Civically Engaged reports on growing food/original air date 5-20-11

Derek Lory describes his work w/ Helping Hands Community Garden which is located on E. Hudson Street.

Tomi Rudavsky will tells us about the garden she and her husband enjoy near the Olentangy trail, on Kenworth in Clintonville.

Café Bella owner, Vince Withers, describes some of the details of the aquaculture gardens in the back of his High Street restaurant.

And Joe Beth--yes, I did not get her last name---tells us about the raised beds of vegetables she, her husband, and her two daughters are growing in the front yard of their home on Crestview Ave in Clintonville, just a Frisbee throw away from the Clintonville Community Market. Before putting this show together which has sat around on my computer for a couple of weeks, I saw Joe Beth and asked for her last name. She said “just use my first name, like I’m a rock star.”

Well, OK.

To start off let’s hear about gardening from a few really young folk who were working at the Helping Hands Community Garden one Saturday morning about 3 weeks ago.

Leading those children on that Saturday morning was Derek Lory. He’s been coordinating the work at the Helping Hands Community Garden. Let’s hear what he has to say about that.

About a mile or so Northwest of the Helping Hands community garden, you may notice a well-designed garden of raised beds in the front yard of Tomi Rudavsky on Kenworth, near the Olentangy trail. I leaned my bicycle against the automobile in her driveway as she told me about the garden she and her husband have been cultivating there on Kenworth Ave for seven years.

About a mile or so downstream on the Olentangy River is Café Bella, where owner Vince Withers grows herbs and vegetables with aquaculture gardens.

Water circulates from fish tanks to plants in the rafters in the roof of the café’s patio. One late afternoon while the café was closed, and empty for deep cleaning, Withers talked to me about some aspects of his work.

The Helping Hands Community garden is on the property of the Helping Hands Center for Special Needs.

It has 1,750 square feet of growing space with five plots, four of them designated for the food pantry portion of the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resource Center. Here’s the link to the garden’s Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/people/HelpingHands-CommunityGarden/100001816437599

I asked him for his gardener-in-the-community opinion on how we may have more local food in Columbus and beyond.

“ If people are just more willing to open up their backyards to their friends and neighbors, if schools and churches and businesses would just allow for this land that---I mean you’re just using it for a lawn. You could actually use it for growing your own food. Or (there could be more ) rooftop gardens…or container (gardens), hydroponics, or whatever you can do.

“Just grow food…we just have to get the momentum and the drive and the force to want to. For the most part, people have good intentions, but until people hit dire straits they really don’t think about it. And I just want them to before that happens.”

I also asked this guy named Derek Lory why having more local food matters.

“ The way that we’re so dependent on fossil fuels, locally grown and locally harvested food is better because you know where your food is coming from. And you don’t have to transport it as much.

“The results ( of community gardening) are so rewarding. You’re creating food for yourself and for your neighbor. You’re also reusing stuff people are throwing away, for gardening devices and containers.”

“Community gardening--we have this spot right here on Hudson---just seeing it is the first step, because a lot of people have good intentions. They do mean well. They just don’t get around to it.

“And just seeing it like, ‘wow, that’s really simple. I can do that.’ You just start with a plant. Even if you don’t think you have a green thumb, you can start with something small. Just go from there.

“I’ve only been gardening for three years --I’m not a guru but I’m not a novice. I’m in the middle. And it just took 3 years, part-time. When you have the time, you read and you just go and experiment and get your hands dirty.”