Brewed Fresh Daily

Great thoughts from Norm. Make sure you click thru for his excellent pics too:

Until I started brainstorming about local foods with City Fresh’s Maurice Small, I never thought about the industry of food, and how much more sense it makes to grow and produce food for a community within the community - food for a home within a home. Considering taxpayers pay government to maintain huge amounts of “public space”, why is that space usually planted at our expense with grass and trees that do not produce food, when it would be less costly to make these lands farms, creating industry for individuals and feeding them in the process? It seems to make such sense. But then I stumble upon something that makes even less sense than not growing food, which is seeing fruit ripening on a tree in a place where people can’t afford to eat well, and people not reaching up to pick the free food and eat it… seeing hundreds of good apples rotting on the ground. That shows us how far we have strayed from a sensible society, and how much we need to change. Everything…

Qustion of the Day: Why isn’t there food growing everywhere, and why don’t we eat it when there is? | REALNEO for all

via Peter McDermott @ LocalFoodCleveland.org >

Each year SustainLane releases the “most complete report card on urban sustainability in America”, which ranks the 50 largest cities in categories like air quality, green economy, metro congestion etc.

This year Cleveland placed first in two categories: local food/agriculture and water supply.

As I see it, these are arguably the two most important categories in the entire study. Without a sustainable food and water supply, the basic functions of a city cannot be met. As the challenges we face in creating a sustainable regional economy become more pressing, it is essential that we have this basic infrastructure in place to meet the needs of our city. It’s great to see that we’re getting national recognition for all of the hard work being done by leaders in Northeast Ohio.

The report notes “12 farmers’ markets and 225 community gardens reported, serving truckloads of fresh food to its population of over 450,000. A nearly 600 percent increase in total number of farmers’ markets and a sizable increase in community gardens since 2006 explain Cleveland’s ascent in this rankings category.”

In fact, Cleveland has over 20 farmers’ markets but we’ll let that slide.

Helpful networks for gardening. I’m interested in the care of my hostas, so I found this site.

MyFolia