In the midst of many harvest feasts this week, I read an alarming article in Chicago magazine that focused on the 609,034 Chicagoans that live in food deserts, defined as areas short on access to fresh meat and produce but ripe with convenience stores and fast food outlets. Of these households, 64,000 of them don't have a car to travel the average .59 miles to the nearest grocery store. Add to that the fact that 109,000 of the residents in food deserts are single mothers and you've got a recipe for food choices that are largely dependent on convenience.

The solutions suggested by many community leaders is three-fold: Access to better foods through new grocery stores, Education on eating healthfully, and Innovation, in the form of garden and nutrition education programs like Growing Home that host a weekly farm stand to grow the goods from their urban garden, and God's Gang's Planting Dreams program, that provides training in urban agriculture.

Thankfully, there are innovators all across the country working towards universal access to better food every day. Some of these innovators were recently awarded a Healthy Sprouts Award by KidGardening.org, and we applaud them for leading the way!

We're proud that the Good Food Gardens are playing a small role of the effort to feed America better, and we recognize that it takes every one of these innovating organizations working side by side to end childhood hunger and malnutrition. Every hungry mouth needs a willing hand to feed it. We welcome you to the conversation.  

-Sarah Copeland, Good Food Gardens

I love children's books. Good ones have inspired hundreds of kids to try something new, and many of them grow up to continue doing the things they dreamt and read about on those pages. In my case, it was Meet Molly, of the American Girl series, that first got me interested in gardening. Molly planted a Victory Garden (to help feed her family during the war), so I planted a Victory Garden. While my family never relied on it (thankfully, since I was also busy playing Marco Polo in the neighborhood pool and dressing up my baby brother like a girl), the gardening bug has stayed with me ever since. My favorite new children's book, The Curious Garden, is inspired by New York City's newly opened High line, a raised-track park full of good and green ideas that starts at Gansevoort and grows right past our kitchen windows up the West side toward 34th street. Other great gardening books aimed at kids, full of stories, edible education, scientific experiments and good old fashioned muddy fun, are highlighted in one of my favorite websites dedicated to and called Gardening With Kids. And of course, I can't forget my all-time favorite garden story, The Secret Garden, that not only helped me imagine the abandoned chicken coop on my grandparents farm as my own walled garden, but also encouraged my affection for skipping rope, British dialects and fashioning phrases like pride goeth before a fall into my 12-year-old vocabulary. As we gather more garden-inspired stories for our own Good Food Gardens Library, send us your favorites and what you love or loved about them.

I was beyond thrilled to spend this past Saturday with Mark Teich at the New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG) for the opening of our first, fully opened Good Food Garden!  

GFG is part of the NYBG's exhibit, The Edible Garden, where visitors are able to experience the produce blossom and grow from now until September.  While our Teich system will live there over the summer, we are planning on donating the beautiful, yummy structure to a nearby school.

Mark, the owner of Teich Garden Systems, and I filled guests with knowledge on everything that these gardens do now and will do in the future!  Ranging from using organic, sustainable materials to the variety of produce that can be enjoyed - nothing was left out of our conversation.

The support we received from all those who stopped by was unbelievable!  Everyone - young and old - were super friendly and enthusiastic. 

I'll never forget the look on one little girls face as she skipped from plant to plant asking her mother what each one was.  What an incredible way to spend a sunny Saturday!

Warmly,
Kendra