Setbacks open options

We've suffered a setback in our efforts to create a community garden in Monroe when we lost the Rochelle and Marx Street sites, but that simply opens our minds to other options. There is no end to this process. We can no longer afford to assume a mechanism to produce food locally cannot be found or created.

In 1986, a group of people in Massachusetts -- pioneers in the local food movement -- sat down and formed a community supported farm model. From that first farm, more than 1,700 others have sprouted. They all start from a single goal ... to create a dramatic increase in affordable locally produced fruits and vegetables ... and followed different paths to that goal. Some worked and some failed, but the goal has remained healthy. And, now with the stratospheric rising cost of transportation (it may never come down), concerns about where our food supply comes from, and what has been done to it, community supported agriculture is more important than ever.

Steven McFadden, writing for the Rodale Institute, takes a look at the 20th century history of the CSA movement in this two-part series of articles.

Grow food, not grass

OK, these people may look like they grow more weed than food, but they aren't high. They are light years a of the curve.

As the Capital One card used to ask, "What's in your yard?"

A little bad news for the garden

We were working to get a community garden started at the Rochelle Avenue pump station. It looked like slow going, but not impossible.

Then things changed.

Apparently, we aren't gonna get the Rochelle site because it doesn't belong to the city. This puts us back to square one.

Kash and Mike are searching for city or parish land we can set our sights on, but if you have any ideas, let us know at monroegardens@gmail.com.

Or, if you know a rich person with land who wants to do something good for the community by creating a non-profit trust ...

Yours without a place to plant,
Bob

Just so as you know ...

City Councilmen

Jay Marx -- District 1

Telephone: (318) 387-5000
Residence: (318) 323-7521

Address:
108 Walnut Street
Monroe, LA 71201

Ben Katz -- District 2

Telephone: (318) 329-2262
Residence: (318) 388-4236

Address:
2905 Lamy Circle
Monroe, LA 71201

Arthur Gilmore Jr. -- District 3

Telephone: (318) 388-4205
Residence: (318) 345-3557

Address:
4100 Grammont
Monroe, LA 71203

Robert "Red" Stevens -- District 4
Council chair

Telephone: (318) 388-4205
Residence: (318) 361-0959

Address:
1410 South 6th Street
Monroe, LA 71202

Robert C. Johnson -- District 5
Vice chair

Telephone: (318) 388-0886
Residence: (318) 361-0341

Address:
241 Oregon Trail
Monroe, LA 71202

One + one = It's about time

It would seem that people do have a little common sense ... when forced into it.

Here's the equation:

Man, check out the price of gasoline and food.

Plus ...

Look at that big, green backyard full of pretty grass and flowers.

WAIT A SECOND!!!!

I should be able to grow some food!

And they are trying. Thirty nine percent of people with lawns polled by the Garden Writers Association said they are going to raise gardens. That's up 5 percent from last year.

Here's the Christian Science Monitor story.

These folk have it figured out

And more details here (about 10 minutes on Path to Freedom).



Here's the Web site.

Members of ACGA

Thanks to a generous donation from Mike "The Workhorse" Roberts, the Rochelle Avenue Community Garden is now a member of the American Community Gardens Association.

Never mind that the city can't seem to actually let us take over the garden. We are counting our progress in tiny steps. Sometimes VERY tiny steps.

Speaking of progress, here's exactly where things stand. The public works department needs to do a survey of the site to show us exactly where we can plant and where we have to leave paths for city business. They also need to mow down the grass for us so we can get in there. Apparently, illness at City Hall is slowing down Task #1 and that is stalling Task #2.