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Neelam Sharma: Food Not Lawns in Los Angeles

Posted by on January 25, 2012

Neelam Sharma is the Programs Director for CSU, Community Services Unlimited, an organization empowering South Central Los Angeles residents to eat and grow healthy food. The “Food Not Lawns” attitude towards neighborhoods, I must admit, is infectious. After hanging out with urban and suburban farmers in the last year, we see people watering grass and we gasp. What a waste! CSU encourages and empowers folks to start thinking this way by teaching backyard Gardening and reclaiming un-used urban space for food production. Check out their other projects in our previous video ‘Community Services Unlimited: Rocking LA with Food and Beauty’.

Question by squdsi1: How many people in America maintain vegetable gardens?
I would like to know how many people actively garden in the US. It can include flowers but I am mostly interested in vegetables and herbs. I would also be very interested in any resources or websites I could go to find more detailed statistics on this topic. Thank you.

Best answer:

Answer by hobbesmln
not very many.

What do you think? Answer below!

20 Responses to Neelam Sharma: Food Not Lawns in Los Angeles

  1. inremembranceofruth

    Thank you for all of your inspiring ideas and work. Further, how you have informed yourself…so that you can inform others as well. Uploaded 3 years ago and, even as many more people have implemented such endeavors, there is still mostly indifference amongst our general population. Thus, I appreciate your efforts even more.

  2. ZennLa13

    @octohorse You can control what is i your soil by planting in raised garden beds :)

  3. keilana6

    I am totally for this, however I have no money to buy land and no knowledge about how to implement it in a city.

  4. vidaripollen

    sensible.monospecies lawns are idiotic waste.in bombay great work is being done by kavitha mukhi to promote organic farmers market.

  5. chevkoch

    Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic attitude.

  6. octohorse

    I heard gray water must be cleaned or your food could uptake toxins. And how are you testing the lawns? Many have been exposed to weedkillers, and what about poison runoff from neighbor’s lawns? Please answer cheers

  7. saltycreefer

    & we are made from the same earth as the dinosaurs. Only difference is we should be smart enough to avoid extinction.

  8. EbolaV1rus

    This is a great video. My husband and I are going to turn the entire back lawn into raised beds next spring. The garden I had produced really well, but it was just too small. We are going to use a drip irrigation method.

  9. EbolaV1rus

    Agreed. Also composting toilets would sure go a long way towards preserving what water we have left, considering that water is not a renewable resource. We are drinking the same water the dinosaurs drank.

  10. oatmealstoutpint

    This seems fringe today, but is going to be mainstream when oil is permanently above $150 / barrel.

    Nothing tastes as good as fresh produce from your own garden.

    Next we need a way to caputre “gray water” from our homes to water these gardens.

  11. wildgift2

    cool! it’s worse out in the suburbs. btw, vietnamese people grow food in the front yard in their hoods.

  12. emforty2

    especially now that they are going to raise water rates
    you’re better off growing some food instead of watering grass

  13. janetwrightreadings

    very cool!

  14. EffieJane1

    Awesome!!

  15. riversideseeds

    Keep up the good work! Having food available at schools for parents to buy is a great idea!

  16. cowgirl

    Quite a few; it’s big business. Try http://www.gurneys.com.

  17. diannabishop

    Not many people nowadays maintain a garden. It is truly hard to find info on how many have gardens, easy to find the per capita consumption.

  18. lilabner

    You don’t say where you are and that makes it difficult to say how many and what they grow. This is a dumb quesion, if you want a garden with veggies and herbs go to the local library and check out some books—don’t look for the quick fix.

  19. miso1cat

    http://www.appma.org/press_industrytrends.asp Then go to industry statistics.

  20. kam

    only 37 % maintain their garden ..
    while 41 % are not interested .. and remaining 32 % are not having garden place … ok this is my assumption …

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