I don’t hide the fact that for me, gardening is (mostly) a means to an end: I like to cook, and I really like to cook things I’ve grown myself. I find it impossible to write about my garden without connecting the growing of produce to the joy of preparing and serving it. Lots of gardeners are just like me, I suspect. And some grow for the sheer pleasure of dirt in hand and under foot. But many other gardeners are motivated to grow their own food for economic reasons.
Over the last three years, seed sales have continued to rise, a phenomenon widely interpreted to reflect a desire in stressed consumers to decrease food spending. While I enjoy cutting my produce budget during the growing season, I’m fortunate that I can afford to feed myself and my family whether my garden succeeds or fails. The same can’t be said of 1 out of 6 Americans, who live with the risk of going hungry. Fifty million people in the United States are “food insecure,” meaning, as explained by the USDA, at times, their households were "uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.”
Food insecurity is so prevalent that even the classic children’s show Sesame Street addressed the issue this month, introducing a new character, Lily, whose family has to visit a food pantry to have sufficient food. My kids, like all fortunate kids, I suspect, often tell me they’re starving. They’re not, and on some level, they know it. They bring canned food to the food drive at their school, for example, and have seen me give food to a homeless person on the street. But until this week, I hadn’t thought about what our family garden (which my son is determined to turn into a business -- a roadside farmstand -- next summer) could teach them, or how it could help the problem of hunger.
Gardening, for me, feels like an intimate thing, one that affects just me, my family, a few friends with whom I share the food I’ve grown. But even small-scale gardeners have an opportunity to share their bounty with others in need. AmpleHarvest.org, an organization founded by Gary Oppenheimer, connects gardeners with surplus produce to local food pantries. Since its founding in 2009, AmpleHarvest.org has gained backing from the USDA, Google, Inc., the National Gardening Association and the National Council of Churches, and now (according to its own account) helps 4,463 food pantries connect with growers and other donors. Reducing food waste is a key component of addressing global hunger. While donating extra zucchini won’t address the dire situation in East Africa, it could help feed your neighbor. As a gardener, I know that even tiny efforts can reap great harvests; this seems like one worth supporting.
