Food gardens: a comeback of Victory Gardens Photo by Enoch Lau
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Jessi Asmussen and Kevin Prather had a hundred strangers tramping through their backyard this time last year.
The second Annual Food Garden Tour in Lawrence had the same goal this year.
With the national trend of urban and suburban homesteading sweeping the nation, this couple turned a Lawrence neighborhood lot into a food garden capable of feeding at least a score of families- and then they opted to get into three other plots to increase productive capacity.
To share their practices and passion for gardening with others, they formed the Food Garden Tour last year and have had great successes, with even more participants this year. Nearly 20 suburban neighborhood food gardens highlight the bounty that can be produced in tight spaces or a variety of conditions that dramatically shift the rural image that springs to mind when one thinks of this scale of production. Creative uses of raised beds, easements, containers and shade are showcased as one follows the map throughout the city. New this year are several locations raising our favorite topic: backyard chickens!
When chickens and ducks were explicitly entered into ordinance as acceptable animals to be kept in city limits, many suburban homesteaders made the leap into ownership. The composted chicken manure is like black gold, prized for super-high nitrogen levels once it's broken down for a year in a compost pile. Knowing the source of your nitrogen is very important to many gardeners who pay close attention to the ethics of their passion.The bonus is that the birds consume the scraps of whatever vegetation is weeded out of the garden and produce delicious eggs! Brief stints in the garden can be excellent insect control if one has very young birds- though the adult chickens will be just as merciless with the veggies as they are the bugs.
Several Kansas City Metropolitan cities are currently being petitioned to allow chickens just like Lawrence hen-thusiasts did a couple of years ago. Coops may soon be on the horizon for other towns in our area!
If you fail to make the garden and coop tour, be certain to look forward to it this time next year.
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