When was the last time you really thought about where your food came from? Where was it, before it got to your home, the restaurant or the cafeteria? How did it get to you? How was it grown? We may try to customize our diets by "eating right" and incorporating a wide variety of foods into our meals, but that does not change the fact that our food often remains shrouded in mystery. The worrying realization that we know little about a fundamental part of our lives has many Americans frustrated and ready for a change.
With the rise of large−scale farming, Americans have become increasingly skeptical of the food they eat. The distance between the farm and the table has grown immensely, and food production and distribution are often controlled by massive corporations and government subdivisions. In response, some have chosen to return to the garden to grow their own food.
Gardening has always been a common American pastime, but Tufts Associate Professor of Biology George Ellmore believes it has recently witnessed a resurgence in popularity.
"More and more, our lives are controlled by people who just do not have our best interests at heart," Ellmore said. "It's really nice to just be able to go outside and pick something, and not have to worry about washing off all sorts of pesticides and herbicides, or about where it's been. If you go to the supermarket, I can guarantee that your food has been touched by plenty of strangers."
Ellmore believes that from ditching cars to moving away from the suburbs, Americans are making small changes that bring power back to their personal decisions, particularly when it comes to food choices. This includes the creation of local gardens.
Whether they are found in private homes, shared lots or schools, gardens are communal centers and can even teach nutrition to children, as Ellmore suggests.
"A lot of kids say they hate vegetables," he said. "But then they try fresh produce and it completely changes their minds."
Tufts has a local garden of its own — Tom Thumb's Student Garden — that is student−run and located on the edge of campus between South Hall and Latin Way. Though it is modestly sized in comparison to its neighbor, the communal garden owned by the city of Somerville, Tom Thumb's has met with success since its 2009 inception by alumni SignePorteshawver (LA '11) and Yosefa Ehrlich (LA '10).
As part of an Experimental College course in the fall of 2010 concerning alternative growing methods of agriculture, students installed three raised beds in a space designated by the Department of Facilities Services, and planted a selection of cold−hardy plants. The garden has since expanded, but it maintains a close relationship with the university and is now a branch of the Tufts Sustainability Collective.
It also functions as a classroom of sorts. The club occupies prime real estate and can offer students an invaluable experience to learn about plants, gardening and the environment. This summer, for example, the garden will be cared for by Ellmore's course on plant and food autonomy.
This working relationship also gives the garden a few privileges. Though the Tufts greenhouses on the roof of Barnum Hall are typically reserved for experimental purposes, Tom Thumb's garden will be permitted to raise plants from seed there later this spring. In the company of C4 plants, cacti and experimental tea bushes, the seedlings will grow rapidly until they are planted outside in early May.
This strategy is an important advantage because raising plants from seed in a greenhouse is often more cost−effective and more likely to produce sturdy adult plants than raising plants from seedlings or planting seeds directly into outside soil.
Ellmore illustrated this point by identifying two different populations of spinach in the greenhouse. The plants raised from seed were noticeably bushier and healthier looking than the plants purchased as seedlings.
"If you move a plant from the greenhouse outside, you know it's there. If you plant seeds outside, there's some waiting and uncertainty," he said.
Junior Mae Humiston, a leading gardener at Tom Thumb's, began gardening seriously in high school when she took a job as a paid gardener. She continued to pursue her passion once at Tufts, and found a group of likeminded "green thumbs" in the collective associated with the Tufts student garden.
Though the garden club has established a strong core group of 10−15 members, Humiston believes that there is still plenty of potential for growth. Of Tufts' undergraduate population, she estimates that "a couple hundred" students are potential gardeners. She also cited the club's 60−strong mailing list as a reason for believing that there is plenty of interest on campus.
Though Humiston admits that a person has to be somewhat outdoorsy to appreciate gardening, she finds that she can generally appeal to interested, albeit inexperienced, students by describing what it's like to work with the land.
"I'll tell them about the experience — getting dirt under your nails, feeling the wind and the sun," she said.
Humiston thinks the economics of gardening likely appeal to students as well.
"You can usually buy seeds for less than a penny each. With just a little bit of attention, you can get something as tiny as that to grow into a whole plant," she said. "You might pay $4 for a plant's worth of tomatoes at a farmer's market."
If more students do join the club, she is sure the garden could be further expanded to accommodate them. Humiston noted that there is an L−shaped swath of land near Latin Way they could use, as well as a few locations uphill.
"It's about space," she said, "but also about what land gets enough sunlight, and what works for facilities. We've always worked hard to maintain a good relationship with them."
Though Humiston is a fan of the tomatoes, eggplants and squash that thrive in the chilly New England climate, her favorite plant to grow is the ever−reliable pea.
She elaborated excitedly on the Tom Thumb website in a post entitled "My ode to peas":
"Did you know [the pea plant] is actually a fruit? Did you know it self−pollinates? Did you know it can fix nitrogen? Did you know you can eat the young shoots? Oh my goodness, what a cool plant."
Ellmore does not have such a clear−cut garden favorite, but he is a strong proponent of garlic and leeks as East Coast crops. Leeks are common to the point of being a "throwaway" crop in France, but they are relatively rare in the United States. While many people in France eat leeks frequently, in the United States the plant is more expensive per pound than some meats. As with many plants, it is more cost−efficient to simply grow them yourself.
Whether it concerns pea plants or leeks, one of Ellmore's best tricks to gardening is to keep a calendar that tells you when to plant, care for and harvest all of your crops. Doing so will make it much easier to grow healthy plants as it takes memory out of the equation. He said that he has taught this method to the garden club and anticipates good results.
No longer the activity of choice for aging hippies and older women, gardening is returning with a vengeance. It is incredibly easy to start, and can be precisely as involved as you want it to be. Imagine what the world would be like if everyone went ahead and got their hands dirty.
