Where do you buy your kale, your greens, your fruit, your produce?
Your answer might reveal a lot!
Sooo much of the produce at big box retailers is grown pretty far away. In a pinch I needed some greens and bought from a big box retailer and discovered that the greens were shipped from California. Who knows how long ago…
Fresh makes a difference. Locally grown often means it gets from the ground and into your hands more quickly — and definitely with a lot less fossil fuel.
My farmers at Eden Urban Gardens LLC drive my weekly produce from their house a mile away and to my door. They deliver to a few more clients on my street too. Imagine if they grew for my whole street! Talk about a local food revolution!
Buying from a local farmer spurs the local economy and enriches that farmer’s family. I wonder if the companies I enriched by buying at the big box retailer paid a fair wage to the person who planted the greens and harvested them and shipped them and stocked the produce aisle. I wonder if those companies also pay a hierarchy of executives that same farmers-wage.
So much produce that you and I buy can grow just fine and deliciously right here in our neighborhoods, either by hiring a local farmer or growing it ourselves.
It’s a commitment to life to grow one’s own food or to buy directly from a local farmer at a farmers market or through a CSA-share. We have so many Community Supported Agriculture buying opportunities in Cincinnati & N Kentucky.
Our Yoga/Healing Touch Interns — all 11 of us — will contribute 1100 hours of service this year in growing & gleaning produce on local farms, at VITALITY’s Glean & Share Garden in Walnut Hills, in our own neighborhoods and backyards. We are excited to do our part for the local food revolution.
Volunteering in the gardens with Sue Plummer and our Walnut Hills friends Brenda Baker, Gary Dangel, CJ Pierce, and so many friends just might inspire you to create a garden in your own neighborhood or to expand your growing possibilities or to make some fun, new friends.
We share ideas with each other as we plant seeds, spread compost, pull weeds, repair fences, water plants, harvest food to share at food pantries and shelter-kitchens, laugh, and enjoy life. You can too. These friends are inspiring me to add more fruits and veggies to my own backyard.
Reach out to Sue to explore volunteering with us, and open yourself to a whole new, enriching, wonderful world of life, of health, of friends!
How do you grow? Please write back and share with us.
Brian Shircliff
program director
513.300.5174
