

What if someone told you that they had solutions to world hunger, that these solutions would cost only pennies on the dollar not billions of dollars and that they were accessible to anyone right now? Presumptuous? Idealistic? Perhaps. Impractical? No! For these solutions are the heart and spirit of this website and they are working. Right now. Today. All over the world. I call all these recycled bits of plastic, cardboard, concrete and trash “Outrageous Gardens.”

Why “outrageous” gardens? Because for me it’s outrageous that over 900 million people in the world are malnourished and 177 million of them are children (according to Bread for the World.) It’s outrageous that one child DIES every 5 seconds from the consequences of hunger. It’s outrageous to me that enough food is being produced in the world today to feed every man, woman and child yet the hungry must wait for our handouts of grains–and other expensive to maintain and costly to transport foodstuffs–when a nutritious supply of basic vegetables and small fruits may be only a discarded tire, burlap sack or plastic bag away.

As a life-long gardener and former organic farmer, landscape restoration consultant here in Albuquerque, a freelance writer, activist, and armchair researcher on gardening for more than three decades, I have looked at the various methods of food production and food security from all over the world. While the crisis widens worldwide on a nearly daily basis, the “answers” to poverty and hunger seem to become more complicated, take longer to implement and more costly. Martin Plaut wrote in a BBC report on Ethiopia recently, “The current crisis in Ethiopia is being lost in a swirling mist of competing figures.” He’s referring to the discrepancies between the aid agencies and the politics of that country over just how many people are in desperate need and who is paying what and when which is not solely an issue in this one heart-wrenching situation. It’s a common dilemma.  As a pragmatic woman of minimal means, I keep asking the same question in these situations: why not look to the easiest, most direct and cheapest method of feeding people? That is the question this website hopes to answer.

Here on Outrageous Gardens, you will find an expanding collection of the most effective, extremely low-tech and inspiring templates for food production from many sources. These have been field-tested by various agencies and organizations for their ease of construction and immediate implementation. These gardens are constructed from any available or  recycled materials or trash. They utilize minimal nutrient inputs and minimal water, preferably grey water. And because of their lightweight materials, fast construction and compact sizes, many are also mobile so they could be thrown on wagons or moved to higher ground if necessary. Readers will quickly realize that the notion of the family garden needing long straight, tilled rows in a large square of soil is pretty much compost here. This is about bringing food production right to your doorstep, right on your doorstep, to your tent flap or on your rooftop. ‘Get a yield,’ as we learn in Permaculture. Get food growing quickly and successfully to nourish the gardener and the family, then expand into market growing later, as health and stamina increase. That’s what this process is all about.

“When you make a difference with what you have, it expands.” ~ Lynn Twist, Soul of Money Institute (www.soulofmoney.org)