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Montgomery Victory Gardens Weekly Update - Juyly 22, 2010

In this update:

* Beat the Heat on a Farm This Weekend! - County Farm Tour Days, Sat. and Sun., July 24 & 25
* Superintendent Weast Out... School Gardens In?
* More Media on our Campaign for School Vegetable Gardens!
* Dealing with Hot, Dry Weather in the Garden
* Eaters Are Not Enough - It's the Policy, Stupid
* See "Dirt! The Movie!"
* "Pesticides are War Chemicals That Kill"


Beat the Heat on a Farm This Weekend! County Farm Tour Days - Sat. and Sun., July 24 & 25

There's no way around it, it's going to be brutally hot this weekend.  But one good way to beat the heat, other than sitting in front of an air conditions, is to leave our asphalt encased urban heat traps and journey to one of our county's farms during Montgomery County's 21st Annual Farm Tour and Harvest Sale this Saturday and Sunday, July 24 and 25.  (Honest, it is cooler and breezier on the farm!)

Farm TourA total of 14 farms will be participating on one or both of the days, including MVG partners such as the Red Wiggler Community Farm, which will feature not only comprehensive tours of their impressive organic operation, presentations on historical plant-based medical remedies, wagon rides, farm stand sales, and the eclectic sound of The Rookery Project playing in the barn all day.  

Whichever farm you decide to visit, take a few hours this weekend to come see where food comes from, pick some yourself (or buy it freshly picked), take a hayride, or pet farm animals after lunch by a scenic pond. It's a wonderful educational experience and a great family outing for all!

Click here for more information on the 2010 Annual Farm Tour & Harvest Sale, including a list of participating farms with directions.



Superintendent Weast Out... School Gardens In?

As MVG readers all know by now, longtime Montgomery County Public School Superintendent Jerry Weast is the author of the (infamous) February 26 memo banning vegetable gardens from MCPS schools.

Jerry WeastImagine our surprise, then, to learn from a Washington Examiner article this past weekend that a large majority of the Board of Education is ready to see the controversial Dr. Weast go when his third term ends in June of 2011.  (And a tip of the zuke to Parents' Coalition of Montgomery Countyfor spotting this.)  It may not be a direct connection, but speaking ill of school vegetable gardens is clearly not a smart career move, in Montgomery County or anywhere else.


In fact, the issue promises to be a prominent one during the election of Board of Education members this fall: the League of Women Voters made school vegetable gardens one of the six questions they asked Board of Ed candidates to be reported in their 2011 Voter Guide!

At the same time, Montgomery Victory Gardens and the Montgomery Master Gardeners had our first meeting with MCPS officials to find a way through this issue.  While we clearly have a ways to go before we can claim victory - the vegetable garden ban is still in effect, and their initial proposal may not be satisfactory - we are delighted to say that we are on the right path, and with the forces gathering behind this issue we think our prospects are pretty promising.

And where will you get all the latest developments as they happen - the MVG Weekly Update, of course!



More Media on our Campaign for School Vegetable Gardens!

One of the ways that we have been able to bring pressure to bear in our campaign for school vegetable gardens is through the media, and I'm delighted to announce that The Gazette printed yet another significant article on the fight in this week's edition; and in a sign of how important they consider the issue, the article appears on page four - with a front page headline to direct readers there!

Click here to read The Gazette article, "School system reconsiders vegetable gardens."

And that's not all: two weeks previous, The Gazette published my letter to the editor on the subject.  Click here to read "Let them plant veggies."

MVG - your school garden media juggernaut!



Dealing with Hot, Dry Weather in the Garden

While last week saw a lot of thunderstorms and nighttime rain, we seem to have launched back into an extended period of extreme heat and lack of rain this week.

Grow it Eat ItVegetable plants can be up to 90% water by weight, and a lack of water, combined with high heat, can cause everything from small or poor tasting harvests, to diseases like blossom end rot, to shriveled or even dying plants.

In the July 8 update we gave some garden watering information from WSSC, which had banned outdoor water use (including garden watering) while repairing a water main over the July 4 weekend.  Here is an even better source to learn about the problems caused to food growers by hot dry weather, and what you can do about it:  the Master Gardeners "Grow It Eat It" website.  Check it out to see what you can do to deal with our very summer like weather in your garden!



Eaters are Not Enough - It's the Policy Stupid

In the cover piece for the current issue of American Prospect, "Slowed Food Revolution," Heather Rogers details what many people, including farmer and Grist contributor Tom Philpott have been saying for a while: "public policy, not consumer choice, is the villain propping up the industrial food system and constraining the growth of organic farming."

While some new and organic farmers are making it financially, many more are not, and even with customers willing to pay a premium for organic and sustainably grown food, our food system infrastructure, funding, and public policy is skewed overwhelmingly to support industrial agriculture. 

Obama and VilsackAnd President Obama (seen at right with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and a local farmer), has done little to change this.  Indeed, many of President Obama's high level appointments come directly from agribusiness giants such as Monsanto, and he has vowed to double U.S. exports of commodity crops over the next five years - precisely the wrong priority if you want to support organic agriculture.

Philpott's fine (and shorter!) essay, "Why Eaters Alone Can't Transform the Food System," is well worth the read, and we at MVG agree wholeheartedly with his analysis - except for one big omission.  While eaters alone can't change the food system, food growers - including millions of gardeners just like us - CAN make a significant difference. 

Call it civil resistance against the food system if you like, but we don't have to wait for unresponsive policy makers, even as we work to change policy.  We can take control of our own food system and grow a great deal of what we eat.  That's what MVG is about, creating our healthy, truly local food shed, and it's a critical component to any campaign to fundamentally alter our food system.  Thanks for being part of it!



See "Dirt! The Movie!"

Several months ago we let you know about a new documentary, "Dirt! The Movie."  We are delighted to let you know that it is now available for rental through commercial video operations, such as Netflix of your local store.

"Dirt! The Movie," which I viewed this past week, is a fascinating look at one of theDirt The movie most important yet ignored parts of our planet - the six inch or so layer of soil (which they militantly call dirt!) covering our planet, a thin layer which makes life (and our civilization) possible.

Filled with fun animation and great interviews from folks such as Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathi (founder of the Green Belt Movement), school garden doyenne Alice Waters, a slew of sustainable agriculture activists, a logger turned fungus scientist, a wine connoisseur, and even a lawyer working to establish dirt's legal rights, "Dirt! The Movie" gives a broad assessment of the consequences of our war on dirt, from erosion, drought and food riots to international conflict and climate change. 

And while it's quite clear who the villain is in this narrative - industrial agriculture is the primary driver of our war against dirt - the film also provides a moving description of humanity's true relationship to dirt, and lots of examples of how we can turn the tide and save this critical yet highly vulnerable covering on our planet.

Click here to watch the trailer for "Dirt! The Movie," and then get a copy to watch as soon as you can - you'll be glad you did!



"Pesticides are War Chemicals that Kill"

And now for the quote of the day, courtesy of MVG's fiscal sponsor, the Organic Consumers Association.

Vandana ShivaAs the battle between agribusiness and sustainable organic farming advocates continues to heat up, world-renowned environmentalist and sustainable advocate Vandana Shiva, (also one of the stars of "Dirt! The Movie"), reminds us that the Bhopal disaster which killed 25,000 people in her native India in 1984 was caused by a Union Carbide plant producing pesticides.  As she states in a recent article:

"Pesticides are war chemicals that kill - every year 220,000 people are killed by pesticides worldwide.  We are witnessing a massive corporate genocide - the killing of people for super profits.... To maintain these super profits, lies are told about how, without pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), there will be no food. In fact, the conclusions of International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, undertaken by the United Nations, shows that ecologically organic agriculture produces more food and better food at lower cost than either chemical agriculture or GMOs."

To read Vandana Shiva's full article, "The Killing Fields of Multi-National Corporations," click here.



That's it for this week, folks! Please help support Montgomery Victory Gardens - click here to make a 100% tax-deductible contribution online!

And don't forget to send us your feedback and ideas for stories or local food events we can promote, by emailing us at [email protected].

Yours for clean, organic eating in 2010 - and school vegetable gardens in 2011!


Gordon Clark,
Project Director
Montgomery Victory Gardens