"On the east side of New Orleans, three-and-a-half years ago, 90 percent of the homes in the Vietnamese community had gardens, says local activist Peter Nguyen. The green onions, Malabar spinach, daikon, cilantro, mint, Thai basil, and countless Asian vegetables that contribute to Vietnamese home cooking were grown there. Every Saturday at dawn, a few dozen growers gathered to sell their produce at the neighborhood market, and for the elders--many of whom were resettled in New Orleans after the Vietnam War--their gardens were a treasured link to the country they had left behind. But the younger generation wasn't much interested in what they considered to be the hard labor of growing, and the elders wondered how they could involve their children and grandchildren so that the traditions would continue. Then Hurricane Katrina blew through, and three decades of work tending the land was lost."

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"Jeanette Bell, who once taught business classes to high school students, sees a money-making opportunity in her second calling. But for the 65-year-old retiree, her motive is more passion than profit.

Bell has built a garden on a once-blighted Central City lot that she bought from the city in 2003. At the time, the Baronne Street property was so overgrown with vegetation, it resembled something out of South America, Bell said.

Now, visitors are greeted at the entrance by a rose garden sorted according to color in the French style. The back of the lot houses Bell's vegetables and herbs, all organically grown, including a large bay tree she describes as "big enough to service all the restaurants in the Uptown area."

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"The transformed lot, now known as Little Sparrow Farm, is a testament to the faith of its creator, urban farmer and New Orleans Food and Farm Network program director Marilyn Yank, that New Orleans can -- and should -- be riddled with neighborhood gardens. "With its love of food and love of music, it makes sense that we should be a garden city," Yank said on a recent spring morning. She sat back on her heels, midway through uprooting a row of microgreens. "I called it Little Sparrow because I wanted it to be like a sparrow, a little thing that never loses its delight."

"Little" is not a word that many gardeners would apply to Yank's borrowed plot. The property is the standard 100-foot-by-30-foot lot typical of central New Orleans, and it's pretty much planted from end to end."

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"Over three years have passed since Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans in August 2005. While the population of the metro- politan region is close to the pre-Katrina total, that of the city itself is approximately 70 percent of its former level. Flooded neighbourhoods, such as Hollygrove, Gentilly, and particularly the Lower Ninth Ward, are far from their former vibrancy.

Those who have returned, however, are preparing the paths for others to follow. With large government-funded rebuilding projects slow to begin, the physical restoration of New Orleans is being driven by the efforts of many non- governmental organisations. In this context of grassroots activism, urban agriculture advocates have seized the opportunity to create a healthier, better-nourished city. "

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"In her Hollygrove backyard sprouting with bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant, Mary Shaw sees more than just a growing cycle reaching completion.

She spent her childhood in Napoleonville, where she watched her grandmother tend a vast garden. Then as the years passed, it seemed, people got away from planting their food. Now 61 and feeling pinched by escalating food and gas prices, Shaw is returning, literally, to her roots.

Shaw and other New Orleans residents are part of a swelling, nationwide corps of backyard cultivators who are taking food production into their own hands for reasons that gardening organizations and enthusiasts describe as mostly economic."

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"When we think of homegrown vegetables, pastoral images of farmhouses with adjacent gardens usually come to mind. But throughout history, urban dwellers have found ways of producing food for themselves in innovative ways. It is only in recent years that we moved away from those traditions, becoming accustomed to supermarkets and industrial farming. One consequence of the dependence on standardized produce is the endangerment of regional cooking, including the world-famous cuisine of New Orleans. Since produce grown far away is bred for shelf life, we risk losing our appreciation for fresh flavor and unique culinary styles.

Fortunately, there is a growing movement to return to homegrown foods. Across the city, individuals are taking it upon themselves to return to self-sufficiency while simultaneously preserving the highest quality of taste in our food. These people realize not only economic benefits in growing their own vegetables, but are finding an array of other plusses that come with it. Among the advantages often cited is an avoidance of using harmful pesticides, the kind that may lurk in conventional produce and contribute to dangerous pollution. "

Read the full article at WhereYat.com »

 

As a child growing up in Thibodaux, Ifama Arson and her family enjoyed fresh produce grown right outside their front door.

"Food always came from somebody's garden," Arson said. "People had peas in season -- everybody in the neighborhood had them - and you'd sit around and, collectively, shuck the peas and things like that.

"And when the pears came in," she added, "everyone made preserves."

Thanks to the New Orleans Food and Farm Network, the 56-year-old Arson can still enjoy the freshness and immediacy of that bucolic lifestyle in the more urban setting of Algiers, where she now lives.

Read the full article on Nola.com »