2008 Woodie Awards
Compact Gardens Provide to Needy Families
Brett Shiells
Issue date: 12/5/07 Section: Culture
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What would you do with $1,500?
The 10 women who started Humboldt Handmade, a 4-year-old non-profit based in Arcata, are going to teach the working poor how to garden.
In January, Humboldt Handmade will receive a $1,500 grant from the North Coast Co-op to start Family Share, an educational program encouraging low-income families to start small-scale farming cooperatives.
The money from the Cooperative Community Fund, which is administered by the Co-op, will pay for free workshops teaching a "square-foot" approach to gardening, as well as cooking classes and canning workshops.
The square-foot technique, described in Mel Bartholomew's best-selling "Square-Foot Gardening," involves planting small plots of different vegetables next to each other, rather than in homogeneous rows.
Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT) Gardener Erin Ryon said this method uses natural variations in plants, like root lengths and nutrient needs, in addition to soil-replenishing crop rotations to maximize harvests with minimum effort.
"Certainly, I've seen companion planting lead to large yields," Ryon said. "Plants surrounded by diversity tend to do better."
Ryon said the meditation of gardening is stress relieving, but more important is the empowerment that comes with growing your own food.
Kelley Barrett, a founder of Humboldt Handmade, said giving families that sense of empowerment and self-reliance is precisely the goal of Family Share.
"Most of the people we're reaching aren't getting good food," Barrett said. "We want to create self-sustainability for the poor without feeding the economic machine."
Family Share's remedy to the problem is bringing families together to share in the responsibilities and rewards of growing organic food, Barrett said.
"All the families will grow what they can in the space they have," Barrett said. "It doesn't matter if it's a half-gallon bucket on your front porch or an acre behind your house."
The 10 women who started Humboldt Handmade, a 4-year-old non-profit based in Arcata, are going to teach the working poor how to garden.
In January, Humboldt Handmade will receive a $1,500 grant from the North Coast Co-op to start Family Share, an educational program encouraging low-income families to start small-scale farming cooperatives.
The money from the Cooperative Community Fund, which is administered by the Co-op, will pay for free workshops teaching a "square-foot" approach to gardening, as well as cooking classes and canning workshops.
The square-foot technique, described in Mel Bartholomew's best-selling "Square-Foot Gardening," involves planting small plots of different vegetables next to each other, rather than in homogeneous rows.
Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (CCAT) Gardener Erin Ryon said this method uses natural variations in plants, like root lengths and nutrient needs, in addition to soil-replenishing crop rotations to maximize harvests with minimum effort.
"Certainly, I've seen companion planting lead to large yields," Ryon said. "Plants surrounded by diversity tend to do better."
Ryon said the meditation of gardening is stress relieving, but more important is the empowerment that comes with growing your own food.
Kelley Barrett, a founder of Humboldt Handmade, said giving families that sense of empowerment and self-reliance is precisely the goal of Family Share.
"Most of the people we're reaching aren't getting good food," Barrett said. "We want to create self-sustainability for the poor without feeding the economic machine."
Family Share's remedy to the problem is bringing families together to share in the responsibilities and rewards of growing organic food, Barrett said.
"All the families will grow what they can in the space they have," Barrett said. "It doesn't matter if it's a half-gallon bucket on your front porch or an acre behind your house."
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