The first class of the DFW Citizen Gardener program occurred on August 13, 2011, and it was a great success! We had 29 students go through, and I could tell there were many ‘ah-ha’ moments for people. I think many were inspired to go home and start growing some of their own food.
I decided this past spring to find some type of useful action that could help to solve some of the problems I complain about all the time. So I decided that I would bring the Citizen Gardener program that started in Austin to the DFW metroplex.
This program is designed to give every-day people, who don’t have much time or money, the knowledge, skills, and encouragement to grow some of their own food. It also aims to build community, help individuals help others, and teach how to be sustainable. I think that many of the students from this initial class will go on to volunteer and, hopefully, to even teach future classes.
I’ll schedule additional future classes in the local planting season, and hope to have many available in the spring time. If anyone is interested in learning more about the program, please visit the main Citizen Gardener DFW page, the Citizen Gardener board on the North Texas Vegetable Gardeners forum, or contact me directly!
Goals of the DFW Citizen Gardener Program
- Introduce new people (and re-introduce experienced ones) to vegetable gardening with a set of techniques with proven sucess that balance time, resources, and effort. The techniques are to be specific to the growing conditions of the North Texas region.
- Provide students the skills, knowledge, and encouragement to “go home and do it”.
- Build helpful community of local backyard gardeners.
- Create regenerative culture (healing and self-reliance).
- Grow healthy food where the people are.
- Education
- Healthy soil / Healthy food / Healthy people
- One good method of growing food in the North Texas Area
- Maintain a Self-Sustaining program
- Decentralized and ‘Open’ (can be duplicated by others)
- Create a surplus (of knowledge, resources, soil, good-will, and food)
- Cooperate and help with other local food programs, gardening groups, and businesses.
I think this sounds like a really cool program. I like the idea of trying to make the dfw community more sustainable. I find it interesting that this is in almost every major city. I feel like this is definitely something our classes could also get involved in.
This is a good idea and it makes a lot of sense. The first step toward putting the grow your own food into action is for people to learn how to grow things. The program grows things that can indeed survive in this climate, which is important for success. The part about the cooperation between other food programs and businesses is a good way for the work of the program to spread. It might not be much, but just learning how to grow something at all may actually make a big difference.
Jackson is absolutely right. The first step to building up anything is education. Without education nothing could ever get done. The Citizen Gardener program is definitely on the right track. This is such a phenomenal idea and is actually going to make advancement. Its practical and very doable. This brings back the idea that a bunch of little, easy things can make a big difference.
This program is truly a great idea and somewhat echoes what I have beens saying in previous blog posts. It is great for people to learn how to farm and have the neccesary knowledge it takes to produce your own food and live sustainably. I really applaud the program for taking the initiative and making an effort to live and teach better for future farmers.
I agree with Mason here, I believe the first step to creating a sustainable environment is to educate people.This is exactly what this area needs. This program can build a strong amount of people ready to help the environment.
This program is a really good addition into our society because it is something that is helpful and has the potential to be very successful. I like how it is aiming towards the people who do not have a lot of knowledge upon the growth of food. This could really make a huge impact on groups of people since it is developing their skills of farming, which leads to better access of healthy foods and a sustainable society. The development of this program was a well thought-out idea and has the potential to make a great impact on future farmers.
I think this program will go far in the future. It doesn’t just have to be for people who dont’t have that much money either, wealthy people can learn to grow their own food as well and live more sustainably. Wealthy people could really do a lot with this program because they will have the time and money to grow larger gardens and support their household based more on their own crops. They could even start donating home grown fruits and vegetables to the poor rather than money.
Appreciate all the encouraging words guys, thanks!
I think this is an awesome program! It’s something that I would have thought was already taking place in the Dallas metroplex. I wish that it had. However, this gives people who are really busy the opportunity to possibly grow their own food. Like we’ve talked about a lot in class, one of the biggest problems in relation to food health is that the majority of people are uneducated. If people are more educated on where their food comes from and what they can actually do to make their lives healthier, then I believe that the human population will start to change rapidly.
This program makes it seem possible and realistic to farm and produce your own food. I think this is a very good idea and if people actually follow through with this program it could change our society and environment tremendously. Unfortunately one of the main problems with people in our society today is their laziness and lack of care. This prgram would definitely help educate people and lead us to become a sustainaoble society.
Teal’s right. People are lazy! They’re not going to want to put in tons of effort to make their own food unless they’re already produce/agriculture oriented. But if they have enough motivation and desire for fresh, healthy food I think people might come around to the idea of growing their own food. As Teal said, this program would really educate people and spread awareness.
I agree that this is a good idea. Many people bring up a good point of that the food would have to be able to survive in out extremely temperamental weather. Not only this year did/will we have extreme high and lows but it is not constant. It will get cold on day of the week and be warm the rest. This has to affect the way the food grows. I think education is a big part of this, and it is super helpful to educate people on how they could make their home life more productive and less costly to them. However another way to even more improve the community could be taking this program to restaurants and businesses. Restaurants could get so much more business if they could lab all there fruits and vegetables as freshly grown in house (meaning at the store). And business could probably cut down on cost of buying food for vending machines etc. if they had a small kitchen with fresh food that could be quickly prepared. And I’m not saying have this where full meals could be cooked thats a little unrealistic but where a fresh potato, sweet potato, corn, carrots could be cooked and eaten, instead of a candy bar. This is a great idea for our DFW area but i think it could be take much farther then just that.
I agree that taking this thought to restaurants can actually work. People would be more interested if its freshly grown foods. Since it is grown in homes, the food will be more cheap so all people could afford it. This would help restaurants with their spending money because they can cut down on the costs of other products. This is a good idea for our country since all types of people would be able to purchase products from here.
What is local food cost more than conventional food? Would you pay more at a restaurant for it? How much more?
This is great! I’ve always thought that the root of the problem regarding nutrition is a general lack of education. Subsequently, the solution to obesity and thus the reversal of the mindset of consumers today all begins with education. I myself would love to take part in a program like this one, and it would be amazing to see a program such as this spread on a national scale, increasing awareness and gaining participants. Simple changes in diet habit, as well as a conscienciousness for the way food is grown and prepared, can enact great changes for the future. The message conveyed through this program is an essential one, and the success seems promising…it’s about time people take an interest in what they are putting into their bodies as well as how the corporations they support are farming in such a way that affects the world around them.
This program sounds great and has some good goals set for themselves. I had no idea they had one of these in every major city. I think we need to get the word out more about this program because this can start something big and you never know, it could be the next big thing.
This is what the world needs. An program that not only educates the old, but also the young in terms of environmental friendliness and sustainability. One of the key necessities in changing the world is education. The more programs there are like this, the more change you will see in the world. I guarantee it.