Garden Grant Application Available Online, Due Dec. 23, 2011

Press Release
Oct. 25, 2011

Burpee Home Gardens(R) is now accepting applications for the 2012 “I Can Grow” Youth Garden Award. In its third year, the “I Can Grow” program continues to support urban school and community gardens in cities across the United States. To date, the “I Can Grow” program has provided more than 8,000 vegetable and herb plants to help create 16 gardens nationwide.

Two grand-prize winners will be awarded up to 500 vegetable and herb plants, including the Burpee BOOST collection, and $2,500 in garden supplies. They also will receive on-site assistance for initial garden layout and installation from the experts at Burpee Home Gardens, 5 gallons of Daniels(R) Plant Food, one hose-end sprayer and a Flip Video(TM) camera to document the garden’s progress throughout the year. In addition, three runner-up winners will receive 500 vegetable and herb plants, including the Burpee BOOST collection, 5 gallons of Daniels(R) Plant Food, one hose-end sprayer and a Flip Video camera.

Read the complete article here.

Hull-House Museum Opens Seed Library with Federal Grant

UIC News Release
University of Illinois at Chicago Office of Public Affairs
May 18, 2011

Excerpt:

The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Jane Addams Hull-House Museum will open a public heirloom seed library with a federal grant of more than $15,000.

The library will provide free, regionally adapted seeds to urban farmers and gardeners. People may apply for library cards to obtain seeds if they agree to plant the seeds, nurture the plants, and return some seeds from the next generation at the end of the season.

Museum director Lisa Lee says a seed library can make new connections between environmental and cultural diversity.

“The seed library will foster sustainable food systems throughout the city. It will make a necessary resource accessible to a broad group of people, create a new community of urban farmers, and bridge those who grow for fun and those who must grow out of necessity,” Lee said.

Read the complete article here.

See the Hull-House Museum Heirloom Farm here.

From Seed to table with One Seed Chicago – 2011 seeds are Radish, Eggplant and Swiss Chard

Childhood obesity is a serious problem facing our country, and it is compounded by the fact that many of our youths in urban areas live in so-called “food deserts.” Experts in the field of childhood nutrition are working on remedying this decades-long problem, but there is a short-term solution with potential to change live for the better. Give people seeds to farm their backyards, windowsills, patios and community gardens. Then follow the seeds with gardening information and a network of community gardeners ready to embrace the new crop of gardeners. That’s exactly what’s happening in Chicago, IL.

Through the One Seed Chicago project NeighborSpace, Chicago’s land trust for community gardens, has given away more than one million seeds since 2008. Every year three seeds are put up for a vote and residents vote for their favorite and the winning seeds is distributed absolutely free to everyone who voted. The goal is to unite the city in a celebration of gardening by giving seeds away for free to local residents.

“By planting a common seed, backyards, windowsills, community gardens and balconies across the City will be linked together in a season-long celebration of urban gardening and local eating,” says Ben Helphand, NeighborSpace executive director.

The second phase of the project involves teaching residents how to turn their harvest into healthy meals. That’s where Chicago’s celebrity chefs are stepping up by providing recipes for each of the three seeds up for a vote for One Seed Chicago 2011.

“Growing your own food in the city is an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Sharing the ‘fruits of your labor’ with friends, family or even a stranger and seeing their happiness is one of the greatest rewards of gardening,î says Chef Art Jackson. “There’s no limit to how much we can grow and how much we can share, literally and figuratively. It all starts with one tiny seed.”

This year’s seed candidates are radish, eggplant and Swiss chard. Recipes ideas will be posted on the One Seed Chicago blog beginning the second week in January. Chefs, restaurateurs, participants, foodie bloggers and garden bloggers who want to help create positive eating habits are encouraged to share their own original recipes. Chicagoans can visit http:/www.oneseedchicago.com between now and 4/01/11 and vote for their favorite candidate and they’ll receive the seeds for free in the mail in the spring.

Doylestown PA’s W. Atlee Burpee was just eighteen, when he started his own mail order business in 1872. By 1888, he had transformed the family home “Fordhook Farms” into his own experimental agricultural station where he grew and tested new varieties of flowers and vegetables before offering them for sale in his catalog. When W Burpee died in 1910, his was the largest seed company in the world.

Children can learn to enjoy healthier foods if they grow them with their parents. It’s easier than you think.

By George Ball
Opinion – Wall Street Journal
Jan. 3, 2011
Mr. Ball is chairman of the W. Atlee Burpee Co. and past president of the American Horticultural Society.

Excerpt:

In our research at Atlee Burpee, we have found that kids who grow vegetables alongside their parents eat them regularly and with gusto. Peas, green beans and raw carrots—the very vegetables that kids are told to eat, their parents’ admonishing fingers wagging—are particular favorites.

While not all American families have the benefit of a sun-filled backyard for a vegetable garden, companies like Burpee offer many vegetable seeds and plants that you can grow easily in containers. You can grow beets, carrots, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts, which can be plucked from the stalk well into winter.

Eighteen years ago, as president of the American Horticultural Society, I initiated a children’s gardening program. Our annual symposium drew thousands of educators and community gardeners with the goal of educating and inspiring children to grow gardens in their school and neighborhoods. The results were heartening: Thousands of churches, schools and community centers sprouted new gardens.

Read the complete article here.

For $61 in seeds, we can grow about $1.3 million worth of vegetables

The Dinner Garden provides seeds, gardening supplies, and gardening advice free of charge to all people in the United States of America. We assist those in need in establishing food security for their families. Our goal is for people to plant home, neighborhood, and container gardens so they can use the vegetables they grow for food and income.

Since beginning our mission in early 2009, we have provided seeds to over 48,000 families and over 120 community gardens! We have reached into all 50 states, from Maine to Hawaii and Texas to Alaska! Our volunteers and partners are hard at work, packaging and delivering seeds in many of these states. We have received donations from all over the country from individuals. We have also received seeds, gardening supplies, and cash donations from numerous companies.

250 Beefsteak tomato seeds cost us $9.00. We pay $18.00 for 216,000 carrot seeds. Lettuce is $16.00 for 372,000 seeds. 7,350 squash seeds cost $18.00. That equates to paying $9.00 for 10,000 pounds of tomatoes, $18.00 for 216,000 carrots, $16.00 for 372,000 heads of lettuce, and $18.00 for 110,250 pounds of squash. For this example, the retail price for all this produce is $1,263,825. So for $61 in seeds, we can grow about $1.3 million worth of vegetables.

Seeds headed towards the mailbox this week.

For the general public, growing a garden is an expense. To many, that expense to simply too great. A pack of seeds from the store can cost $1.00 to $3.00. Containers, dirt, fertilizer, and mulch add $20 to $100 more. That is why we started The Dinner Garden. We provide those seeds for free. We show you ways to garden with the materials you have around the house, like milk jugs for containers, kitchen scraps for fertilizer, and free mulch from the dump. As we grow, we will provide free supplies. We are also your source for gardening information.

Visit their website here.

And their Facebook page here.

Richmond, California – The seeds are rented at no cost, but you do have to fill out the correct forms and attend a small workshop

By Eric Thomas
ABC East Bay News
Aug 16, 2010

Excerpt:

RICHMOND, CA (KGO) — Urban farming is not a new concept. But, finding the time, the seed and the gardening knowledge has been hard — until now. In the city of Richmond, people can get everything they need to start their own gardens, with a little help from the local library.

“If left to my own devices, I could spend all day out here, but it’s not required,” said backyard gardener Kelli Barram.

Barram grows more than a hundred species of plants in her Richmond back yard — from the beautiful to the edible. Until about four months ago, getting seed was an inconvenient process of shopping at local nurseries, begging friends or leafing through catalogues. But, now getting access to new plants is as close as a trip to the Richmond library.

“I think it takes and connects a lot of dots for me — it’s creating community. People are coming together and we’re sharing our resources and sharing out skills,” said seedbank founder Rebecca Newburn.

The seedbank at the Richmond library is the brainchild of school teacher Rebecca Newburn. But, it’s just one component in a national movement to get urban neighbors to begin growing more of their own food — especially in areas with lots of fast food restaurants like Richmond.

See the complete article here.

“Let’s rock the food supply in 2010!”

By Christine Muhle
New York Times
August 11, 2010

Excerpt:

Seed catalogs are what sustain most gardeners in the pit of winter, the pictures of bright blooms and fleshy melons stoking their fantasies. When my mother-in-law sent me the beautiful Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog in February, it reanimated me, but it befuddled me too. There was an “olde tyme” painting of a melon on the cover, while the editor’s letter — “Let’s rock the food supply in 2010!” it implored — showed an attractive young family whose father has a thing for overalls and loud shirts. What followed was the cutting edge of heirloom seeds: 1,400 varieties from 70 countries, including vegetables yet to appear in any canvas market bag.

Things got more confusing toward the final pages, where ads invited readers to heritage-day and spring-planting festivals at the company’s pioneer village in an Ozarks town, Mansfield, Mo., where they could meet seed collectors, historic demonstrators, “food activists, home-schoolers, western re-enactors . . . gourmet chefs, free-thinkers . . . Ozarkian crafters, trendy vendors & herbal hippies.” Was this a cult? A bunch of post-ironic steampunkers jumping on the growcavore bandwagon? Or could it actually be earnest, homespun marketing for an heirloom way of life?

See the complete article here.

15Thousand Farmers – Planting A Seed To Feed Ourselves – Louisville, Ky

by Greg & Michelle Vittitow,
Impact Dash
March 11th, 2010

The Vision:

15Thousand Farmers helps create, empower, and inspire 15,000 new, organic, neighborhood backyard/front yard farmers in Louisville, KY to feed their families and themselves and to give away! How? By using simple and easy instructions, checklists and materials and ongoing support provided through local organic growers and resources that will provide everything needed to start Easy Farms in our yards, on decks or in community gardens.

The cramped, dimly lit basement of Clifton Unitarian Church seems the last place a potential farming community would begin. But there we were, watching from the back of the room as people poured in on the morning of February 20 to learn more about 15Thousand Farmers, a grassroots, community movement forming in Louisville, KY.

Such movements are common in this city known for its passion and can-do attitude, but this event was exceptional. A seemingly endless stream of aspiring backyard farmers filled literally every empty space in the room, most standing.

Sitting in our highly coveted chairs, Gary Heine, a 15Thousand Farmers founding sponsor and co-owner of Louisville’s Heine Brothers’ Coffee, explained the vision of this new organization to create and support 15,000 organic backyard farmers in Louisville. It will provide everything necessary for anyone to start a simple, organic backyard garden – easy instructions, materials, support from volunteers and a website where farmers can connect and support each other.

“The problems of the world are so big, how could I possibly make a difference?” he asked, before explaining the benefits of a “kindergarten level” backyard garden.

See the rest of the article here.

See 15Thousand Farmers website here.

The Huffington Post excerpt:
March 10, 2010

Said Colbert: “Glenn’s advertisers know nothing moves product like the hot stink of fear.” Case in point: a commercial for a product called Survival Seed Bank, in which the spokesman claims nonhybrid seeds will be more valuable that silver and gold, and thus save you from the impending economic meltdown.

Survival Seed Bank’s message mirrored the craziness of Beck, himself, seemingly predicting an apocalypse. The commercial claimed that the product provided enough seeds to plant a full acre “crisis garden,” which of course got Colbert excited: “When you’re tilling the earth with a human femur while the sky is raining fire, you’ll want a reliable supply of radicchio and mini squash.”

Link here.

See original advertisement here.

4 million cracker packages with seeds inside and a pledge to build 50 community-based home farms

Home Farming is about growing your own herbs and vegetables, no matter where you live. To help people on their path to Home Farming, four million packages of Original and Reduced-Fat Triscuit crackers will include cards with basil or dill herb seeds that can be planted directly into the ground.

A recent Triscuit survey found nearly two-thirds of Americans are interested in growing food in a backyard garden. And three out of four of those surveyed prefer to eat foods with a few, simple ingredients, reflecting a popular desire to get back to the simple joys in life. (The Triscuit Home Farming Study, fielded by StrategyOne, is a national telephone survey among a representative sample of 1,018 U.S. adults conducted January 14, 2009 and January 17, 2009.)

Triscuit and Urban Farming will collaborate to create 50 community-based home farms across the U.S., launching with a groundbreaking ceremony in Los Angeles on March 11th at St. Stephen’s and the Jubilee Consortium. Following the groundbreaking event, 49 additional farms will be planted from coast to coast in such cities as Dallas, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tampa, to name just a few. The farms will provide local residents and community groups with the opportunity to volunteer to maintain the farm and enjoy the local produce grown in their neighborhood.

Two of the biggest obstacles people face in starting a home farm are time and space. In fact, over half of Americans (56%) who did not grow food last year said it was because of lack of time and/or space.

Visit Triscuit’s Home Farming web site to see how-to videos and an interactive map where you can add your own home farm.

Survival Seed Bank

Excerpt from Survival Seed Bank website.

You don’t have to be an Old Testament prophet to see what’s going on all around us. A belligerent lower class demanding handouts. A rapidly diminishing middle class crippled by police state bureaucracy. An aloof, ruling elite that has introduced us to an emerging totalitarianism which seeks control over every aspect of our lives.

As the meltdown progresses, one of the first things to be affected will be our nation’s food supply. Expect soaring prices along with moderate to severe shortages by spring. If you don’t have the ability to grow your own food next year, your life may be in danger. Supply lines for food distribution in this country are about three days, meaning a dependence on “just in time” distribution systems, which will leave store shelves empty in the event of even the smallest crisis.

Are You Ready To Take Control Of Your Own Food Supply?

Could you and your family get off the grid and survive in a panic? Do you have enough seeds to plant a survival garden and feed your family? Do you have the right kind of seeds to plant? If you’re answering no to these questions, you need to stop wherever you are and ask yourself… “What would I do if the grocery stores closed?” The answer sadly is that you’d probably go hungry.

Survival Seed Bank website here.

Glen Beck ad story here.

WWI Home Garden Seed Advertising by Haskell Coffin 1919

Haskell Coffin (1878 – 1941) A versatile illustrator, gracing covers for several magazines, Redbook and The American being two long-term stints. Becoming famous as a portrayer of American beauty, the Coffin girl could be found on note cards, sheet music, calendars, decorative boxes, fashion catalogs. His “Joan of Arc Saved France” WWI poster is well known.

Artan Garden

Mr. and Mrs. Artan came to North Bay with their family over 35 years ago. Mr. Artan built a cottage at the end of Judge St. The foundation is still there in the back parking lot. Mr. Artan came with many skills; his talents in stone masonry, cement, and permacultural design came from his long career as a General Contractor, at the age of ten, Artan was laying ceramic shingles on Mediterranean homes. Artan Contracting was a thriving business and employed many in the community.

Mr. and Mrs. Artan developed this garden over 20 years ago from a gravel pit into a burgeoning hobby farm that produces fresh food for the farmers market. Mr. Artan built a sprawling 4500 sq. ft. cottage on site, from recycled and reused materials, with a greenhouse, animal runs, a chicken coupe and a bunny hut. Mrs. Artan, a noted horticulturalist, blooms a flourishing hobby farm there with her husband. They plant every year their multi-award winning, heirloom, all-natural seed stock.

See Artan Garden website here.

Seed Your City to Feed Your City.

Artan Gardens is an arts and horticultural organization. We are committed to growing more nutritious food and rejuvenating the environment. Together, with friends, colleagues, schools, business ambassadors, Government and local food groups we can Cultivate Creative Culture within urban centres.

Join and support our nation-wide program to grow and propagate heirloom seeds: Seed Your City to Feed Your City. This unique program blends the Arts with Horticultural education. We provide heirloom seeds and step-by-step guides on how to grow them with an interactive ECO-SCHOOLS curriculum. Seed Your City gives everyone the opportunity to grow their own produce, feed their city, and create stunning edible landscapes.

1 Seed /Plant = 1 meal

100 seeds grow to feed 100 people for one day or 10,000 seeds

10,000 Seeds grow to be 100,000lbs of food or 1,000,000 seeds

See Seed Your City project overview here.