Repurpose, Regrow, and Recycle – Food Waste Edition

In the United States, there are 6.3 million households with very low food security and over half a million people without shelter.

And yet, one out of every four calories intended for human consumption is never actually eaten. More than 20 pounds of food per person are thrown out and sent to landfills every month. Organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, and it produces massive amounts of methane. Methane traps 28 to 36 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, accelerating the process of global warming. When toxic substances in the landfills leak out into our soil and waterways landfills also poison plants, animals, the environment, and humanity.

It’s time we all do our part by reducing food waste.

Repurpose, Regrow, and Recycle

Each one of us can turn our own trash into a treasure by repurposing it, regrowing it, or recycling it.

1. Repurpose

That part of the plant or animal that you thought was useless may be filled with nutrients that your body needs. For example, common food scraps like beet greens, carrot greens, potato greens, and leek tops are packed with similar, and often times, more vitamins, minerals, and health-promoting compounds than the part of the plant that we commonly eat. Beet greens and potato greens can be used just like any other green, in salads, steamed, or sauteed, and carrot greens can be added to dressings and sauces like chimichurri and pesto.

When in Doubt, Dehydrate

If you don’t have the time to prepare these greens or you want to donate your leftovers to a food bank or homeless shelter, dehydrate them. Put the beet greens, carrot greens, leek tops, or any other greens that you will not be eating in your dehydrator at low temperatures (around 100 degrees Fahrenheit) until they are crisp. These dehydrated vegetables will last for up to a year. In fact, if they are stored in a cool, dry place (around 54 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal) and that has a very low moisture content, they can last for up to a decade!

These vegetables can be re-hydrated, eaten as chips, or turned into a powder by blending them together. Having your own greens powder will make it much easier for you to add greens to soups, salads, dressings, sauces, and smoothies. The same can be done with extra herbs as well.

Preserve Your Fruits Too

You can also use a dehydrator to preserve fruits that you won’t have the chance to eat. Simply blend the fruit together with some flax seeds or chia seeds until it becomes a thick, apple-sauce-like consistency and dehydrate it until it becomes fruit leather. This fruit leather can last from 6 months to a year, as long as it is stored in a cool and dry place.

Don’t throw out your organic lemon peels or orange peels either. You can turn your organic citrus peels into a natural vitamin C supplement. Simply cut them into pieces, dehydrate them, and blend them into a fine powder. Add this powder to smoothies, soups, dressings, sauces, or salads for an extra health boost.

Related: Homemade Vitamin C

Nothing Supersedes These Super Seeds

Avocado seeds can also be dehydrated and blended into powder. Adding a tablespoon or two of the seed powder to your meal may improve your cholesterol levels, and can be useful in the treatment of hypertension, inflammatory conditions, and diabetes. These seeds have also been found to have insecticidal, fungicidal, and anti-microbial properties. Other nutritious seeds like squash, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds can be saved, dehydrated, and eaten as well.

Dehydrating your vegetables is a simple and easy way to turn some of your most common food scraps into simple snacks and nutritious additions to meals. But what about the waste created from eating meat products?

Related: Things Health Nuts Do With Their Food

Bones and Organs

Muscle meat, like chicken breast and steak, is the most commonly eaten part of the animal, and yet it is the least nutritious. Yes, that burger is packed with complete protein and some vitamins & minerals, but you are missing out on the bones and organs, which can be the most nutrient dense part of the animal.

The bones and cartilage can easily be turned into a nutritious bone broth that provides you with minerals and amino acids that promote the health of your bones, heart, muscles, skin, and nervous system.

When it comes to organ meat, the most nutrient dense is beef liver. 100 grams of beef liver contain more vitamins and a greater amount of those vitamins than 100 grams of apples and 100 grams of carrots combined.

Before you throw out the bones and cartilage from that chicken, steak, or duck, simmer them in water for 8 to 24 hours and you’ll have a nutrient dense broth that you can drink or use as a base for soups. And don’t discard the organ meats either. There are plenty of recipes online that you can use to make them into a nutritious meal. If you are not a fan of eating liver, you can blend it up, dehydrate it, put it into capsules, and use it as a dietary supplement.

However, don’t just trust any meat products. Factory farms torture the animals, unhealthy animals produce unhealthy meat, and these practices are destroying the environment as we know it. For a multitude of reasons, please make sure that you are sourcing your meat and bones from farmers that use sustainable methods and treat their animals humanely.

Related: The Healing Effects of Bone Broth and How To Make Your Own

Egg Shells

If you are looking for a natural supplement that actually improves bone health, then don’t throw away your egg shells. Instead, wash them, dehydrate them, and grind them in a coffee grinder. This will provide you with a fine calcium-based powder that you can put in capsules or add to smoothies that may treat and prevent osteoporosis and improve bone and cartilage health.

Related: Homemade Calcium and Magnesium

2. Regrow

Many of the vegetables and herbs that we eat can easily be regrown without seeds. Sweet potatoes, potatoes, lettuce, celery, garlic, ginger, onions, fennel, cilantro, basil, oregano, cilantro, turmeric, and many other popular vegetables and herbs can all be regrown, providing you with an abundance of produce to feed you, your family, and those in need. If you end up growing too many vegetables, you can always donate your produce to soup kitchens and/or dehydrate the greens and herbs. Check out How to Regrow Your Favorite Herbs and Save Lots of Money. Also, click here to find a food bank near you, and Click here to find a homeless shelter near you.

3. Recycle

Even when you apply everything you have learned to repurpose and regrow your food scraps, you will still end up with some waste. Instead of throwing it out and sending it to a toxic landfill, start your own compost pile or just add those scraps to your soil to give your plants nutrition right away.

Related: 5 Cost-Effective Ways To Home Container Gardening – DIY

Here are examples of food items you can use to instantly nourish your soil and plants:

Coffee grounds are an excellent source of nitrogen, which is an essential component of chlorophyll and protein that allows the plant to thrive. Mix them into the soil for best results.
Eggshells give the plants their protein. Crush your eggshells into tiny pieces and scatter around your plants. They are also excellent pest repellents. Slugs and snails have difficulty climbing over the shells and onto the plants.
Banana peels have potassium, which helps plants bloom profusely. And like eggshells, banana peels are pest repellents. To use them effectively, cut your banana peels into small pieces and bury them two to three inches deep to provide sustainable nutrition and pest defense for the plant. You can also rub the inside of the peel on the leaves of the plants to repel pests even more
Citrus peels can be chopped up and scattered in the garden to keep your plants free from cats and dogs that try to use your garden as a litter box.
Garlic can be buried around your plants to ward off different types of garden pests.
Miscellaneous Food Scraps like fruit and vegetable peels and pulp can be buried directly in the ground near plants or between the rows of your garden. This keeps the soil rich, plants healthy, and pests away. The scraps will also feed earthworms, which greatly improve the health of the soil. Make sure you bury the food scraps deep enough in the soil so that they don’t attract critters and pests.

There are also a couple things that you should avoid putting in your garden including:

Meat
Bones
Cheese
Grease and oils
Dog and cat litter
Diseased plants

These attract animals and pests that will eat your plants before you can.

Putting It Into Practice

Think about what you can apply to your life right now. Are there some egg shells lying in your trash that could go into your garden? Are you wasting fruits and vegetables because you don’t have a dehydrator?

Implement whatever you can with whatever resources you have, and check back with this article again to apply something new every week. If you know of another way to re-purpose, reuse, or recycle your food waste please comment below or on social media, so we can let more people know.

By re-purposing, reusing, and recycling your food waste, you can heal the environment, nourish yourself, and feed the people that need nutrient-dense food the most. And when we unite our small efforts together, we can make big change happen.

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How to Test and Amend Soil

Even gardeners with a green thumb can be foiled by bad soil. If you’re doing everything right but your plants are still dying, it might be time to take a look below the surface. Learning how to test your soil and use natural amendments to restore it to a healthy type will tremendously help your lawn or garden flourish this season.

The Different Types of Soil

When it comes to your soil, you might be thinking, “Why does it matter? Dirt is dirt”. That’s not exactly the case, though. There are several kinds of soil, and each is different. Each soil type drains differently and has varying levels of nutrients that can impact the growth of your lawn and garden. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the soil types:

Loamy soil. This kind of soil is the best type for gardening. It tends to be slightly acidic (which lots of plants prefer) and drains well to keep plants hydrated but not soggy.
Clay soil. When you have clay soil, it tends to be thick and feels sticky when it’s wet. While clay is rich in nutrients, it doesn’t drain well.
Sandy soil. Sandy soil drains well but doesn’t retain any moisture, which makes it difficult for plants to stay properly watered. Sandy soil is also low in nutrients and won’t feed plants well.
Silty soil. This soil type is rich in nutrients; however, it can get slimy when wet, resulting in poor drainage.
Chalky soil. When you’re dealing with chalky soil, you’ll find it is very alkaline and free draining. It dries out very quickly and doesn’t have many nutrients to offer besides calcium.
Peaty soil. Soil that is peaty is damp and spongy. It will retain moisture well, but drainage can be a problem.

Find out What Kind of Soil You Have

Now that you know about the different soil types, it’s time to do a test to find out what kind of soil you have. Use the following steps to get your soil sample:

Dig down about six inches and take some soil. If you have a large planting area, you’ll want to test soil from multiple places.
Put soil in a pint-sized jar until it’s about halfway full. Then, add a few drops of liquid dish soap and fill the jar the rest of the way up with water.
Put the lid on tightly and shake the jar for about three minutes.
Put the jar aside and allow 24 hours for all the particles to settle. Once it’s settled, you’ll be able to see the individual layers that make up your soil.

Check Your Soil’s pH

Your soil pH is another important factor in how well things will grow and even what you can grow in your soil. Knowing what the pH of your soil is and how to amend it is a big part of having a healthy garden:

You can pick up a pH test kit from your local garden center, but if you’re more of a DIY person, there are several options for testing pH at home.
A pH reading of 7 means your soil is neutral. pH readings below 7 are acidic, and readings above 7 are alkaline. An ideal soil reading will be around 6.5. This means your soil is slightly acidic, and nutrients will dissolve well and be readily available.
To raise your soil pH, you can add limestone to your soil. The lime will break down in the soil and raise the alkalinity over time.
To lower your soil pH, sulfur should be added. Peat moss can also be used, but this method isn’t sustainable. Additionally, peat moss has been overharvested in some areas, which may make it difficult or expensive to obtain.
When amending your soil pH, be sure to check your pH levels regularly and add any amendments slowly over time.

What to Do With Difficult Soil

Many gardeners often dump too much time and too many resources into their lawn before realizing it’s just not working as well as they’d hoped, or it’s taking too long. If you find yourself in this situation — with a soil type or pH that will take too much to fix — you can still have a garden.

You might look at planting raised garden beds and using prepackaged soil. This is a perfect solution to yards that are massive works in progress. A few advantages to a raised garden bed include:

You can quickly and easily put together a raised garden bed.
Raised beds are more accessible to gardeners with physical limitations such as arthritis.
You can often plant earlier since the soil stays warmer in a raised bed.

No matter what challenges are put in front of you, there’s always a way to create your own little slice of heaven by growing a garden. With the right testing processes and soil amendments (or raised garden beds), you’ll have your garden on track and ready to grow in no time.

Infographic created by Safer Brand.

Get to Know Microgreens – Easy to Grow & Better than Sprouts

The appearance of miniature leafy vegetables is not the only reason they are increasing in popularity among gardening professionals, chefs, and consumers. It turns out that microgreens are a robust superfood filled with an enormous amount of energy, nutrients, and antioxidants.

The miniature veggies and herbs have the amazing ability to pack up a lot of flavour in a small amount and can be used to create texture or to give a final touch to a dish. With a plethora of nutritional benefits and distinctive taste, microgreens definitely deserve a place in your home garden and your diet.

What Are Microgreens?

Microgreens are the young seedlings of a variety edible vegetables or herbs, harvested less than two weeks after germination. During this period, also known as the cotyledon growth stage, the first set of leaves sprout, but the root system and the leaf structure are not fully developed. As the name suggests, they are pretty small in size – only one to three inches of height. Popular microgreens include kale, radish greens, onions, watercress, cabbage, broccoli, amaranth, and arugula and herbs such as basil, cilantro, parsley, chervil, and chives. What is unique about these tiny plants is that they have a stronger and more condensed taste than the mature plants.

Microgreens Vs. Sprouts

In the recent years microgreens have become a good alternative to sprouts for various reasons. Both microgreens and sprouts pack a powerful punch with an abundance of flavor and nutrients. The two differ in their planting method and therefore in their nutrient value. Unlike sprouts that are grown using only water, microgreens require soil. As they grow, microgreens absorb minerals from the soil and undergo more photosynthesis than sprouts, increasing their nutritional content. The young seedlings are more developed than sprouts and thus have slightly higher fiber content. Lastly, there have been fatal outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant E-coli traced back to sprouts. These factors give microgreens a considerable competitive advantage over sprouts.

Nutritional Content of Microgreens

Leafy vegetables are rich in beta-carotene as well as calcium and iron. Dark green leafy plants such as chard and kale are also high in lutein and zeaxanthin. Below, you can find the nutritional information for some of the most popular microgreens.

Red Cabbage Micros

Highest levels of vitamin C – a 100-gram portion contains 147 mg of vitamin C or 245% of the daily value vs. 57 mg in an equal-sized serving of mature raw red cabbage
Microgreen red cabbage contains 69 times more vitamin K than the mature plant
The microgreen version has 40 times more vitamin E than the fully-grown red cabbage

Cilantro Microgreens

Higher concentrations of carotenoids than the mature herb
Higher levels of lutein, violaxanthin, and zeaxanthin
The microgreen version contains 3 times more beta-carotene

Garnet Amaranth

Contains the highest amount of vitamin K1 compared to other microgreens and its matured counterpart

Green Daikon Radish

Has the highest levels of vitamin E compared to other microgreens and its fully-grown counterpart
A small amount of daikon radishes can cover your daily need of vitamin C (the recommended allowance for adults is 15 mg)

Lettuce Seedlings

Has the highest antioxidant capacity among the microgreens, especially seven days after germination
Has the highest amounts of health-promoting phenolic compounds

Sunflower

The microgreen consists of 24% to 30% protein

What Does This Mean for You?

Judging by the nutritional information of these selected microgreens, there are plenty of reasons to incorporate them into your diet. They are a good source of vitamin C – a powerful antioxidant that helps protect your body from the negative impact of the free radicals. Beta-carotene reduces the risk of eye diseases and cancer, while Vitamin K plays an important role for maintaining strong and healthy bones.

It’s hard to get the required amount of vitamins and minerals you need every single day, but eating microgreens can provide a quick and easy way to do it. If you are interested in adding more microgreens into your menu, you have two options – you can either purchase them or grow them yourself. Luckily you don’t need the service of expert gardeners for this project.

Growing Microgreens

These tiny plants take far less time to grow than regular greenery and are ready for harvest within 7 to 10 days. In comparison, their mature counterparts require 10 weeks.Keep in mind that once you cut them in their early stage, the tiny greens will not continue to grow and you will need to start all over again. Microgreens are pretty easy in terms of planting and gardening because they require minimal sunlight and space. You can grow these tender and tiny greens in your kitchen or in a windowsill.

Keep in mind that once you cut them in their early stage, the tiny greens will not continue to grow and you will need to start all over again, but microgreens are pretty easy in terms of planting and gardening because they require minimal sunlight and space. You can grow these tender and tiny greens in your kitchen or in a windowsill.

Another benefit of home-grown microgreens is that they are not exposed to as many pollutants as commercially offered varieties. Since it’s up to you to determine the gardening conditions, such as the type and quality of soil and the exposure to pesticides, you will have toxin-free and healthier microgreens.

Growing your own microgreens provides you with easy access to fresh and delicious mini vegetables ready for use. For more gardening ideas, be sure to read the City Garden Blog.

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Useful Tips for Growing Food in the Big City

Living in the big city does not have to cause your green thumb to wilt. In fact, urban gardening projects are becoming more popular in these modern times, whether the gardening is done indoors, on a small patio outdoors, or the roof of the building in which you live.

Whether your passion is exotic fruit trees, herbs, or growing your own vegetables, there is something for everyone who likes running their fingers through a fresh bag of potting soil. The following tips will breathe new life into your big city gardening project.

Save on Gardening Containers

If you think you need to go out and buy a ton of planting pots to start your urban garden, you’ll appreciate these cost-saving alternatives, many of which you probably have on hand:

Plastic bottles from drinking water, fruit juice, and other liquids. Rinse the bottles thoroughly with plain water, and cut off the tops where the bottles start to narrow.
Plastic containers from yogurt, spreads, nuts, and other food items. Wash the containers, put the tops in the recycle bin, and you’ve got pots.
Buckets that are cracked or have lost their handles. A severe crack can be mended with tape while a minor crack will be useful for drainage.
A shallow wading pool. Have fun by planting your crops in concentric circles or a spiral from the inside out.
Hanging flower pots left over from seasons gone by. They’re ideal for vertical gardening and can be placed on the ground, too.
Plastic kitchen bowls and cups. Turn items you’re likely to discard due to appearance into containers where something green will grow.

It is important to drill holes through the bottoms of containers that don’t already have them to allow drainage of excess water which might otherwise cause roots to rot, destroying the plant.

These and many similar items are easily modified for gardening purposes. A large low-rimmed plastic tub or storage container will also work for potting multiple plants in the same container. One thing you need to take into account, other than the obvious factor of plant size, is that different plants need different amounts of mulch. Choose plants accordingly and make sure the pot has enough space to spread the mulch nice and even. Organic mulches provide extra benefits. They add valuable nutrients and promote soil micro-organism activity for overall plant health.

The Role of Light in Your Plant’s Development

One of the critical, dynamic factors involved in indoor and outdoor plant growth is lighting. It is important to remember that different plants have different lighting requirements. According to the University of Illinois, plants exhibit three types of responses to light.

The first of these responses is photosynthesis. This process is how plants convert light into storable chemical energy necessary for a plant’s survival.

The second of these responses is phototropism. In the process of phototropism, plant growth hormones build up on one side of a plant’s stem. This buildup causes it to tilt in the direction of available sunlight.

The third reaction is photoperiodism. This fascinating response is controlled by a pigment in the leaves called phytochrome. The pigment changes form to determine how a plant will developmentally respond to receiving red light during dark periods. In short, this means that a plant has a reproductive cycle that reacts to the changes in the lengths of day and night.

What does all of this mean for your success with urban gardening? Here are a few tips and takeaways.

Know the light needs of the plants you’re growing. Most plants require full sunlight, especially if they are bearing fruit. The best place for fruit and veggie plants is outside. If you’re committed to growing them indoors, a bay window facing the sun might suffice. Otherwise, you’ll need to install grow lights.

On the other hand, a wide range of plants such as climbing hydrangea, Japanese rose, and columbine prefer partial to full shade. These do very well indoors near a window or glass door or outside where they get limited direct sunlight during the day.

The stems of plants growing near a window or against an outdoor wall might start bending toward the light. To keep the plant growing straight with a stem that is robust all around, rotate its container 90 degrees each day.

Any fruit-bearing plant will produce more abundantly with grow lights. The best solution is LED grow lights that use far less energy and create much less heat than conventional grow lights.The better you understand the role light plays in a specific type of plant’s development, the easier it will be to customize the light intake for each one.

Organizing Your Gardening Tools

When your space is limited, it is best to keep all your big city gardening tools organized for easy access. Here are three tool organizers used by urban gardeners:

A small wooden box or crate repurposed for your tools.
A pegboard on the wall, inside or outdoors, that also has floor space.
A small gardening cart with a handle that includes storage inside and a lid for sitting on as you prune, pull weeds or pick fruit.

With Limited Space, Think Vertical

Depending on your living arrangements, you may have lots or very limited space for your big city garden. Urban-based agricultural projects range from expansive green roofing designs to a single square foot outdoors or an indoor garden. Fortunately, the ongoing development of urban gardening techniques means that just about anyone living in the city can have the thrill of making something grow! One of the most popular trends is known as vertical gardening, and you’ve got interesting options:

Use trellises for tomatoes, beans and other vine plants to climb and produce.
Arrange rows of hooks on a privacy fence or the outside wall of your home. For example hang one row at one meter and a second row at two meters. Hang baskets from the hooks, and use the top row for plants requiring full sun. The lower row will be ideal for plants preferring partial shade.
In similar fashion, attach rows of planting boxes to a fence or wall, and select appropriate plants for each row.

Create your Own Compost

Today’s urban lifestyle is often a green one, and making the most of leftover food scraps is part of it. Your local gardening centre will have home composting bins, most of which come with complete instructions, and the few additional supplies you’ll need.

Ideal items for home composting include:

Fruit and vegetable scraps.
Bread and similar products.
Coffee grounds and tea bags.
Grains.
Leaves that drop or are pruned from your plants.

Items you should not compost include:

Meat and meat products including bones, fat, skin. Fish or fish waste.
Dairy products.

Those who want to take home composting to the next level might consider using a composting toilet. That’s right, humanure, as many call it, is ideal for use in an urban garden! Composting toilets mean that waste isn’t really a waste after all.

Besides saving space, there are additional benefits of vertical gardening. Because the plants are elevated, weeding them and picking fruit and flowers is done without stooping. Inspecting for insects, pruning and weeding are less of a chore, too. There is little waste of fruit, since it won’t sit on the ground where it can rot, be eaten by pests, or be overlooked under foliage.

Conclusion

With the price of food constantly increasing, many residents of big cities are turning to gardens to reduce their grocery bills. Others simply appreciate the benefit of unadulterated, fresh, organic produce as a key component to a nutrient-dense diet. Whatever your reason for starting your big city garden project, knowing how to grow your own food is always a good skill to develop. You never know when it might come in handy.

Sources & Further Reading:

How Vertical Gardening Could Help Save the World

Most people aren’t gardeners, and even fewer are bona fide farmers. All of us, though, eat.

For this reason, food producers around the country — and around the world — are faced with a high demand for their products, a demand that might become unattainable in the future. In order to ensure a greater sense of food security, it’s time for us all to consider cultivating our own gardens.

You might be scratching your head if you live in an apartment, urban environment, or any other place that doesn’t have the green space for a garden. Fortunately, green thumbs before you have come up with the idea of a vertical garden. You can hang plants, put them on shelves, or simply put them in pots with trellises so that they can grow onward and upward.

You, too, can grow onward and upward if you start your own vertical garden. Aside from improved food security, below are six more reasons home gardens are the way of the future.

It’s Good for the Environment

Imagine the journey the vegetables you buy in a grocery store must go through to get there. They’re often picked in another state or country and transported for miles to reach you. That effort requires a ton of resources that your backyard garden can eliminate. Your own fresh fruits and veggies will produce less waste, help prevent soil erosion, and stave off future droughts.

It’s Healthier for You

You’ve heard — or you might know from sampling them yourself — organic fruits and veggies typically taste better than their pesticide-laden counterparts. Naturally grown produce also boasts more vitamins and minerals, especially if it’s locally grown and bought as fresh as possible. Imagine how flavorful and beneficial your vertical garden will be: freshly picked vegetables and fruits can go directly into your cooking, no middleman or nutrients lost.

Many home gardeners also get creative, growing produce that might otherwise be hard to come by or expensive in stores. This daringness has health benefits, as your body craves dietary diversity. New fruits and vegetables without steep price tags or miles of travel? Sign us up.

It Keeps Water Cleaner

As previously mentioned, many farmers rely on chemically based products to keep insects and other plant-eating pests at bay. These might be helpful to the farmer and improve overall yield, but they’re not good for us or for our water supply.

Perhaps it rains or the farmer waters his plants after spraying on a layer of pesticides. Where does the run-off go? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it often goes into our groundwater, and more than 35 states have contaminated groundwater because of this cycle. Your home garden can help cut down on this, and you can drink from the tap with a little more confidence.

It Cuts Down on Energy Usage

You probably don’t think about farms as places where a massive amount of energy is used, but think again: modern farming uses more petroleum than any other industry. This figure includes the production of synthetic pesticides, which actually account for more energy usage than the planting and harvesting of natural crops. If you say “yes” to gardening — and “no” to synthetic pesticides — you can help reduce this number.

It Boosts Biodiversity

Crop fields are often dedicated to, well, one type of crop. This makes the farmer’s life easier, for sure, but it doesn’t do much for the environment. It saps nutrients from the soil and allows pests to become smarter in their attack on our food supplies; that’s why fertilizers and pesticides have become commonplace.

By planting your own garden with a bunch of different plants, you’ll be doing your part to mix it up. Even if you don’t have a plot of land to improve with your green gardening, your vertical garden can attract bees and other helpful insects that might not show up to tired farmlands. They’re vital to the biodiversity of an area, too, because of their role in pollination.

It Bulks Up Your Wallet

This one might not necessarily save the world, but it might mean the world to you and your family. A vertical garden can help you save grocery money.

You can also use scrap wood and recycled containers, rather than buying new supplies to start your vertical garden. It doesn’t take much: seeds, soil, and some basic power tools can transform an unused corner of your patio or apartment into a tiny farm.

You can also create your own compost in order to fertilize your plants for free. Once your garden starts yielding produce, you’ll save money at the grocery store, too. You’ll avoid rising food costs, help the environment, and eat more flavorful meals. Who said saving the world had to be hard?

If you want to contribute to sustainable lifestyles and grow your own food, vertical gardening is a great solution! Nearly anyone can do it; you just need the right inspiration.

What vertical gardening strategies could you use in your home? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below!

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New Data Reflects the Continued Demand for Farmers Markets

WASHINGTON, August 2, 2014 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) Administrator Anne Alonzo announced today that USDA’s National Farmers Market Directory now lists 8,268 markets, an increase of 76 percent since 2008. The data reflects continued demand and growth of farmers markets in every region of the country. Alonzo also announced that AMS is developing three new local food directories that will expand USDA’s support for local and regional foods by providing easy access to the most current information about the local food market.

Alonzo made the announcements at the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison, Wisconsin, the country’s largest producer-only market, where she kicked off the 15^th annual “National Farmers Market Week”, from August 3 through 9, 2014.

“The National Farmers Market Directory numbers reflect the continued importance of farmers markets to American agriculture. Since its inception, the directory has proven to be a valuable tool for accessing up-to-date information about local farmers markets,” Alonzo said. “Farmers markets play an extremely important role for both farmers and consumers. They bring urban and rural communities together while creating economic growth and increasing access to fresh, healthy foods.”

The USDA National Farmers Market Directory, available at farmersmarkets.usda.gov, provides information about U.S. farmers market locations, directions, operating times, product offerings, and much more. The data is collected via voluntary self-reporting by operating farmers market managers and is searchable by zip code, product mix, and other criteria. The National Farmers Market Directory receives over 2 million hits annually.<

In addition to USDA’s National Farmers Market Directory, AMS is adding:

USDA’s National Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Enterprise Directory
A CSA is a farm or network/association of multiple farms that offer consumers regular deliveries of locally-grown farm products during one or more harvest season(s) on a subscription or membership basis.
USDA’s National Food Hub Directory
A Food Hub is a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products to multiple buyers from multiple producers, primarily local and regional producers, to strengthen the ability of these producers to satisfy local and regional wholesale, retail, and institutional demand.
USDA’s National On-Farm Market Directory
An On-Farm Market is a farm market managed by a single farm operator that sells agricultural and/or horticultural products directly to consumers from a location on their farm property or on property adjacent to that farm.

USDA invites local food business owners who fall within these categories to list their operational details in the new directories www.usdalocalfooddirectories.com. These new directories will be available online early in 2015, giving potential customers, business partners, and community planners easy, one-stop access to the most current information about different sources of local foods.

2014 Directory Highlights

According to USDA’s 2014 National Farmers Market Directory, the states with the most farmers markets reported are California (764 markets), New York (638 markets), Michigan (339 markets), Ohio (311 markets), Illinois (309 markets), Massachusetts (306 markets), Pennsylvania (297 markets), Wisconsin (295 markets), Virginia (249 markets), and Missouri (245 markets). All geographic regions saw increases in their market listings, with the most growth in the South. The 10 states with the biggest increases in the numbers of farmers markets include Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Arkansas, North Carolina, Montana, Florida and Nebraska. Five of these states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina – are part of USDA’s StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity, where USDA has increased investment in rural communities through intensive outreach and stronger partnerships.

Farmers market development is a cornerstone of USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative, which coordinates the Department’s policy, resources, and outreach efforts related to local and regional food systems. Secretary Vilsack has identified strengthening local food systems as one of the four pillars of USDA’s commitment to rural economic development.

USDA Office of Communications

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