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Working together increases your self-reliance.

© Bob Ewing

Strong winds the past three days have been wrecking havoc on the city and on gardens. A severe thunderstorm last Sunday with winds up to 90 kilometers per hour flattened my tomato plants and tore my neighbours peas apart. My tomatoes are okay but his peas are gone, so is the fence between the properties, or at least half of it. For awhile on Sunday, the sky was green, a bad sign. I've just came in from staking my tomatoes, something I ought to have done a week ago, I was lucky didn't lose anything but the lesson here is if you are relying on your garden to meet your family food needs, be prepared, severe storms can be devastating.

The urban farmer has the same concerns that the country farmer does. In the city, the scale of an individual plot may well be much smaller than that found in the country but weather, pests and disease can leave a family hungry, just the same, city or country. This may be especially true, if the urban farmer decides to go it alone and not join with others to form a co-op or in some other way be a part of a larger plan and therby a member of a community. Community, urban farming has a number of benefits that go beyond food production. The act of working together to raise crops, builds community and community provides us with neighbours who can lend a anad when times get tough. Naturally, this can happen in the countryside as well.

A city farm can be very productive. I was thinking about this when I saw the backyard fence had been knocked down, this morning. I picture an open field running along the block and food crops covering it all. There is a laneway out back that increases access and with some cooperation my neighbours and I could not only meet our food needs but generate a surplus which we could sell or trade. I do like to dream. We could set up a stall at the northern end of the laneway where the selling and trading could take place.

This will enhance our individual self-reliance as well as develop a community approach to food security and therefore to a safer neighbourhood.

If you want to increase your food security and keep your labour down, consider adding these three to your plot. They'll keep on producing year after year. Here's one more that's versatile and durable.

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