Vegetable gardening is really catching on. And if all goes as people like me hope, it will soon boom even more. Here’s an event that shows the kind of things that can happen:
On Thursday night in Cheltenham Township, a group interested in making the region more sustainable is planning an evening devoted to vegetable gardening, and getting more people to do it. It’s all-inclusive, for beginners and experienced gardeners, township residents and folks from neighboring communities.
The point is to create not just gardens, but community.
Cheltenham’s Bill Mettler, one half of the Quiet Riot comedy/storytelling/etc. performance duo and a guy who has gotten his household energy use down to 300 kWh a month — a MONTH — is one of the organizers.
Cheltenham is on the path toward becoming a “transition town” — a notion that started in the UK. The idea, as Mettler explains it is “to build a town that is resilient and self-reliant in the face of oil crises, like peak oil and global warming. The whole idea is to bring all the necessities into the town and away from the long, fragile, oil-saturated supply chain.” So the goal is have local medical facilities, local transportation networks, local energy sources … and, of course, local food.
On Thursday, the group will explore how more people can grow more food — in their back yards, in vacant lots and on approved parklands. For inspiration, they'll show the film, “The Power of Community,” which looks at how Cuba saved itself with family and community gardens after losing their oil supply when the Soviet Union crumbled.
Mettler has invited a group of guys who have been gardening for half a century and more — “I think they hold most of the gardening knowledge in the western hemisphere,” he noted — and he’s hoping to get a liberal exchange of questions and answers.
Wanna check it out? It’s being held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the LaMott Community Center, 7420 Sycamore Avenue.
I live in Cheltenham, but in the UK. Famous for horse racing and at the centre of the Cotswolds. We also have some very keen vegetable gardeners! Eve - uk web hosting reseller hosting— Shellye- Hi everyone, I'm from the UK and happened upon this site. Just wanted to say that growing food for ones self is really taking off in here in the UK and there has been a huge demand for alotment space, vegetable seeds and growing equipment. People want to eat better produce and also want to save money. I'm all for it :) John, Save Money UK— wisebills
GreenSpace - her column about how to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life - appears every other Monday in Health & Science.
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