Foodscaping our front yards for our health our communities our world
[Applause]
[Music]
i
hated tomatoes growing up and onions too
ugh the only vegetables i would really
eat were either in salsa
or pizza sauce
now i love vegetables all the incredible
variety of flavors and textures
and this year we’ll grow over a thousand
pounds of produce
and it’s not a farm it’s a foodscape
we live on a city lot right here in
ogden
and i gotta tell you there is no better
tasting
more nutritious food than the food you
grow yourself
and i don’t think we can blame our kids
for not liking vegetables
when they taste like water and the
cardboard they were shipped across the
country
two months before my 21st birthday i got
really sick
and ended up in the icu found out i was
type 1 diabetic
and it’s not easy but i really think
it’s turned out to be a good thing
i learned really quick that pizza
destroys my blood sugar
but if i have a single slice and a salad
it’s not so bad
so i started eating more fruits and
vegetables but for years
i still didn’t really like them and you
know
the key to good health diabetes or not
is healthy food years later i was in
graduate school and our campus
apartment had this amazing community
garden
so my wife and i got a plot and
ironically
we planted tomatoes and
everything changed when i tasted that
first homegrown tomato
i just had no idea they could taste like
that
crazy sweet cherry tomatoes and huge
delicious heirlooms
i couldn’t get over it and it got me
thinking you know
how many of us grow up not knowing the
flavor of real fresh fruits and
vegetables
people are fed but they aren’t nourished
unhealthy food is all around us and a
little bit of healthy food that’s around
doesn’t have any real flavor the fruits
and vegetables
at stores usually don’t taste very good
and food doesn’t have the nutritional
value it used to
davis 2004 compared 43 crops from 1950
to 99 and found significant declines
in calcium iron phosphorus protein
vitamin b2 and vitamin c
i think it’s by growing our own food
that we can rediscover the flavor and
nutrition of healthy food
in my case growing food
has totally changed my own perspective
but until 2017 we had only grown food in
our backyard
so one day i’m out in the front yard and
a mow in the grass
you know and the more i mowed the more i
thought about how silly it was to put
time money and energy into something
that doesn’t really give us anything in
return
it’s basically just curb appeal right
that’s when i started thinking you know
there’s no reason you can’t grow food
and have it look amazing too
one of my favorite examples is espalier
fruit trees
it’s where you basically grow an edible
fruit fence
and they look super cool and they
provide delicious fruit
and they encourage you to share with
your neighbors
our approach to foodscape design puts
the food bearing plants front and center
they are the features
so now our entire front yard is
foodscaped and you know when you grow
food in the backyard it’s private right
but when you put it in the front it
becomes a part of the community
people who walk by can’t help but slow
down and look around
and when they see us out there they ask
us questions
it starts conversations honestly i think
for most people when they see it in
person at first they’re in
awe and then it just sort of clicks like
why doesn’t every front yard look like
this
how many lawns are there that are
already being maintained but aren’t
really being used
according to a study in the journal
environmental management turf grass
is the number one irrigated crop in the
u.s
what that means is we use more water to
grow grass than we do to grow anything
else
and in utah i don’t think it’s
necessarily that we love having lawn
especially in the front yard and dumping
massive amounts of water on it
i think we just don’t know what else to
do and don’t get me wrong
i’m not saying that we should get rid of
all grass i love to run on the grass
with my kids
i’m just saying we plant it even when
nobody uses it
and you can’t eat the grass
the key to good health is healthy food
if we’re looking for more space to grow
local
healthy food it’s already there right
we’re planting grass
and wondering why our kids don’t like
vegetables when there’s a solution right
in front of us
in our house we have this birthday
tradition where on our birthday we get
to pick all the meals for the day
this year our six-year-old no joke
chose lettuce for her party
and also ice cream cake
but the lettuce blew me away
now my kids don’t eat everything from
the garden and they aren’t always into
it
but i cherish it when they are
and i know that they’ll do their own
thing and they might not always love
home grown tomatoes the same way that i
do
but i have no doubt that they will grow
up appreciating quality fresh healthy
food
and they’ll know about ecosystems and
how we can be good stewards of the land
i’m blown away by how an eight-year-old
can know so much about beneficial
insects
she’ll be out there telling people no no
that’s not a pest that’s a ladybug larva
she likes the aphids and the dill and
the chamomile flowers
my kids can walk out our front door pick
their own strawberry and i know exactly
what’s not
on it every kid should grow up with
experiences like these
and knowing about real healthy food
and for those who can’t have it at home
we got to food scape our schools
the average american has become so
disconnected from real food and where it
comes from
that food production and environmental
issues are just so far removed from our
radar
i think we treat farming and
sustainability like it’s some giant
living in the hillside
like it’s bigger than us sustainability
is
us our health is tied to our
environmental health
the soil and the air quality look
healthy soil healthy plants healthy food
healthy people i believe that if we
really want to be more
sustainable if we want to pursue healthy
lives for future generations
we need to start right where we live we
need to live it
sustainability is us
the trouble with our current food system
is that things like conventionally grown
apples
which i think maybe we should call
synthetically grown apples by the way
they form our perception for what we
think an apple should cost
after growing my own apples i’ll tell
you it’s not really an apples
apples-to-apples comparison
real apples are grown in healthy soil on
healthy trees trees that are cared for
and grown on well-stewarded land
and the same goes for tomatoes you know
and i totally understand why people
might not want to pay
a dollar each for farmers market
tomatoes
when the tomatoes at the grocery store
like less than half that price
but the thing is that’s not a tomato
that’s water masquerading in a tomato
suit
this is a tomato
our food’s been bred to grow bigger
faster and for storage and ship ability
and it’s picked too early stored too
long and shipped too far
all at the cost of flavor and nutrition
people are fed but they aren’t nourished
these issues are complex but i think the
solution is simple
we need to put the healthy food right in
front of us i think
foodscaping is the way that we can bring
not only beauty to our surroundings
but also affordability flavor and
nutrition
back to our food i don’t think our
broader food system will change until
consumers start wanting real food
and caring about how and where that food
is produced
and consumers might caring about real
food when they grow some food themselves
and it doesn’t have to be big and fancy
even if you grow just one tomato plant
it reconnects you with food in a way
that nothing else can
for me it’s been the the connection with
the real food and with the soil
that’s inspired me to truly start caring
about issues like soil degradation
and the importance of compost and
compost if you think about it
it’s pure magic really like how
incredible is it that we can
turn our waste into soil regeneration
why doesn’t every city offer curbside
greenways pick up for compost
when we’re filling our landfill fills
with compostal materials
and we’re rapidly losing soil fertility
why don’t we incentivize incentivize
home food growing the way we do other
sustainable activities
i mean photosynthesis is the original
green energy
so how are we going to bring food
growing to the masses
that’s the big question right i think we
start right where we live
the way our non-profit foodscaping utah
works is we get together volunteers who
help people
foodscape their front yards we all work
together for a couple of hours and then
a master gardener teaches a class
and it’s been so cool to see multiple
generations seasoned master gardeners
working alongside total beginners
and they’ve started showing up in droves
so far we’ve food scape 16 front yards
7 500 square feet that’s over a hundred
thousand gallons of water per year
it doesn’t have to be wasted on unused
grass and that’s
thousands of pounds of the most
nutritious food
that doesn’t have to be shipped across
the globe and that’s just me and a small
group of volunteers
imagine if every community did something
like this
this year with covid we only did a
limited number of foodscapes this spring
but the ones we did do were especially
powerful
for one in particular i remember this
overwhelming feeling of catharsis
just this incredible relief to be out
doing something positive
in the middle of all the stress and
uncertainty
hint when all the work hard work was
done and we took off our masks and
we sat six feet apart
i’ll never forget the look on everyone’s
faces
they just had these giant smiles of
relief
relief to be out of our houses
but relief to be helping people and i
think
satisfaction because we knew that we had
participated in something bigger
food gardening is like a silver bullet
for today’s biggest problems
our own personal health our community
health and our long-term sustainability
and i think foodscaping is how we can
weave healthy food
into our daily lives and sustainable
health
into our surroundings sustainability
is us so foodscape your front yard your
rooftop your school
foodscape your community so we can bring
flavor back to tomatoes
health back to our communities and
sustainability
back to our world thank you and grow
your own
[Music]
you