Aussie City Dwellers Using “Urban Food Maps”
If you live in a city, fresh fruits and vegetables can be hard to come by. Sure, most major metropolises have farmers markets and the stuff is trucked in from nearby farms, but, it’s just not the same as a backyard garden.
Well, that’s changing. More and more city folk are getting together and starting community gardens, take Sydney, Australia for example.
Juliette Anich was looking for a way to get her fellow Sydney residents out of the supermarket and out looking for fresh local food. Well, she found it. Juliette created Urban Food Maps, which chart public spaces in Australia where people are growing food. Pretty cool! It’s like a treasure hunt you can eat – like if all the gold coins really had chocolate inside. Score!
The maps help foodies find places to pick their own fruits, vegetables, herbs, and even edible flowers, with just one rule, you must “pick respectfully.” Juliette eventually wants to make the food maps a smart-phone app.
Other locavores in Australia are plotting more gardens, raising crops, and setting up seed banks for future harvests.
Community gardens are becoming popular here in the United States too. In my home state of New Jersey, the town of Camden has one of the fastest rates of new community gardens in the nation. “Hey, how you do-in!”
If you want to start a little vegetable patch where you live, trying growing tomatoes on a pile of composts or maybe a rain garden, or both!
Image credit: meganpru
