Gardening, gleaning, and getting started

With spring sprung—albeit a little later than anticipated—dreams of this year's vegetables have been stalking the sleep of gardeners citywide. Kicking off the growing season for many was Gardening Matters 7th annual Community Gardens Resource Fair, held on April 2. The day's main focus was the series of panels and workshops to encourage and promote community and home gardeners to take matters into their own hands, ranging from fruit tree orchard planning, to soil mitigation, to home mushroom cultivation.

The Saturday morning crowd at the Sabathani Community Center in South Minneapolis, who numbered in the hundreds, filled the gymnasium to enjoy free Peace coffee, interact with and enjoy the many information and trade booths, and hear from the day's keynote speakers, members of Frogtown Gardens.

A communal gardening panel offered tips to prospective community gardens as well as sharing stories of some of their prized picks.

St. Cloud Community Garden member Tracy Ore told the group, that, "community has been one of the major products of the garden." Last year, Ore said, they had about 150 volunteers at the garden, which will be doubling in size from 500 to 1,000 sq. ft. this year.

Kathleen Sullivan and Silvia Pérez Sánchez of South Minneapolis' Jardin Paraiso spoke about how their relationships with supporters have expanded beyond simple contribution. "It's a collaboration," Sullivan said, "because things go in both directions."

Fostering connections is the easy part, the group agreed; more difficult is gaining access to land and holding on to it. At Paraiso, the land is theirs on a provisional basis for five years. After that? Sullivan says they are going to push the garden as far as it can go, then see what happens.

As most community plots start off on a contingency basis, lent to the group by a landowner unaffiliated with the garden, the best advice offered on how to keep the land was to make sure your garden is easy on the eyes. Jennifer Tashnie, co-director of Celeste's Dream in St. Paul, offered: "Start small, keep it pretty­... Then ask for more land."

Another important aspect of community farming, according to Tashnie, is donation, which Celeste's Dream practices by giving about one quarter of their produce to food shelves.

Another workshop focused on food sharing and gleaning.

According to Minnesota Food Share director Sarah Nelson-Pallmeyer, one in every 11 Minnesotans—about 470,000 people­—face issues of hunger and food insecurity, necessitating access to food shelves. The past year saw a 14 percent bump in food shelf usage in Minnesota, with children representing about half those served.

While food drives tend to focus on non-perishable items, many food shelves also welcome and appreciate donations of fresh produce.

"Food shelves are less likely to purchase subsidized produce in favor of items that will last longer," said Emergency Foodshelf Network's Katie Wahl, but that doesn't mean that they don't want fresh foods.

"Food shelves love receiving produce," Wahl told the group.

In Oakdale, Guardian Angels Catholic Church has heeded this call, operating a three-quarter acre community farm-all of whose fruits are donated.

Entering its 15th growing season, the farm produces and donates between 9-10 thousand pounds of produce annually through the Emergency Foodshelf Network.

Aside from farm-to-food shelf models such as Guardian Angels farm, Wahl said they they reach out to community farms to actively seek out donations. She said they offer fund matching at $1 per pound to local CSA's, and last year received about 72 thousand pounds of produce.

While donations from large-scale farms and gardens are extremely helpful, home gardeners are just as important. If you grow your own food, or grow more than you can consume, the panel asked that you consider donating what you have in excess.

Alexander Holston

Alexander Holston is a current University of Minnesota student of Individualized Studies and an intern at the Daily Planet.