Do you have a vegetable garden? Is this your first year with one? The National Gardening Association expects a 19% increase in the number of edible gardens installed in the US this year. The economy is one of the driving forces behind this uptick. When the going gets tough, the tough get gardening! I personally grew up with a huge vegetable garden full of peppers, tomatoes, rhubarb (ew), and lots of weeds. My job was to remove said weeds. I think this task scarred me – thanks Dad  – because of the HUGE spiders I always encountered. I was little and I think the spiders were car-sized. I still completely lose it when I see one. But let’s move on; I’ve digressed and I’m freaking myself out. Why all the vegetable gardens? Why are we composting, shopping at the ever-increasing number of farmer’s markets, and starting plants from seed – from seed! Why does it matter? Does it even matter? If you ask Will Allen – founder and CEO of Growing Power in Milwaukee – it does matter, and it’s a matter of life and death. He became alarmed at the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, particularly in low-income families with limited or no access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The closest place to shop for these families may be a convenience store a mile away with over-salted, over-sugared, over-processed “food." Growing Power was founded to bring fresh greens, fruits, and veggies to inner-city dwellers and now provides them to over 10,000 people a year. 

Will Allen, who was just featured in a major article in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday, is coming to Cleveland. He is the keynote speaker at the American Horticultural Society’s National Children & Youth Garden Symposium, hosted by Cleveland Botanical Garden. I am SO excited to meet him; I’m starting to lose sleep. We are taking him to several of our Learning Gardens to see our urban farms, meet Green Corps staff, and most importantly, meet some of the students we employ to work these acres. I’m not sure our teens realize who it is they are meeting in just 2 weeks, or the impact he has had in Milwaukee and many other cities. But I think Mr. Allen will be impressed with what he sees happening at our Learning Gardens. Yes, we have some weeds – I’m not going to pull them, Dad –however, I think he will enjoy experiencing the “fruits” of their labors this summer.