CREATING AN URBAN GARDEN

The average tomato travels 1,500 miles to reach our dinner plates.

With agriculture’s tendency toward monocultures, we can assume each ingredient of every meal travels that distance from a different direction. This baffling reality

convinces me that the first step in reducing our personal carbon footprint may be to change the way we feed ourselves. Local farmers’ markets and food co-ops are gaining popularity, showing that people understand the environmental
and nutritional importance of local foods. However, for the sweeping change
needed to reverse our environment’s grim future, these food sources should be second choice after our home’s harvest. How much land do you need to produce
food? Last February, my husband and I became proud owners of a small house on less than a fifth of an acre in the heart of the city. The yard was a wasteland of dirt and gravel spotted by a handful of mature elms, an open canvas and we wasted no time filling it with as much life as possible. As we approach our second spring, our homestead looks like a microcosm of the much larger sustainable farm
we dream about, complete with active and passive rainwater havesting systems, large vegetable, herb and flower beds with organically improved soil, small
animal production, a strawbale shed with passive solar heating and lighting, and even a wildlife "corridor" to welcome pollinators. As landscapers, we needed a home for all our tools. We immediately went to work on a 200-square-foot
strawbale shed. The thick walls keep the space cool in the desert summer. Large windows on the south side allow low-angle winter sunlight to pour in and
store heat in the paver-brick floor for winter comfort. An attached shaded patio makes a great outdoor area to grill, sit with friends and enjoy the
lovely desert summer evenings. My top project was a meditation garden in our small
front yard to create a visual shield from the busy street. The flowering plants welcomed pollinators and were chosen to include human benefit. Native roses
provide rosehips for tea and current bushes provide fruit. Removing the gravel and the plastic weed barrier decreased the air temperature around the house and
allowed oxygenation of soils in the depressed growing beds scattered throughout a triple-spiral path. This keeps paths high and dry and turns the planting beds
into catch basins in times of rain.