Urban Gardening

Urban Gardening — page 5 — Case In Point The Three Sisters When European settlers arrived in America in the early 1600s the Iroquois had been planting three sisters gardens for more than 300 years The Iroquois discovered important practical reasons for growing corn beans and winter squash together The tall corn plants serve as poles for bean plants to climb Bean roots add nitrogen to the soil fertilizing the corn Squash mulches or covers and protects the soil around the corn and bean plants Although mulches are often dead organic materials such as decaying leaves or straw the huge leaves of living squash work well too They provide insulation meaning water is retained sun does not bake the soil and weeds cannot grow At the end of the season the dead squash plants can be left in place to add nutrients to the soil In these ways the three plants thrive together improve the soil and make the gardener’s work much easier When grown together the plants require less weeding and watering Letting the beans grow upward means there is no need to bend to pick them There is less need to fertilize because the bean plants and remains of all plants add nutrients and organic matter to the soil Together the three sisters make a nearly complete human diet beans provide protein corn provides carbohydrates squash provides vitamins and squash seeds and corn provide oil Before the Industrial Revolution most European Americans were farmers Farms in the 1800s were small producing small amounts of many crops Farm families planted gardens and raised chickens cattle and hogs some of which they butchered for meat Except for flour salt and sugar farmers grew all the food they needed to feed their families 8

Urban Gardening — page 6 — Families planted vegetables and fruits in excess to ensure they had enough food to last through long winters To prepare for winter they harvested and canned They saved seeds from year to year to ensure they had seeds to plant and they tried various seed types to determine what grew best on their farmland Many staple food crops in the mid-1800s were root crops including potatoes beets rutabagas parsnips and turnips Root vegetables are large and because they are rich in carbohydrates and nutrients they are very filling This was important to farm families who worked hard and had little food except what they grew Root crops also Many farmers and gardeners still preserve excess produce by canning it 9

Urban Gardening — page 7 — Case In Point Preserving Food by Canning Preserving Food by Canning An important aspect of gardening is learning to An important aspect of gardening is learning to safely preserve food so the food is not contaminated safely preserve food so the food is not contaminated by food-borne diseases Before refrigeration was by food-borne diseases Before refrigeration was widely available canning was the main method widely available canning was the main method of food preservation It is still used extensively For example any supermarket food in a can or jar was preserved by canning In canning food is placed in jars and air is removed to create a seal that prevents bacteria from entering The jars are then heated to kill any bacteria already present store well They require no preparation such as canning and can simply be left in a basement or root cellar and brought out ready to cook in winter The Rise of Industrial Farming In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries farming changed as machines replaced human and animal labor More technological advances many of them in chemistry led to the development of industrial agriculture or the production of food on very large single-crop farms which began to flourish around 1950 Large chemical plants began producing nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers in the late 1930s and 1940s Chemicals developed for the military gave rise to an array of pesticides designed to destroy insect fungal and weed pests 10

Urban Gardening — page 8 — Industrialization and burning fossil fuels contribute to global warming one of the twenty-first century’s most serious problems These changes soon transformed farming into an industry Farming required fewer but more specialized workers As a result many small farmers began retiring and homesteads were abandoned As more people left their farms and their children settled in cities and suburbs much of the 11

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