Victory Garden
27 Jun 2008

From July 1, San Francisco residents will watch as the lawn in front of their City Hall is transformed from a grass carpet into an edible garden.
The Victory Garden – the first food producing garden in the City’s Civic Center since 1943 – is the result of collaboration between several local organizations and will be planted by community volunteers on July 12 to be ready for harvest during the Slow Food Nation celebration at the end of August.
The garden takes its name from 20th Century wartime efforts to address food shortages by encouraging citizens to plant gardens on public and private land. These victory gardens sprouted up in front yards and vacant lots around America at the time, and counted for 40 percent of the nation’s vegetable production.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, ‘confronts some of the most challenging issues of our times. For many urban residents, access to healthy and nutritious food is as important now as it was during the Second World War’.
The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden will provide visitors the opportunity to learn about urban food production methods and heritage food varieties in the lead up to and during Slow Food Nation.
Harvest will commence during the event, and the fresh produce will be donated to those with limited access to healthy, organic produce through a partnership with local food banks and meal programs.
Slow Food Nation is a subsidiary non-profit of Slow Food USA. It was created to bring together producers and others from the growing sustainable food movement in America and to introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair through enjoyable experiences and educational activities.
www.slowfoodnation.org
Bess Mucke
[email protected]
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