Victory Garden San Diego
Concept: A collaboration among San Diego food movement groups to encourage the creation and/or enhancement of organic gardens through this gardening incentive challenge throughout the San Diego region.
Vision: This project will develop by networking food and gardening organizations, advertising the challenge to the public and providing educational support opportunities for people to be successful with their gardens. Celebrations of progress will be held periodically at various areas around San Diego to recognize the efforts of our participant gardeners. These gatherings will include educational presentations, Q&A sessions with local gardeners, as well as sharing of stories, photos and produce. Gardening materials or gift certificates will be raffled off to attendees to encourage participation and motivation. There will be a culminating “Harvest celebration" to celebrate everyone’s garden.
This is a thumbnail sketch of our idea. We hope it “plants a seed” of enthusiasm and a desire to participate within organizations around San Diego. Such a project could be very big and the energies of multiple groups would be the key to its success. Ideas will be an important part of the final project plan. As the saying goes, “Many hands make light work.”
If you or your organization would like to take part in the creation of this project, please email Bob Greenamyer at:
Our last meeting was full of energy to move forward with some projects supporting local gardening efforts for home, community and school gardens! Minutes on these sub-group meetings to follow soon! Exciting!
Some of you mentioned that evenings might work better for your schedule. I would like to honor that request, and would be willing to plan an alternating schedule for evening meetings in the future. For now Bob and I have kept our meeting at the usual time and usual place. Our next meeting will be
NEXT SCHEDULED MEETING
Thursday, November 20 from 2-4p
at the Farm and Home Advisors Office
5555 Overland Drive,Building 4, San Diego 92123
Come ready to report on progress on tasks from last meeting and move forward.
Backyard Growers Program
Sell your homegrown produce at the City Heights Farmers Market!
Click here for more information
Links to articles about Community Gardening
Homegrown Harvest by Nan Sterman. Three local kitchen gardens show that you can do it, too. The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 3, 2008
The Incredible, Edible Front Lawn, Earthview's campaign to plant visible public properties with food, Time, July 1, 2008
Community Gardens: Growing Food Brings People Together. Article from Common Dreams Newsletter on the nationwide resurgence of Community Gardens
San Francisco Firm Harvests Potential of Unused Land, article from the San Francisco Chronicle about growing food in one's yard. SFGate, June 23, 2008.
Lettuce on the White House Lawn, editorial by Ellen Goodman about converting public spaces to food production, from the International Herald Tribune (New York Times), July 4, 2008.
Meeting Notes
July 31 Meeting
The ONE Garden at a Time planning group met for the second time on July 31 at the Farm and Ag building in Clairemont. Thanks to Mindy Swanson for hosting our group again. Thanks also to Mariah and Beth from San Diego Food Not Lawns for delicious healthy snacks with zero waste. About 18 people from various food organizations attended and provided rich input on our Mission Statement and Goals. We now have about 25 active members commited to seeing the ONE GaaT project come to life.
Ian Jensen from NYCA made a PowerPoint presentation about his company's efforts to create a sustainable school garden at his wife's school. After some initial organizational challenges, NYCA and the school built a school garden in 2 days! It was great to see a project go from idea to reality.
June 26 First Meeting
Attendees (15)
Bob Greenamyer: San Diego Roots, ONE Garden at a Time Project Coordinator
Mindy Swanson: UC San Diego Extension, Youth Program Representative/Garden liaison
Vince Lazaneo: Master Gardner Advisor (the head of the Master Gardeners)
Daniela Olave: Backyard Organics
Nan Sterman: Author, California Gardener's Guide Volume II, Radio Garden show host
Joyce Gimmel: Master gardener, UC San Diego Extension
George Yackey: Master gardener, UC San Diego Extension
Mariah Gaylor: Food Not Lawns
Beth Townsend: Food Not Lawns
Laura Starr: Master Gardener
Don Starr: Master Gardener Spouse
Renee Tepper: VP Master Gardeners,
Mel Lions: San Diego Roots
Leslie Goldman: Your enchanted Gardener
Carol Morse: TLC Community Giving Garden
Summary: We had an excellent turnout for our first planning/organizational meeting of the ONE Garden at a Time Project. Many thanks to Mindy Swanson, the Farm and Home Advisor’s office and University of California Cooperative Extension for allowing our group to meet in their conference room.
Our mission is to encourage the development of Organic, Natural and Edible vegetable and fruit gardens in homes, communities and schools. The discussion was rich with fertile ideas shared by everyone present.
The following is a summary of the discussion we had plus information from each member regarding their interest areas. These are presented in no particular order:
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The project ideas quickly expanded from solely a home garden focus to encompass community and school gardens as well. It was seen that these projects are mutually beneficial, not mutually exclusive. Meeting members had a range of expertise across all three garden types.
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Having a major kick-off focus event and subsequent major events (3 was a number mentioned: 1 home garden, 1 community garden and one school garden) was seen as critical to get publicity and public participation.
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Clarification of the project’s mission was seen as a key ingredient and will be a focus of the July 31 meeting.
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The development of a “turnkey” package on how to develop a community garden from agriculture to zoning was recommended. The same idea would work well for school gardens and home gardens.
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Beyond the different legal and organizational questions for each type of garden, it was believed that the gardening questions would be similar for all three gardens. Again there is expertise in the group to handle all of these key points.
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The group felt we could be a clearing house for gardening education and resources from blogs, email questions, organic gardening links, seminars and garden gatherings. It was felt that more could be accomplished by combining our various resources toward this end.
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The desire for a local “seed bank” was expressed.
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Winter gardening was also a focus as San Diego has a great year round growing climate.
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The encouragement of becoming “locavores” was seen as a possible publicity focus.
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The various home flower garden tours might be linked with us to have a home vegetable garden component. This would add to our publicity reach.
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“Backyard Habitat” programs might have an “edible component.
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Linking to the “Plant a Row for the Hungry” project could be a focus down the road.
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Involving and supporting our local farmers (La Milpa Organica, Tierra Miguel and others) was seen as an important component.
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HOA issues for condominium gardens were seen as a topic to explore.
It was recommended that our next meeting be as “zero waste” as possible. Bob asked the Food Not Lawns reps to handle that component.
Individual contributions:
Mariah Gaylor: SD Food Not Lawns (Tech Person): Spread word via FNL website
www.sdfoodnotlawns.com
Joyce Gemmell: Master Gardener: Give gardening demos, talks and tours
Leslie Goldman: The Enchanted Gardener: Link to his website and “Keep the Beet” project: www.lesliegoldman.com
Bob Greenamyer: San Diego Roots: Coordinate ONE Garden at a Time Project and connect all groups through SD Roots website. Start a Blog on SD Roots about project
www.sandiegoroots.org
Carol Morse: The TLC Garden in Tierra Santa can be a demonstration site for gardens. Help with coordination and implementation
Daniela Olave: Owner, Backyard Organics: email to clients. Place ONE Garden project on their website: www.byorganics.com
Laura Abrams Starr: Master Gardener: Publicize through various garden club newsletters and horticultural organizations; provide onsite lectures and printed materials; work with SD Public Libraries for publicity.
Nan Sterman: Author, California Gardener's Guide Volume II, Radio personality, gardener: Write, teach, advise almost any garden topic: www.plantsoup.com
Mindy Swanson: UCCE Youth Program Representative/Garden liaison: Publicize in neighborhood and through employment contacts; start a local seed bank/seed swap project; encourage winter food gardening
Beth Townsend: SD Food Not Lawns: Implement and coordinate a “Garden Squad”, event planning, and lots more
George Yackey: Master Gardener: Set up educational exhibits on growing