Potluck in the Park

Don't forget to attend our Potluck in the Park from 5-7pm tonight. Learn about the GROW Method, get some free materials for future dinners and have fun with friends. Everyone is welcome--new members, returners, the curious, and those that just like good food!

Home Farming on a Balcony

Secret Garden. Senior Garden. Gardenshare. Waffle Planting. Plantscape. Food Forest. Hanging Garden. Hoop House. Mini-farm.

Earth Therapy.

There appears to be wide range of names for a home farm. I hadn't heard of the idea until I looked into planting vegetables on our patio. I was following the GROW Method by buying locally and seasonally when I thought, what could be more local than my backyard? That's when I stumbled upon the Home Farms 2012 project. The goal is to get 2,012 home farms registered to celebrate the New Mexico Centennial. According to the project website, a home farm is “any place a person grows some of their own food, inside or out.” It’s a great way to save natural resources since there’s no shipping, and you know your food is fresh and in season.

Everyone is invited to register, from relatively large farms which offer CSAs to backyard potted herb growers. Reading the descriptions of people’s home farms revealed a great deal of diversity even in backyard plots. We planted in plastic tubs on our apartment balcony, while others’ maintain sprawling yards that yield enough fruit and vegetables to feed the neighbors. With ten beds, a hoop house and the beginnings of an orchard, one family listed their home produce as asparagus, lettuce, peas, tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, raspberries, apples, pears, fig and pomegranate. Another man gained the nickname, “The Farmer” for growing more than 25 varieties in his front yard, including okra, apricots, rhubarb, and tomatillos.

I smiled at the community garden called, “The Plot Thickens” and was blown away by the family that sold their second car and turned their driveway into a garden. Other inspirational stories include Mandy’s Special Farm, a long-term residence for women with autism and Shabeta’s Healing Garden that teaches intensive classes ranging from workshops to year-long courses. The City of Albuquerque Open Space Traditions Garden relies on methods from the early Pueblans and Spanish to conserve water and cultivate native seeds. There’s definitely something to learn from their water conservation techniques including using, “ollas to wick water slowly, waffle gardens to contain spread of and prevent waste of water, and cobblestone mulches which moderate soil temperature as well as prevent evaporation of soil moisture.”

I read story after story of people, from kindergarteners to senior citizens, growing to help themselves and others. And I signed on. As of last weekend, I'm a home farmer. I visited Rehm's Nursery and learned what grows well in the fall. Luckily, the workers there were helpful, since I'm new to this. If we don't count a high school science experiment on green onions in salt versus sugar conditions, it's my first time growing vegetables. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

P.S. In case you want to plant now too, consider these cool-weather veggies: kale, lettuce, spinach, chard, kohlrabi, mustard greens, collard greens, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, beets, carrots, snow peas, spearmint and cilantro.

Yum! When's dinner time?

 

by Jasmine McBeath

The Line: An Opportunity to Promote Dialogue About Poverty in America

The Line: An Opportunity to Promote Dialogue About Poverty in America

by Carlos Navarro
(reprinted from the Bread New Mexico blog)

Bread for the World is one of  five organizations promoting The Line a documentary from Emmy Award-winning producer Linda Midgett,  Sojourners is the main sponsor of this groundbreaking feature, which chronicles the new face of poverty in America. As Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis puts it, "more and more of our friends are in poverty — in the pews, in our workplaces — through no fault of their own, and they are slipping below the poverty level."

In addition to Sojourners and Bread, the three other sponsoring organizations are Christian Community Development Association, Oxfam America, and World Vision.

After you view the trailer below, you can take a few actions to become involved. You can acquire the DVD and host a screening.  "All you need is five friends to host a screening, and we'll send you a copy of the DVD and a discussion guide absolutely free!" said Sojourners.  One screening is scheduled in New Mexico, at the High Mesa Healing Center, just north of Ruidoso on Oct. 2 at 5:30 p.m. (For more information call 575-336-7777).

You can spread the word, and if you have a Twitter account you can also send a Tweet to presidential candidates.  Click on the home page and scroll down to the bottom.

Poverty in America — It's not what you think.

The Line documents the stories of people across the country living at or below the poverty line. They have goals. They have children. They work hard. They are people like you and me.

From Chicago's suburbs and west side to the Gulf Coast to North Carolina, millions of Americans are struggling every day to make it above The Line.

Co-opts: a Win-Win For Everyone

 Co-opts: a Win-Win For Everyone

Now that you know about my pledge with Meatless Mondays, I’ll let you in on some of the meetings that led up to my decision to change the way I eat.

Last week was a very busy week for Oxfam New Mexico. We were lucky enough to welcome Brian Rawson, a Senior Organizer from our headquarters. He gave us tons of great advice, and also helped set up meetings with local groups interested in collaborating. I should have brought a tape recorder to memorize his opening words about what Oxfam does and what it means to the world, since it was so eloquently worded. 

We met first with La Montanita Co-opt, at their warehouse. It was impressive—a great place to see how everything works. The Co-opt also has six other locations, including three more in Albuquerque, one Santa Fe and another in Gallup. I learned they carry products from over 900 local producers, and you don’t need to be a member to shop there. Want to check out this week’s specials?

But it’s so much more than tasty local food. They have a microloan program for farmers and grassroots investing in the local food system. They’re training veterans to farm, partnering with UNM on a sustainability practicum and providing stability to farmers through the food-shed project. Within 300 miles of Albuquerque, the Co-opt provides storage, trucking services, and help with post-harvest handling and packing.

 
 Just like Oxfam Action Corps, La Montanita is educating the community about how to create a safe, secure food system. We are completely on board with their efforts to educate consumers about the “importance of fair prices and just treatment of people and animals through the food production, distribution, and consumption process.” 

So, whether you're an avid Growers Market fan, or you can’t name a single local product besides green chile, it’s worth your time to visit the co-opt. 

By Jasmine McBeath

My Pledge: Meatless Mondays

I have to admit that I only recently considered the changes I could make to my diet that would affect others. Although I grew up in a conscientious, environment-oriented family, we were more concerned with saving water than food. In fact, my boyfriend still refers to me as "The Water Nazi" for turning off the facet while he's midway through brushing his teeth or shaving.

But when I read about "Meatless Mondays", something stuck. I had learned about Oxfam's GROW Campaign from my training, and this plan provided a simple, concrete way to support the "eat less meat" objective. 

The phrase has been around for almost 100 years (originally a WWI slogan to ration food), but I didn’t know about “Meatless Mondays” until a recent backlash from ranchers about the content of a USDA newsletter. This flurry of articles made me dig a little deeper, and realize that the campaign has reached a lot of people. According to a report by the American Meat Institute, nearly 20% of households participate. 

Chefs are on board; schools, hospitals, and even whole towns have implemented meat-free Mondays. 80,000 children attending Baltimore City Public Schools made the switch. University of California Santa Cruz and Carnegie Mellon students enjoy Meatless Mondays at their dining halls. The Cobblestone Café at John Hopkins Hospital offers only vegetarian options on Mondays. Bigger still, San Francisco and Washington D.C. have passed city-wide resolutions. And in 2011, Aspen became the first “Meatless Monday Community” with over 30 restaurants and organizations participating.

If you're like many of my friends, you're probably asking, "What difference does it make?" The answer is: a lot.  A family of four that trades in their steak dinner for lentils once a week saves 12.5 Olympic-size swimming pools of water per year. Moreover, “if everybody in America did that, that would be the equivalent of taking 20 million midsize sedans off the road,” food advocate Michael Pollan commented on Oprah. Water, land, fertilizer, oil. These are all things we don’t often consider when eating meat. Maybe you knew that livestock farming accounts for almost 20% of greenhouse gases, but did you know it also represents 8% of water use worldwide?                   

                                                         What it Takes to Make a Quarter-Pounder

Source: J.L. Capper, Journal of Animal Science, December, 2011.

Credit: Producers: Eliza Barclay, Jessica Stoller-Conrad 

Designer: Kevin Uhrmacher/NPR

The drain on resources gives rise to other problems. According to Oxfam press officer Ben Grossman-Cohen, "If we don't reduce our environmental footprints as we increase production, poor people, particularly women, will be the first to suffer. Eating less meat is a simple way to reduce the pressure on global resources and help ensure that everyone has enough to eat." Oxfam's GROW campaign goes a long way toward feeding a world population estimated to grow to nine billion by 2050. 

Now, I realize there are many people that go way beyond the once-a-week pledge. There are vegans and vegetarians, and others like a former roommate of mine that ate veggie burgers every other day just because they were simple to prepare and tasted good. However, we all do what we can, and that means "Meatless Mondays” for me. This plan assures I eat less meat by making it a priority at least once a week. I've conned my boyfriend into joining in also. As a big meat-eater, it’s a significant sacrifice for him, but I’m confident I can cook up some great vegetarian meals. I’ll keep you updated on how it’s going, and post some fun recipes so you can join in too.

By Jasmine McBeath