Urban gardening dreams

Sunday morning is for lazy reading and coffee, and adding ideas to the "Maybe/Someday" project list, like "start a vegetable garden....next year."

This morning I read all the posts in "The Starter Garden", a blog in the NYTimes Gardening section by Minnesota novice gardner (and professional writer whose work I've enjoyed in City Pages) Michael Tortorello, in which he has been chronicling his adventures this summer creating a vegetable garden in the city. I've always enjoyed his writing, and he started some great conversations among newbie and experienced gardeners all over the country with his posts about about how to get started, germinate seeds indoors, get rid of the lawn, use manure or not, deal with rabbits and deer, face the triumphs and disappointments of gardening. It looks as if there are many other stories in that section that I'll enjoy ("Peter Rabbit Must Die" sounds like the response of many a gardener who has discovered how fast rabbits can raze your garden to the ground.)

I had given some thought to doing something like that this summer, but remembered how back-breaking the work to start a garden is (I've done it with others twice; once in Berkeley and once in Minneapolis), and I ended up buying a share with a CSA instead for my veggies, and trying to grow some herbs on my back porch (with mixed success--I am a lousy gardener by myself, but an enthusiastic helper with others).

I'm going to take it in small steps. First step is to read other people's stories! I thoroughly enjoyed this book: Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. And she has a blog! and it's just as awesome as her book, which I loved, loved, loved and am willing to lend to anyone who promises to give it back eventually.

Green Jobs and the next generation of leaders

OK, now we're talking! Al Giordano shares the good news at The Field about Van Jones, (with links to stories in the New Yorker, Mother Jones, and others):
"Author, activist and think tank fellow Van Jones will be joining the Obama administration next week as a special adviser on green jobs, reported the White House Council on Environmental Quality today. Jones will work with agencies and departments to advance the administration's climate and energy initiatives, with a special focus on improving vulnerable communities, according to a White House statement. Jones is the founder of "Green For All," an environmental group dedicated to bringing green jobs to the disadvantaged, and the author of "The Green Collar Economy." Environmental groups are, of course, thrilled with the decision - in their opinion, no one knows green jobs like Van Jones." (rest of U.S. News article here)


Listen to Jones break it down in the video made a little while back. He has been working to make sure that the green movement is not just a movement for those who can afford it, but is connected to jobs, health, and real change for poor people. Another activist like him is Majora Carter, who was just in the Twin Cities talking about the necessary links between greening the inner city (responding to environmental racism) and economic turnaround.

Who are the local Twin Cities allies who can connect with this vision? One of them is the Women's Environmental Insitute (W.E.I.). Another is the IATP. Will our cities be able to overcome the hostility of the Pawlenty administration and go forward on their green ideas? That's our challenge coming up.