Newsletter - March 22, 2022

Dear brothers and sisters,

This Spring plant a Victory Garden. The headlines every day tell us that we’ve got to do so. In this you'll be following the example of your forebears, the greatest generation:-                                                  

By May 1943, there were 18 million victory gardens in the United States – 12 million in cities and 6 million on farms.

In that year these backyard gardens produced 40% of all vegetables consumed in the U.S.

Eleanor Roosevelt instituted a  Victory Garden on the White House lawn.

The prices of organic fruits and vegetables are soaring.Moreover we can not be dependent upon a farmer specialist to produce vegetables. We can grow them ourselves.

It begins in your kitchen with a bucket for food scrapes-

I mean banana peels, apple cores, carrot tops, melon rinds, avocado skins and so forth. The bucket is to be emptied into a bin in your backyard: A layer of food scrapes, a layer of manure, a layer of garden soil…..a layer of food scrapes, a layer of manure, a layer of garden soil….

The compost pile is the digestive organ of your garden.

We plant because -over 70 million Americans — 42 percent of the adult population — are obese and another 30% are overweight. Moreover, 15 million Americans are morbidly obese. Is it any wonder then that disease sweeps through a population as imbalanced as this?

We plant because- the pandemic is one of many. There is the pandemic of cancer, the pandemic of heart disease, the pandemic of high blood pressure, the pandemic of diabetes, the pandemic of obesity, the pandemic of depression and the pandemic of suicide.All stem from a profound imbalance in how we eat, how we live and how we relate to one another.

We plant because-

The latest data show that the U.S. life expectancy has declined over the past few years.

We plant because  of a deeper, more profound illness. An affliction of the soul, a malaise of the spirit.

Wherever you are, in a backyard, a Community garden, an edible schoolyard, a permaculture park, you’ve got to grow it yourself.

Moreover you’ll be connecting with friends and neighbors.From the humblest beginnings you  will lead us  from renewal to regeneration and on to  redemption of this American earth.

Jesse Schwartz PhD
President
Living Tree Community Foods