Sharing Land
My neighbor Diana, a retired pastor, has a plan to help kids who are hungry here in Des Moines: find land and find people to garden it. Diana started with churches because she knows them and many have properties with room to share.
The question now is how to reach farther, and the answer is a website for growers and landowners: SharedEarth.com. The site records offers of land to share (for both gardeners and farmers). Visitors to the site who are looking for land can search for offers in their vicinity. It is a growers/landowners match-making service.
It also holds the promise of raising more food locally and sustainably. Here’s how the folks at SharedEarth describe their work: "SharedEarth is a sustainable not for profit corporation and the largest community garden in the world. We are comprised entirely of volunteers whose passion, knowledge and dedication is based on our belief that we change the way land is used and food is grown - one garden at a time.”
The creator of Shared Earth, Adam Dell, was inspired when he found a gardener on the Internet to grow food on his land. Then came fresh fruits and vegetables from his land and from there the vision of Shared Earth.
Dell sees a broad reach for the matchmaking, from “I’m gonna be a farmer” to “I have a fire escape on my building in New York, I’m growing some food and I can use some help.” Like Diana, he’s thinking of churches too. In an interview by Alex Pasternack, Dell says, “We’d love to get some churches. The Catholic Church is the largest landowner in America. I’d love if churches, synagogues signed up and said 'We’ve got land, grow stuff! We’ll donate some of the produce to out food bank.'”
The site SharedEarth.com is friendly. Click on “I'm a Gardener, Need Land” or click on “Have Land, Need a Gardener” and create your profile. You can also search for growers or land in your area.
We at YourGardenShow encourage you to visit SharedEarth because our mission is to build a community of gardeners who share their gardens and experience and to bring more people into gardening.
People are joining in. So far, 38,223,100 square feet of land have been shared through the web site. This is an impressive indication of interest and the potential of local land serving local communities. My neighbor, Diana, it appears, has joined a growing idea.
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Comments (2)
Good name, true statement.
Square foot gardening produces about 10 lbs (5Kg.) of tomatoes per season. Imagine: 380 million more pounds of tomatoes for the world because of SharedEarth! Not to mention eggplant. Be still my heart!
There are all sorts of garden sharing sites nationally. Check out Urban Garden Share (www.urbangardenshare.org) in Seattle! They have sites in Louisville, Atlanta, Boise and others. A great site for sharing!