Ramsey County Master Gardeners supporting Midway and Frogtown neighborhoods

This is a moment to shout out to Ramsey County Master Gardeners (RCMG) in the Midway. So many Midway and Frogtown garden projects are nicely highlighted in the RCMG year end report from 2009. I particularly want to shine a light on Diane's work. She is successfully working hard within this organization to bring in intern Master Gardeners from diverse backgrounds. She also takes her Master Gardening service time to our urban neighborhoods, augmenting community efforts in growing their own food. She would want you to check out another organization she works for called "Growing Food and Justice for All".

Here is that Master Gardener 2009 report (pdf). In it you will find summaries of Hamline Midway and Frogtown community garden projects including Aurora-St. Anthony Peace Garden, Horton Park Community Garden, Snelling Avenue Planter Project, Frogtown Gardeners, Frogtown Orchard Project. Also supported and not mentioned are projects at Galtier Elementary, Hamline High Rise, LEAP Academy, HUMC Rain Gardens, and Midway Green Spirit Garden.

Master Gardeners are a well used resource in our St. Paul neighborhoods. Many thanks to their members!

HMEG Support Letter for Frogtown Farms

Hamline Midway Environmental Group

c/o Hamline Midway Coalition

Hamline Park Building
1564 Lafond Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104

651-646-1986

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Frogtown Gardens

843 Van Buren Ave.

Saint Paul, MN, 55104

Dear Frogtown Farms Developers and Supporters:

The Hamline Midway Environmental Group (HMEG) congratulates you on your vision for bringing a sustainable working urban farm to the Frogtown Neighborhood. It would be a cutting edge demonstration of how grassroots residents of inner city neighborhoods could work together to build food equity, vibrant good health and environmental justice.

HMEG supports your efforts and will work with you and other supporters of this plan to see Frogtown Farms become a reality.

The Hamline-Midway
Environmental Group is a interest group of District Council 11. Its mission is to create and nurture a healthy and
sustainable environment in the Hamline-Midway community of St. Paul Minnesota. Members of HMEG worked to support community members who are active in improving the sustainability of the neighborhood. Areas of focus include community gardens, food justice, backyard poultry, rain gardens, rain barrels, local foods, composting, recycling, bike/walk initiatives and urban forestry.

In Solidarity,

The Hamline Midway Environmental Group

To learn more about Frogtown Farm see their website or find them on Facebook

Hamline SPROUTS and Frances Moore Lappé: Hunger and the Food System

The season of learning has begun now that the gardens are near buttoned up. Reading, attending lectures, conferences, meeting with other folks with good ideas are thankfully re-appearing on the calendar.

This week, a Panel Discussion about Hunger and the Food System was put on by Hamline University's SPROUTS. The conversation was meaty and the panelists from IATP, Gardening Matters, HECUA, and MN Food & Justice did a fine job of connecting climate change, cultural barriers, poor quality food, wasted food, hunger and the need for community based change.

The delivery person spotted my hens and he asked, "Are the worth it?". He meant are the costs of hens and their upkeep really less than store bought eggs? I shared with him that backyard chickens are not just about getting eggs. Just as valuable is their ability to consume most of the food waste our 4-person household creates, and then make significant nutrient contributions to our urban soils via composting. All very true, however, what I did not bring up was that my homegrown eggs do not have any of the hidden costs which industrial food prices ignore. In the case of factory farmed eggs, the hidden costs include environmental, public health and societal hidden costs which never appear into their retail price. For example, how much of the price of factory farmed eggs does the farmer see? The SPROUT panel discussed that in the case of our population in hunger, calories-for-the-sake-of-calories may fill empty stomachs, but the long term chronic disease encouraged by America's cheap diet is certainly wrought with further hidden costs.

SPROUT-ites also heard that food waste reduction is a goal worth obtaining in the efforts to reduce hunger. As Addie Broyles of the Austin American-Statesman reveals, 25-50% of the food produced in this country goes to waste! Food that is produced, transported, and gotten to a market, home refrigerator or restaurant and then wastefully allowed to go bad or tossed because it doesn't meet some standard. There are known interventions to change this. It does not require sophisticated knowledge to implement smart purchasing, gleaning, or local foods initiatives. When the food waste percentage is seriously attacked, our hunger concerns will lessen, and so will greenhouse gases emitted from food buried landfills.

Frances Moore Lappé hit this message well on the Friday evening session of the Wisdom Ways Soul Conference, It's all tied together-- the choices we make in our dinner table ripple into the our food system and directly influence those around us.

Celebration of all Things Tomato

This is the time of year to revel in the tomatoes. The last hanging-on days before the first frost brings it all to an end. The colors, flavors, shapes and sizes seem endless.

In SE Como, the annual Tomato Tastin' Experience exploits the annual tomato bounty. Here, attendees of the Como Cookout get a chance to taste dozens of different tomato varieties side-by-side and then vote for their favorites. This year's Como Cookout is on September 20th from 2-5pm at Van Cleve Park.

Winning results from the past years' tastings are found on the Como Green Village website. It is a handy list for future seed ordering.

Recently, I discovered this new book that profiles hundreds of tomatoes and provides beautiful images too. Check out The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit by By Amy Goldman, Victor Schrager.

What a great idea! The Midway Barter Market

In the Hamline Midway neighborhood, neighbors long for a local co-op grocery store. While the community waits to have a walkable venue for locally grown food, they have come to their own devices; setting up a dropsite for Whole Farm and creating the Midway Barter Market.

Whole Farm Co-op is a network of 30+ farms near the Twin Cities. By getting together to do orders, marketing, and delivery, they are able to be small producers who really know & care about what they offer us as consumers. Customers order online; products include meats, dairy, groceries, crafts, garden produce in the summer, and more. Midway deliveries will be monthly on the 3rd Wednesdays at the drop site at Hamline/Thomas SuperUSA. This means ordering at www.wholefarmcoop.com by the second Wednesday.

At the Midway Barter Market, neighbors exchange handmade goods, garden grown produce, softly used items and plants without the use of money! All sorts of items have been exchanged and its a fun time! There are even the occasional garden and henhouse tour, or impromptu juggling lessons in a kid friendly space. Come on down on Sunday to hang out with your neighbors and swap your goods and have a great time! The Midway Barter Market is now on Sundays 1-3 pm on the boulevard at the Anderson Oaks place, 1724 Englewood Ave until the season ends. See photos of the market here.

These great options have been brought to fruition by community members who participate in the Hamline Midway Environment Group, Mighty Midway Greening and Growing, LISN (Leasdership in Support on Neighborhoods) and specifically due to the efforts of Nine Dodge.