foodscout blog

We planted our red sweet peppers quite a bit late in the season. My plants produced a lot of peppers but did not have a chance to fully ripen before the first frost came and withered all the leaves.

My gardening advisor suggested we go ahead and harvest the peppers, since they were already pretty large.

Definitely, they are not as tasty as they should be.  They are slightly bitter and not as crispy as they should be. But they are still pretty good and definitely have that same refreshing taste that all home grown food seems to have.

Now that the peppers and other summer vegetables are gone, there’s space to plant some more winter greens. I’ve just added winter lettuce and arugula to my garden beds.

I spend a lot of time walking around my neighborhood. I used to enjoy the pretty landscaping, but over the past year or so, a significant change has happened. More and more neighbors are turning their yards into vegetable gardens; finding any patch of earth that gets sunlight and planting food.

This is an older neighborhood so there are many wonderful huge trees, which means a lot of yards are too shady to grow food. That hasn’t deterred some from planting their gardens in less conventional places. Back yards, hidden behind fences, are no longer the only place you can put a garden.

Entire front yards are now replaced with rows of leafy greens.  Steep hillsides are turned into terraced gardens. And my personal favorite: 4 neighbors got together and built raised garden beds in the “right of way” area between the sidewalk and the road.

You could take this explosion of urban vegetable gardening as a negative sign; highlighting our lack of faith in the future of our food supply. You could also take it as a positive sign; that a rapidly growing number of people are taking control of their health and reconnecting with real wholesome food.

If you want to grow your own food, you can find a way.

Even in the Big Apple, residents are finding ways to garden. One resident has even created a 6,000 square foot commercial organic farm, on a rooftop in Brooklyn.

Check out the video here.

Learn more about Rooftop Farms, in Brooklyn NY.