Are you—or do you aspire to be—a gardener? The Seacoast Community Garden Network (SCGN), brainchild of Slow Food Seacoast’s very own membership coordinator, Jenny Isler, is now a live, interactive website of resources for gardens and gardeners. It’s a place to make connections:

• See what community gardens (more than 30!) in the Seacoast area are doing.
• Find or list a community garden plot, gardeners, or supplies.
• Share problems, solutions, and achievements.
• Get help starting a community garden.

You don’t even have to be a community gardener to benefit from the wonderful  SCGN website, because anyone can

• Learn about composting, companion planting, canning, and more from the growing list of gardening resources.
• Consult the Calendar for an array of events related to gardening and sustainability and the Free Classifieds.
• Contribute to the Compost Pile.

If you want to respond to a Free Classified ad or participate in the Discussion Forum, you’ll have to register; but it’s quick (I just did it in about 30 seconds) and FREE, so why not check it out?

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For those of us who weren’t working behind the scenes for the past 4 or 5 months, building the framework for and decorating the virtual walls of this nonprofit interactive online community, SCGN seems to have have sprung straight from seed packet to vigorous seedling. But in reality, SCGN is an idea that has been germinating for a long time.

As long as 4 years ago, Jenny and fellow community garden coordinator Gail Wingate talked about connecting gardeners. They noticed that community gardens operated in isolation but faced many of the same problems—and as a result, each one was reinventing the wheel to solve them, duplicating efforts and wasting time that could be better spent working in the garden or enjoying the harvest! Their deep passion for vibrant community, local food resources, and the environment fueled their dream of making the Seacoast community garden movement stronger by bringing together the wisdom, experience, and vision of many gardeners.

Eventually, technology caught up with Jenny and Gail’s vision. A grant from the New England Grassroots Fund provided seed money, and the intrepid pair called together more than 20 community leaders to help define their vision. Bringing the vision to life were gifted community gardeners, artists, and Joomla! gurus Kathy Lombard and Donna Chick. Together, the four women met regularly from winter into spring, and the SCGN website went live on May Day, just in time for spring planting.

The resulting SCGN website—open-source construction, and free to anyone to use—features everything the focus group envisioned and more. And just like a garden, SCGN is self-managed: Anyone and everyone can contribute, update, and post to their heart’s content—planting their own seeds! Each community garden can create a Garden Page and even use it as their own website. Folks without a community garden (for now!) can contribute to the general forums and learn from the wonderful resources that the site provides.

Since Jenny and Gail’s initial conversation 4 years ago, the number of community gardens on the Seacoast has blossomed from 3 to more than 30. Many more gardens are yet to come, and SCGN is the place to learn, support, connect and share as our community garden movement grows stronger—together. Stop by the SCGN website to see what’s growin’ on!

The Jenness Farm Spring Open House/Open Farm Weekend is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, April 17 & 18, 2010, from 10 am to 6 pm, rain or shine. Enjoy fresh donuts; browse the new-and-improved Jenness Farm store (there’s so much more than goat milk soap!); buy products from several vendors. Visit with chicks, piglets, baby goats, lambs, and crazy turkeys—not to mention Rhun the Frisbee Dog, official farm greeter! The weekend-long event will offer lots of fun for children of all ages. Bring a picnic lunch and any questions that you may have. WHAT: Jenness Farm Spring Open House/Open Farm Weekend WHEN: April 17 & 18, 2010, 10 am–6 pm WHERE: 77 Garland Road, Nottingham, NH 03290 WEBSITE: http://www.jennessfarm.com

Nicola Twilley (founder and author of the blog Edible Geography) and Sarah Rich (a former senior editor of Dwell who writes about food, sustainability, and design) are collaborators on The Foodprint Project. They hosted Foodprint NYC— “the first in a series of international conversations about food and the city” —on February 27, 2010. In “Food and the Shape of Cities,” they talk about the perhaps surprising relationship between urban architecture and food systems. (Note: The article appears in Urban Omnibus, an online project of the Architectural League of New York. Thanks to Slow Food Seacoast’s Outreach Coordinator Amy Pollard for bringing the article to our attention!)

More resources:

“The Foodprint Project is a contextual exploration of food. From the cartography of food supply chains to the molecular anatomy of flavor, from the migration of ethnic recipes to the future of urban agronomy, foodprints look beyond the plate to the social, political, artistic and economic forces that shape the way we eat.”

“Foodprint NYC [was] the first in a series of international conversations about food and the city. From a cluster analysis of bodega inventories to the cultural impact of the ice-box, and from food deserts to peak phosphorus, panelists will examine the hidden corsetry that gives shape to urban foodscapes, and collaboratively speculate on how to feed New York in the future. The free afternoon program will include designers, policy-makers, flavor scientists, culinary historians, food retailers, and others, for a wide-ranging discussion of New York’s food systems, past and present, as well as opportunities to transform our edible landscape through technology, architecture, legislation, and education.”

The program schedule for this free public event included four thought-provoking panels:

• Zoning Diet (How do zoning, policy, and economics shape New York City’s food systems?)
• Culinary Cartography (What can we learn when we map New York City using food as the metric?)
• Edible Archaeology (How has today’s food culture in New York been shaped by social changes, economic fluctuations, and technological innovations throughout the city’s history?)
• Feast, Famine, and Other Scenarios (What are the opportunities and challenges of New York City’s possible food futures?)

Here’s a new idea:

• What if wannabe gardeners could find an open community garden plot, or folks with an extra acre could find community gardeners to transform their land?
• What if community gardens and gardeners could share their needs and solutions and learn from each other—even get to know each other?
• What if start-up community gardens could find everything they needed—sample documents, supplies, information and real live people with experience—in one place?
• What if we could build an interactive community that would support the growth and uniqueness of our community garden movement right here on the Seacoast?

This is the idea behind the Seacoast Community Garden Network—an open-to-all website that will be launching this spring, funded by the New England Grassroots Environment Foundation. Networks are popping up all over as people seek better ways to communicate with each other, but the Seacoast Community Garden is the first of its kind here. At a recent meeting, the ideas were coming fast and furious for how to build the Seacoast Community Garden Network (SCGN). It’s being designed now and should see the spring sunshine just in time for gardening season!

SCGN is still in the planning stages. If you’d like more information or want to become involved, please contact Jenny Isler to be put on the mailing list.

Via the Seacoast Eat Local blog:

Go Green, Go Healthy Fair - February 6th in Fremont
“This free, family-friendly event will also include massage, chiropractic care, natural cleaning ideas, nutrition ideas, energy conservation tools, stress reduction services, face painting, and healthy food samples.”

On Saturday, November 7, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the Seacoast Summit on Sustainability: Greening our Communities will be held at the Portsmouth Library, 175 Parrott Avenue, Portsmouth, NH.

The conference is being presented by Creating a Peaceful World by Sustaining our Future, a community group. All concerned citizens are invited to attend, become more informed about environmental issues of sustainability facing the seacoast community, learn how to take action, green our communities, and become prepared to sustain ourselves in the future, given the realities of climate change.

Dr. Tom Kelly, Director of Sustainability Programs at the University of New Hampshire, will be the opening speaker. Nine workshops will follow, in three tracks: Food, school nutrition, and sustainability, Town and state Activities and Planning, and Educating and Promoting Environmental Wisdom in Faith Communities. Panelists will include local sustainability leaders, in the towns of Barnstead, Dover, Durham, Epping, Exeter, Lee, Northwood, Barrington, Portsmouth, and Rochester.

The summit is sponsored by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of the Dover Friends Meeting. Participating faith communities include: Interfaith Sustainability Team, Durham Community Church, Exeter Congregational Church, Dover Congregational Church, Durham Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist South Church, and the Exeter Unitarian Universalist Church. A vegetarian meal will be served; workshops will be 75 to 90 minutes each, and there will be a short wrap-up session at 4:15 p.m. This Seacoast Summit is free to all.

Dr. Phyllis Killam-Abell, one of the founders and the coordinator of Creating a Peaceful World by Sustaining Our Future says, “Working toward sustainability is essential to preserve and respect the earth’s resources. Climate change, water shortages, poverty and diminishing supplies of oil and other commodities demand sustainable policies on the part of government and the private sector.” She describes “sustainability” as “the use of a resource in such a manner that it is not depleted or permanently damaged.”

Sponsors include the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of the Dover Friends Meeting, The Interfaith Sustainability Team, the Green Sanctuary Committee of the Durham Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the Seacoast African American Cultural Center (SAACC), Seacoast Peace Response, the Seacoast NAACP.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Killiam-Abell, 603-580-1934, or Ms. Heidi Porter, 207-384-0048. For four years Creating A Peaceful World by Sustaining our Future weekly has offered speakers, films, readings and discussion on sustainability issues on Wednesday evenings, 7:00 p.m., at Friends Meeting House, 141 Central Ave., Dover.

If you’re a gardener, chances are you will have some extra produce this summer—or might even be willing to plant a little extra. Those efforts could go a long way to helping feed folks for whom food is scarce—and this year, there is even more need than usual. The recession means that more families are experiencing food shortages, and food banks and assistance agencies are finding their resources are also required to stretch further and further.

Though lots of people know how to grow fresh food and are willing to share, in the past, it’s been hard to figure out how to get that food to people who need it. Most of us thought that food pantries could not accept fresh food. As it turns out, that isn’t always true! Many pantries  do take fresh veggies and other perishable items. And thanks to a new initiative called the Giving Gardens Network, it’s easier than ever to find them.

A volunteer-driven cooperative campaign set up with the help of several partner organizations,  the Giving Gardens Network is described as “a network of home gardeners, farmers and organizations that are working to encourage and support the donation of fresh food, grown locally in New Hampshire, to food pantries and shelters. By planning to raise a little extra … by growing the foods that are most needed … and by donating to locations that can accept fresh foods…we can help reduce hunger in New Hampshire.”

Using the Giving Gardens Network website, you can plan, grow, and donate your food to any one of the Seacoast food pantries that accept fresh food. And you can also keep track of statewide efforts to help feed the hungry using food grown right here at home.

Now that’s helping your neighbor.

Seacoast Local and RiverRun Bookstore present the next author in their “Making the Connection” speaker series, a series that serves as a catalyst for continuing education, community connections, and sustainable change. Lisa M. Hamilton, author of Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness, will be at RiverRun Bookstore on Saturday, June 27 . Hamilton will take us beyond local food and into the lives of western farmers who are David to the Goliath of corporate agriculture.

The event is co-sponsored by Slow Food Seacoast, and it starts at 6 pm with the debut of their new game “Who Wants to Be a Locavore?” Local food writer Rachel Forrest will host this trivia challenge, there will be prizes galore and as always, refreshments of the local variety will be served.

Lisa M. Hamilton will present her talk at 7 pm. The journalist and photographer spent two years profiling three families in rural America who represent a change in the way we should think about food and agriculture.

As with The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Deeply Rooted suggests one of the best ways to address the problems with our nation’s food system is to go straight to the source—the farmers themselves.

Over the past forty years, many American farmers and ranchers have been told to “get big or get out.”  Countless people within agriculture have been replaced with machines, and their farms with corporate agribusinesses. The large-scale industrialization that followed has altered the face of American agriculture with dire environmental and economic consequences, and endangered the health and wellbeing of consumers.

Now, across the country, a courageous group of farmers and ranchers have issued a call to arms to end these unhealthy and unsustainable practices. To them, agriculture is not an industry but a way of life, and humans should be at the heart of it all.  Among these farmers are

•    Harry Lewis: an African-American dairyman in Texas who dreams of addressing Congress one day

•    Virgil Trujillo: a tenth-generation New Mexico rancher who believes agriculture could be the salvation of his impoverished hometown

•    David, Dan and Theresa Podoll: North Dakotan organic farmers whose vision for a more sustainable way of farming is derided by their neighbors

Scorned, ridiculed, and dismissed for their unconventional beliefs and faith in people, Harry Lewis, Virgil Trujillo, and the Podoll family prove to be the real mavericks of our time.  By telling their stories, Hamilton has given a human face to agriculture, and serves up an important lesson about bringing farmers back to the table at a time when we need them more than ever.

Lisa M. Hamilton’s work has been published in National Geographic Traveler, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, Orion, and Gastronomica. She lives in northern California.

RiverRun Bookstore is located at 20 Congress Street in downtown Portsmouth. The event is free and open to the public.

For more details on the event, call 603-431-2100 or visit www.riverrunbookstore.com. For more information on Seacoast Local, including its “Buy Local” program, call 603-766-1775 or visit www.seacoastlocal.org. The Slow Food Seacoast website is at www.slowfoodseacoast.org.