Our Community Benefits from Urban Vegetable Gardening

Communities can benefit from urban vegetable gardening in several ways:

• First, vegetable gardening lessens food purchases, the grower just harvests ripe vegetables for family consumption.
• Second, consumption of garden produce increases nutritional intake since vegetables contain macro- and micro-nutrients essential to health.
• Third, vegetable gardening creates livelihood opportunities through sales of excess produce, seedlings and other gardening-related products like organic fertilizers, seminars, etc.
• Fourth, vegetable gardening on idle lots lessens maintenance costs and fire risks associated with tall grasses (talahib) during the dry season. Gardening requires constant weeding as unwanted plants and weeds pose competition for limited space and plant nutrients. 
• Fifth, vegetable gardening closes the food production and consumption cycle {food production -> consumption --> waste --> composting --> food production} through the use of compost as a gardening input.  Livelihood also come from the collection and sales of recyclable and reusable materials as a consequence of segregating organic household waste for composting.

Why not start a community vegetable garden on an idle lot?

Wicking Bed Technology For Your Organic Garden

Web search can lead to interesting and USEFUL sites as what happened to me last week.

I was searching for ways to lessen watering frequency due to current work load. The search led me to a website on wicking bed technology. It also has technology that combines wick beds and vermicomposting worms called wicking worm beds.

What's so great about wicking bed technology? It features a water reservoir that conserves water and lessens watering frequency. The technology also features an anaerobic component that results in better carbon sequestration.

Check out the story of the Australian engineer, Mr. Colin Austin, who developed the wicking bed technology.

I will be trying out wicking worm beds for growing organic vegetables and herbs, I hope sooner than later.