#pacific northwest gardening

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 46: Early Modernish and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. Basically, I'd already moved on to human history, but I'd periodically get a pre-homin suggestion, hence the occasional random item waaay out of it's time period, rather than reopen the category.

In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had. (Invention ofs tend to fall in an earlier grouping if it's still open. Ones that imply height of or just before something tend to get grouped later, but not always. Sometimes I'll split two different things from the same culture into different polls because they involve separate research goals or the like).

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

#Time Travel #Early Modern #Aztecs #Tenochtitlan #Versailles #Louis XIV #Thames Frost Fair #The Original Amber Room #Vauxhall Gardens #Potlatch #Indigenous History #Pacific Northwest History #The Amazon #South American History #North American History #Cascadia Earthquake #History of Food #Queen Elizabeth I #Tudor England #Kamehameha the Great #Hawaiʻi #Hawaiian History

[emphatic-nomadic]

Portland Japanese Garden

#emphaticnomadic #pacific northwest #pnw #Portland Japanese garden

[rafefar]

Backyard beauties

#original photographer #photographers on tumbler #clematis #flowers #rafefar #garden flowers #nature photography #pacific northwest #Oregon #original photography #om system #om-1

[darlingillustrations]

Fight Food Deserts with Community Gardening

“Gardening is fun!” When I talked with David Thompson, founder of Food is Free Washington, that’s why he said he started doing it. It was so much fun, in fact, that he grew too much produce in his 2,000 sf garden to use it all himself, so he started giving it away. He went on, “The thing that became more fun than growing my own food was sharing it. It’s the joy of giving stuff away.” That is the heart of the Food is Free movement: building community by sharing food independence.

Read more about the real life gardener who inspired Chapter 3 of Calico Jill and the Search for Cheese!

What Food is Free Does

Food is Free Washington is a non-profit co-run by David and Ursula Thompson in Tacoma, WA. The goal of Food is Free is to take care of our planet and take care of each other in the process by feeding people. The Thompsons seek to reduce food waste by getting food into the hands of local people who need it. They also educate people on how to grow their own food so that our community is more self reliant and less dependent on outside forces.

Food deserts stretch across many of Tacoma’s communities, but especially so in downtown Tacoma, east Tacoma and south Tacoma. A food desert is an area where local residents do not have access to fresh and healthy foods. Food is Free focuses in particular on these communities in need.

While a food bank might serve 50-100 people, Food is Free serves on average 220 people with each food giveaway. Food banks are great resources for gathering food and giving it to those in need, and they even supply Food is Free with donations through the Emergency Food Network and Feeding Feasible Feasts, but Food is Free is so much more effective in its distribution for two reasons: it goes into the heart of communities where there is food insecurity, and there is no requirement to show an ID or prove income. Anyone who shows up gets food. It’s as simple as that.

Food Is Free Sharing Tables

Ursula and David’s solution to the food deserts that stretch across Tacoma is gardening. Food is Free has planted 3,000 square feet of community garden space across the city. They started setting up tables next to these garden plots, and they would set out food for anyone to take.

They encouraged others to follow suit. At the height of the pandemic, there were 97 of these sharing tables scattered around Tacoma which became a sort of mobile food pantry. During a time of social isolation and social distancing, people formed a sense of community around sharing food surplus with each other within their local communities.

These tables were popular for a time, but there were obstacles. Even though the Thompsons would post instructions on accepted and restricted items, there wasn’t enough education about proper food storage. People started dropping off things like chicken breasts and milk, things that would spoil if left on a table.

These days, the total number of food tables is around 10-12, and they are run independently.

Food Accessibility in 2023

One thing the Thompsons are particularly excited about is the Gleaning Project, a program that is run through Harvest Pierce County in which people can sign up to have the fruit trees in their backyards harvested. Last year, 27,000 pounds of produce was harvested thanks to this program and shared with local hunger relief organizations.

Food banks are getting fewer donations than they used to. EBT benefits were cut in March. With rising food inflation, fewer people want to make donations. Add to these factors the job insecurities that we’ve all faced thanks to the pandemic, and more and more people are turning to feeding themselves with their own gardens.

Food is Free Washington is supporting these burgeoning green thumbs with seeds, plant starters and resources. Ursula explained, “You can grow an extra row. You can grow an extra plant. We just want people to do it with us. All of us gardeners together, we can help feed our community.”

Food Is Free Drop Offs

If you live in Tacoma, you can pick up food on Tuesdays in the extra parking lot across from (west of) Hope Point (formerly Calvary Baptist) Church. Address: 6511 South C Street. Follow @tacomaurbanfarmer on instagram to stay abreast what is available from week to week.

Resources:

Food is Free Washington: https://foodisfreewashington.org/ Emergency Food Network: https://www.efoodnet.org/ Feeding Feasible Feasts: https://feedingfeasiblefeastsllc.org/ Harvest Pierce County: https://piercecd.org/190/Urban-Agriculture and the Gleaning Project (where you can register your fruit trees!): https://piercecountygleaningproject.org/

Calico Jill and the Community Garden

You can read Calico Jill's story on tumblr at the following links. (The Community Garden is Chapter 3):

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Patreon

The artwork is this post is a painting of mine titled Put A Little Spring In Your Step. It is Watercolor and Ink on 8×10 inch hot press watercolor paper.

#community garden #food deserts #food scarcity #activism #calico jill and the search for cheese #calico jill #tacoma #washington state #pacific northwest

[rebeccathenaturalist]

If you've ever come out to the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascades, you may have noticed that many roadsides and open lots are absolutely choked with blackberry thickets. Yes, the berries and leaves are edible, as with other Rubus species. But Himalayan blackberry--which is actually from Armenia--is an exceptionally aggressive invasive species here. And, as with many other invasive species, it was intentionally brought here with zero thought as to what ecological impact it would have.

Luther Burbank had this idea to breed vegetables and fruits that had superior flavor and which would be able to survive being shipped over rail across the country. Unfortunately, he was also a eugenicist who decided that the same principles of breeding for the "best qualities" should also be applied to our own species--and he wasn't alone in his opinion at the turn of the century.

It's definitely for the best that he never got around to putting that particular odious idea into practice. But it makes me feel just a little more satisfied when I'm able to successfully oust one of his pernicious blackberry canes from the ground--symbolic of good riddance to bad rubbish.

#gardening #blackberries #Himalayan blackberry #invasive species #invasive plants #Luther Burbank #PNW #Pacific Northwest #Oregon #Washington #environment #conservation #racism #eugenics #Seattle

[madameximon]

"Scent of Memory"

#flowers #azalea #my photo #photographers on tumblr #flower photography #pacific northwest #pnw #garden

[christopherflowers]

Pacific Coast Iris

#flowers #garden #my garden #pacific northwest #organic gardening #native plants #iris

[dd-phd]

Late afternoon

#garden #gate #sunset #dd-photo #pacific northwest

[seabeck]

In my garden

#poppies #flowers #spring #gardening #gardencore #cottagecore #nature #lensblr #artists on tumblr #original photographers #original photography #photography #photographers on tumblr #Washington #vsco #pacific northwest #p

[mightbekaren]

Primarily I am here on tumbles to show you flowers and crows

#rhododendron #azaleas #flowers #pacific northwest #gardening #garden

[for-my-stupid-mental-health]

2024-03-31

Regretted not bringing the nice DSLR camera my mom just passed down to me when I visited the Japanese Gardens on Easter to admire the cherry blossoms. Still had a good day. It was sunny and warm and the gardens were beautiful.

#mental health #gratitude #nature #city #pacific northwest #cherry blossom #sakura #japanese gardens

[22pointsofview]

The beautiful world of the forest floor

#aphrodite #photography #art #nature #pnwlife #pacific northwest #oregon #tillamook #forest #aesthetic #greenhouse #gardens #soil #greens #plantlife #ecosystem

[emphatic-nomadic]

A fall day in Seattle

#emphaticnomadic #washington #pacific northwest #pnw #pnwonderland #fall #autumn #Seattle #Seattle Chinese garden

[kuro-ookami-kuma]

This time! It's Paz, Mabel, Waddles and Greg from my FaB AU. Been working on this one a long time, just had to shade the hair n stuff. Please don't steal, thank you!

#fandom #gravity falls #fanfiction #over the garden wall #fanart #over the gravity falls #otgw greg #gf mabel #mabel pines #pacific northwest #waddles #full color #please dont take credit

[pnwdruid]

All home-grown. It's so satisfying to grow your own food. It doesn't just provide superior nourishment to the body, but nourishes mind and soul as well.

#pacific northwest #grow your own food #vegetable gardening #home-grown #farming #gardening #homesteading #washington homesteaders

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Hey, for anyone who lives on or near the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington, I am giving a free talk on gardening with native plants on Wednesday, May 24 from 4pm - 5:30pm! It will be held at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge's headquarters at the very end of 67th Place off Sandridge. I'll discuss why native plants are important, how to decide what and where to plant, some species that are well-adapted to this area, and more.

RSVP by responding to the Facebook event linked here, emailing [email protected], or calling 360-642-3860

#native plants #native species #invasive species #habitat restoration #Willapa National Wildlife Refuge #Long Beach Peninsula #Washington #Washington State #PNW #Pacific Northwest #gardening