On Monday, October 28, 2013 11:05 AM, Jim McCue wrote to Chuck Christen and Alex Bodnar: The Ladora Way Urban Farm garden, this morning, was bulldozed. Having grown up in weeds, complaint or complaints were called in. Having contributed by far the most amount of labor to that our first garden which started with the 2008 economic downturn, I will write a little about it: Maybe the economic downturn and my recognition of food insecurity led to fear-based motivation in getting support for it. The food insecurity I and others worried about in 2008 is still here (and clearer to many more people), but my 3 garden injuries this year are making me ask myself if my own fears (as I know more than anybody what a fragile world we are in with all the conflicts and environmental and economic changes - and overworked) didnt make me hurt myself. Fear is a not good motivator, though we all know by now that the industrial ag system is becoming increasingly fragile. It was good pr for the city to help establish that garden, and bad pr was the reason they later took the sign down and bulldozed part because of complaints of high weeds and the dishonesty of some participants. Now theyve bulldozed the rest. We need cultural change. Weeds improve the soil and provide other ecosystem services. I have interacted with neighbors who: doused Roundup on their property; freaked out at the sight of a grasshopper; experienced fear of my really healthy really giant Mammoth Giant sunflowers; feared bees and other bugs,...etc. Other life forms are not the enemy. Species have to be expertly managed by biodiversity to keep e.g. disease and mosquitoes suppressed, not blasted out of fear w/e.g. chemicals. Children raised by children had food fights w/the produce. Ive made age 61 by, among other things, learning not to get crazy when over the years gardens I started got destroyed. I was stubbornly (or courageously if you will) composting back when composting in cities was a dirty word. I knew then that our society had to change radically and I know that now. Now its hip to compost, but the public and legal system in this part of the world has paired that down to rules of thumb and laws that are made for residential small-scale composting, but which should not apply to medium-scale or industrial thermophilic composting. There are municipal and private (e.g. restaurant) waste composting operations that screen and are excellently managed and dont culture rats, etc. or make bad smell. Having had a tough life partly caused by the fact that my chosen career/passion/mission in life did not make making money easy (composter was not even a job title until recently), Ive grown used to times like these when I get cited for rats or a garden I put so much into is destroyed. Thats life; I guess we all have our problems. I have no choice but do whatever positive I can when I can. Having given myself my first back problems, cut my thumb with a machete, and now having ruptured a finger tendon, I think Natures telling me I have no choice but do less manual labor. But, other than typing a little slower with this splint on my finger, I can still do intellectual work. Thats why Im writing this now. Pitt Make a Difference Day volunteers built 3 garden beds with salvaged bricks at Everybodys Garden Saturday, then took garlic to transplant to the Flowers Ave Garden. I left them there to attend the first meeting of New Economy Pittsburgh, another of many wonderful groups working toward the shared goal of transforming our destructive war-making business economy into the new green economy (assuming we dont COMPLETELY wreck Earths ecosystem and economy both first). The site of the Ladora Way garden is leveled. If it doesnt get positive things done there it will revert to the back alley drug etc. crap that was happening there before (part of the reason we started the garden in the first place). Any suggestions as to what plant to start with? How about daylilies, which are low maintenance and have quite good tasting flowers? If we ever get it together to have a COMMUNITY garden in which decisions are vetted with everybody (including ALL the neighbors), then maybe we can have bee hives and chickens again, and find agreement on how best to spend that 5 thousand dollars we raised. My vote is to spend on building a medium scale enclosed bioreactor (composter) able to safely handle ALL types of biomass waste (something thats already being done in the United States and many other parts of the world). Jim McCue St. Jim the Composter 412-421-6496 composter and biotech researcher bioeverything.blogspot/2009/02/celebrate-earth.html hazelwoodurbangardens.blogspot facebook/alllifelover hazelwoodhomepage.org
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:27:14 +0000
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