Kids in the Garden!

There is nothing better, healthier and more educational for young kids than some time spent in the food garden. And there is nothing more fun for me or closer to Montgomery Victory Garden's purpose than hosting young people in the garden, and teaching them about growing food.

Pictured at right is the 1st grade class from Capitol Hill Day School, which visited one of the community gardens I work in last week for a program co-hosted with growingSOUL. They might have been young, but they understand a lot already, and their enthusiasm was infectious. What can you say about a group of 1st graders who actively want to harvest and eat fresh spinach?! (That's what they are all holding or eating in the picture.)

This second photo is two students from a class given the next day to the Pathfinders Club of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Rockville, through a program of the Montgomery County Master Gardeners. The church doesn't have room for a full garden, so they requested a class on container gardening - examples of which (I believe in show and tell!) are sitting on the table in front of them.

Do you know a group of young people who would like to visit a working community garden, or have a presentation on food growing? Then just give us a shout at info[at]montgomeryvictorygardens.org. Wanna support programs like this for young folks in Montgomery County? Click here to give a tax deductible donation to MVG!

School Food in Montgomery County - an Issue that Won't Go Away

In case you missed it, the Washington Post recently ran this very good article on the issue of snacks in our nation's schools, with Montgomery County public schools prominently featured.

Despite the fact that childhood obesity and diabetes are growing epidemics in our country, and despite numerous studies showing the majority of snacks offered in schools are high in sugar, fat or salt (not to mention artificial dyes and preservatives) with little or no nutritional value, they continue to be sold. Some food services directors claim they need to make the snacks appealing to kids. Almost all would claim that they need the money to make their budgets. In Montgomery County, which has somewhat tougher rules on snacks than other school systems, snack and ala carte sales account for 17% of public school food revenue.

It's hard to know what to be more upset about: that we provide public schools mere pennies a day to feed our kids, that the schools feel the need to sell demonstrably unhealthy food to kids to make their budgets, or that we have so addicted most U.S. kids to sugar, salt and fat that can't taste anything that isn't loaded with it. If we could get more kids into the garden and on the farm, like our 1st grade spinach-eaters above, perhaps some of that could change.

While we do that, though, it is essential that there are groups like Real Food for Kids - Montgomery, a local branch of the national umbrella group and also featured in the article, who are fighting to change school food offerings for the better. They are new, determined, and pretty awesome. If you are interested in MCPS providing fresher, healthier food for our kids, please go to the RFK-M website here, sign up for their list, and get involved!

The Latest Evidence Against Monsanto's Roundup

Here's something that inexplicably didn't make it into most newspapers, let alone the front page where it probably belongs. It turns out that the most recent scientific research on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, shows it's not nearly as harmless as the company claims - in fact, quite the opposite.

In fact this peer-reviewed study, conducted by a senior scientist at MIT and published in Entropy magazine, links Monsanto's Roundup to cancer, autism, and Parkinson's, with the study's authors going on to say that glyphosate may be "the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment."

Bear in mind, of course, that Monsanto's Roundup is ubiquitous in our industrial food system, and it's the raison d'etre for most genetically modified/GMO seeds, which are designed to grow plants that can withstand the herbicide. There is considerable evidence to show that GMO crops don't perform any better than non-GMO, and now there is growing evidence that Roundup itself has extremely adverse health and environmental consequences. (Remember the story we posted recently on our Facebook page regarding how Roundup is implicated in the dramatic decline of Monarch butterflies?) Should we be concerned that our government, rather than studying this issue intensively, is instead giving rubber-stamp approval to every GMO crop Monsanto et all wants to sell?

For more information on efforts to reform Monsanto's dangerous grip on our food system, check out Millions Against Monsanto, a campaign organized by MVG's awesome fiscal sponsor, the Organic Consumers Association. 

Why Is a 16 Year Old Doing More Food Research Than Our Government?

So here's another appropo story on why our food system is so screwed up.

There has been considerable debate in recent years on whether an organic diet is healthier than a non-organic one, and what the dangers of all those pesticides and herbicides in our food system might be. (The suffix "cide," of course, means to kill leaving organisms.) Along comes an enterprising teenager, Ria Chhabra, who decides to do some experimenting for herself, using fruit flies. And lo and behold, "by nearly every measure, including fertility, stress resistance and longevity, flies that fed on organic bananas and potatoes fared better than those who dined on conventionally raised produce."  (You can read the full New York Times article here.)

One can of course question how far you can extrapolate from fruit flies to humans, but fruit flies are commonly used for research due to their short life span, which allows scientists to evaluate basic biological effects over a short period of time. At the very least, the study raises provocative questions that someone, you would think, should be following up on.

Ria's study won top honors in a national science competition, was published in a prestigious journal, and earned her rare laboratory privileges in a nearby university. Regrettably our federal government does not study these issues, and generally maintains that there are no health problems associated with the chemicals used in industrial food production, nor any health difference between organic and conventional food. But that debate has now been settled in the Chhabra home: "All of our fresh produce is organic," Ria noted.

If you are concerned about the possible effects of pesticide and herbicide residue in your food, click here for the Environmental Working Group's 2013 Shopper's Guide, with a list of which foods are most important to buy organic.

Ode to My Favorite New Garden Tool - the Collinear Hoe!

I hate weeding. I love growing food, but hate the weeding that goes along with it. If you're anything like me - and I know I am :-) - you might want to take a good look at a collinear hoe.

The collinear hoe is not a traditional hoe, used bent over and with a chopping action. It is a "cultivating" hoe - essentially a sharp edge positioned on a handle to slide just under the soil surface and slice off the tops of young weeds. It is designed to be used standing up, with the thumbs in an ergonomic upward position, like you would use a broom.

It is somewhat of a "finesse" tool, in that you need well-conditioned, friable (loose and crumbly) soil in your garden (no chunks o' clay, please), and you need to keep after it - weeds which are allowed to grow for several weeks don't slice off quite so easily.

If you can handle these two conditions, though, boy oh boy does this thing work. It comes in both 7 inch and 3 and ¾ inch width, and I love the smaller version for things that I plant more tightly in my raised beds, such as carrots, beets, leeks and garlic (pictured at right, freshly hoed). But it works just as well and easily with more loosely spaced plants too, just so long as you have the friable soil.

So do you want to spend hours on your knees or bent over pulling out weeds you let go for too long - or spend just a few minutes each week "sweeping" away your weed problem? If the latter, then you might want to check out the collinear hoe! (Johnny's Select Seeds has them, as do other garden tool suppliers. You can watch a short video on the collinear hoe here.)

More Food Growing Classes (for Adults)

Summer isn't here just yet, and we want everyone as trained up on growing food as possible! Here are a couple more classes on food growing this coming week:

Container Food Gardening 101, FREE, Thursday, May 9 at the Rockville Whole Foods Market, 6:30-8pm. Learn how to grow food in small spaces, such as growing a pea shoot salad in a tray in just ten days! What you need to know to grow delicious food on your deck, porch, patio, roof and even indoors. Click here for details.

Essentials of Organic Food Gardening, FREE, Monday, May 13, 7-9pm at the Argyle Park Activity Building on Forest Glen Road in Silver Spring. Truly EVERYTHING you need to know to grow your own organic food in a garden, from soil preparation and choosing plants to mulching, compost, and bug and disease identification. Good for beginners and intermediate gardeners looking to learn more Click here for more information and to register.

What a Week of Groceries Looks Like Around the World

And finally, here is a very colorful and informative photo series: pictures of families around the world, and what a week's worth of groceries looks like for them.

Presumably you won't have too hard a time figuring out which country buys the most processed and junk food - the American family's haul is pictured at right - but other countries are not far behind. And if it's fresh food you want, oh, to go shopping in Turkey, Guatemala or Bhutan! The mountain kingdom of Bhutan, btw, has recently been judged in an international study to be "the happiest country" on earth. Think it has anything to do with their root vegtables??

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Our spring may still be a cool one, but the warmth of May and summer is just around the corner.  Good luck to everyone getting in your summer crops this month, and don't forget to head out to our county's increasingly bustling farmers markets!

Yours in spreading the food growing gospel,