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Is your garden on the World Food Garden Map?

It’s times like these when we remember that it’s actually of huge benefit to ourselves to grow some of our own food. So many of us have forgotten that, because it’s “easier” to just pop to the supermarket when we want fresh herbs, or an apple, or some cabbage for a stew, and let’s face it, it’s pretty “cheap” too.

But lately it’s become more difficult to make ends meet for many of us, the planet is warming up under our carbon footprint and we’re all suffering from stress because our lives are too fast/too complicated/too busy. It’s as if nature is reminding us that we’ve just got it wrong, and she’s steering us back in the right direction. Personal food security becomes of vital importance when people lose their jobs, have to take pay cuts or are struggling in one way or another to feed their families. It’s going to become even more important as the planet warms and resources like water become scarcer. And then there’s our tenuous grip on peace. How many of us can claim to feel at peace with ourselves and our surroundings?

Growing our own food can give us back our food security when money is scarce. It’s far cheaper to buy a packet of seeds and grow them into vegetables than it is to buy even cheap vegetables from the supermarket. It also cuts our carbon footprint considerably, because the food that we are eating is produced by us in our own space and doesn’t have to be transported, packaged or processed in a carbon intensive manner. And then there’s the added benefit of gardening being a very effective drug-free (and cash-free) therapy to lower stress.

So, why not get growing? You don’t need masses of space to grow lettuce and herbs on a windowsill. You can turn any garden, rooftop, balcony or windowsill into an eco-friendly food garden.

Then share your garden with the world with the wonderful World Food Garden Map.

world-food-garden-map

The World Food Garden Map was started by a lady called Eve Sibley who after tending a back-stoep city garden for 10 years realised the positive environmental and social impacts that come with growing your own food. She founded the website under the premise that “many of the world’s current issues- environmental, economic, and political, would be much alleviated if everyone in the world tended their own small garden.” And that “Gardening is a resource we all have the right to use to keep our minds, bodies and planet healthy.”

At the World Food Garden Map, food gardeners can share their gardening tips and learn about what grows well in their locations. You can zoom in on the map to see who else is gardening in your area, and what they’re growing. Eve tells us a little more about the site in this video:

I’ve added my garden, it’s the one in the screenshot above at the very bottom tip of Africa.

[via: Realizing Ordinary]

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