To Feed Thousands

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Here it is! My very own plot in the Sloan Street Community Garden. I’m delighted to be a new garden member this year as I’ve got big plans to grow sugar and shelling peas, followed by all manner of green beans, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and (how could you not?) tomatoes. It was a difficult choice, but I’ve narrowed down the finalists to yellow and red ‘jelly bean’ grape tomatoes, beefsteak slicers, and one precious Cherokee Purple. I started my baby seedlings on Good Friday with the intention of sowing them in the back yard. I changed my mind after a few attempts to sink a spade into the compacted clay soil. This decision was confirmed as I unearthed two whole glass bottles, several bricks and brick shards, and some extremely corroded cutlery.

I’m not alone in these, my first attempts at growing my own food. I think that many have taken to heart Michael Pollan’s urging from In Defense of Food to plant a garden. Though the impulse for me may have begun with the desire to wake up to the verdant smell of tomato plants and their August bounty, my garden planning has taken on a more somber tone of late. The headlines about the impending global food crisis are becoming as consistent as my morning coffee. Working in hunger relief means that every day I come face to face with the ramifications of this crisis as the drought plays out in Australia and people in Haiti are eating dirt for dinner, if for only the feeling of fullness that it provides. Every day at work I make phone calls asking for food to feed the working poor of Philadelphia. It’s true that hunger is different here, but the urgency is looming, the Farm Bill stalled, and people in both Haiti and Philadelphia go to bed hungry.

I can’t solicit enough produce, meat or bread to send overseas, but I can do my best to take care of those in my community who would otherwise have to choose between utility bills and groceries. The other thing I can do is exactly this: embrace my little square of dirt, not because it will feed thousands, but because it just might produce enough to feed me.