Growing in the time of corona: Victory Gardens 2020, Grow-A-Row, & Lopez ingenuity
The Covid-19 pandemic has spotlighted certain areas in which our resilience in the face of change must be strengthened. One of the most obvious has been our insecurity around the production and distribution of, and access to, food.
Most communities rely on long distance food distribution chains and monocultural non-organic farming by agribusiness, which destroys soil fertility and makes the system susceptible to pests, drought, and disease. Here in this small archipelago we are especially vulnerable with our dependence on ferries transporting huge semi-trucks to stock our stores. The obvious, but not necessarily easy, solution is to develop sustainable and resilient food systems on a local level. Fortunately, that effort is already underway here in our county (more on that later). But in the meantime, what can individual island residents do to bolster our local food supply?
During World War II, Victory Gardens – vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks – were promoted as a way to help the war effort, although the majority of homes participating did so for economic rather than patriotic reasons. By 1943, there were 18 million gardens in the U.S. – 12 million of them in cities. Eleanor Roosevelt had one planted on the White House lawn. One-third of all the vegetables nationally were produced by these small scale projects.
Hoping to hearken back to the success of the 1940’s the Lopez Garden Club launched Victory Gardens 2020 to encourage more in the community to plant home gardens and use a section on LopezRocks to exchange information and materials (http://www.lopezrocks.org/page.php?handle=35). People are posting questions and answers about different crops and techniques and offers of free seeds, starts, tools, and services. As a recent article in Vox stated, “The back-to-nature impulse offers psychological comfort at a time of great uncertainty, as well as a practical safeguard against supply-chain problems: If the stores run out of food, at least we’ll have our vegetables!”
The Lopez Locavores’ version of this campaign revives the Grow-A-Row Community Food Distribution project, started by Denise Clark (then McIntosh) back in 2010. In these unprecedented times of potential scarcity, the Locavores are aiming to provide more homegrown food for our community, hoping that this will also bring more public support for a sustainable local food system. Lopezians are being encouraged to plant extra green beans, peas, cabbage, spinach, summer and winter squash, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, garlic, celery, tomatoes, carrots, dry beans, and herbs for weekly distribution from Woodmen Hall on Tuesdays throughout the summer and into the fall (http://www.lopezrocks.org/page.php?type=item&item_handle=1590252100&menu_type=forum&return=35&offset=2020-06-12)
Another project that will inspire our island to join in the home gardens crusade is Eating Locally and Seasonally: A Community Food Book for Lopez Island written by Elizabeth Simpson and Henning Sehmsdorf, to be published this fall. The authors’ intent is to demonstrate the practical feasibility of providing a healthful, fresh, delicious, affordable, local, seasonal and ecologically sustainable diet for all eaters on Lopez Island. In conjunction with Transition Lopez Island, Elizabeth and Henning are planning cooking demonstrations based on the book’s recipes at community kitchens (Taproot and Fork-in-the Road), “Evening Meals at School,” as part of culinary classes at Lopez Island School District, and during tours of local farms.
To do their part in this island-wide effort, several Transition Lopez Island members have devised innovative solutions to create vegetable gardens in areas restricted by space and/or access to sun, often using repurposed materials.
Chom Greacen lives with her husband, Chris, and their two children at Common Ground, a neighborhood developed by the Lopez Community Land Trust in which the houses nestle in a close-knit tiny village footprint. In the spirit of growing more food locally, Chom sent photos of her recent experiments: upside-down tomatoes in buckets (to be hung as soon as Chris is done installing a drip irrigation system for these) and tomatoes in shopping bags. Chom wrote, “The structure (built by Chris and the kids) for the bagged tomatoes will soon have twines to train the tomato plants vertically. We have limited space and no hoop house so these are just some fun ways to try to grow more tomatoes. I also planted four 20-25′ rows of onions. Will be making lots of pasta sauce!! Hopefully anyway…”
Bob and Joyce have a lovely container garden on their deck for flowers, but recently decided to expand to vegetables. Bob researched the web and came up with a design for this beautiful box. He reported, “I built a single, 32 x 48 raised garden bed — counter height for no bending. I can use it later in a bigger one out in the north “40. Just to let you know I’m joining the national movement to gardening.”
To duplicate his design, here are his materials list and instructions:
· (4) 4 x 4 x 36″ (or 22″ if you want chair height)
· (6) 1 x 6 x 48”
· (12) 1 x 6 x 32″
· (2) 1 x 4 x 25” – measure and cut at assembly
· Lotsa wood screws – for exterior / decks — some 1-1/2” some 1-3/4”
· Landscape cloth or black raised bed fabric that allows drainage.
1. Build upside down.
2. Place 2 legs against a wall. Make sure they’re perfectly vertical and 48” apart.
3. Screw in (3) 1 x 6 48’s.
4. Making sure everything is square, place these 2 sides 32” apart.
5. Screw in (6) 1x 6 x 32 boards at each end (just like the 48-inch boards in drawing).
6. Screw (6) 1 x 6 x 32 bottom slats into the edges of lowest (highest since you’re still up side down) side boards.
7. Install (4) cleats onto legs so these 2 boards between legs will end up at same height as bottom slats and bottom edges of side boards.
8. Flip planter onto its feet!!!!
9. Screw in the (2) 1 x 4 x 25” (approximately) into the edges of the cleats.
10. Line with landscape or raised bed fabric.
11. Fill with potting soil, working compost into the top layer.
12.Plant veggies!!!
Liz Lafferty and Kim Foley have a sweet spot in the woods, but its limited sun makes it challenging to grow vegetables. Undaunted, they arrived at some ingenious ways to utilize repurposed materials to create deer-proof structures in their front yard where the sun access was best. Liz told me “Our goal is to use at least 70% repurposed components in all our projects.”
(above) Front yard garden with hoops covered with bird netting
(below top) Forest logs garden box planted with summer squash and cabbage
(below bottom) Repurposed 2 x 10 planter box growing basil and spinach
Deck hoop house for growing peppers between the window and a vertical glass pane
Among the myriad reasons to grow our own food are its health benefits, improved taste, food safety, enhancement of the local ecosystem, and its lower embedded carbon footprint. In this era of energy insecurity and climate instability, our need in 2020 and going forward is just as urgent as was the reason for the enthusiastic response to the call for Victory Gardens in the 1940’s. And given an equivalent collective will, we here in the San Juans can be just as successful!
