By Janet Brown Moss

Wow, it’s here.  Well, it’s almost here, the 4th Biennial KC Urban Farms and Gardens Tour, I mean.  I caught a drift of conversations similar to the following wafting across the air in the metro from folks who picked up tour booklets this past week. Here’s some of what I heard.

“Okay family and friends lets get out our calendars and chart a course for the days and nights of June 15 to June 26.”  “What? You are asking me to plan a two week stretch of my life? I am not a planner type.”

Well, I am not a planner either, but when talking about ways to keep myself and family fed with fresh, nourishing and local food, I make an exception.  Doing that cannot be as spontaneous as driving through a fast-food place, even though sometimes I wish it were.

“Okay let’s look it over.  OMG, there are 22 events in the nine days before the tour and two tour days!  I don’t even know how to begin choosing.  Are you expecting me to take my vacation days to learn and experience growing food in the city?”  “Yea, we probably can’t make all of them so let’s look this over and note the things we most want to do or know more about.”

Of course the biggest event is the tour of farms and gardens on June 25 and 26, when 38 urban farms and gardens across the metro will open their fields so the public can see what growing good food in our cities is all about.  A detailed description of each site and its scheduled activities is online at www.urbanfarmstourkc.com and in the official farm tour booklets at area libraries, coffee houses and other pick-up spots.  The tour is self-guided, and attendees are encouraged to visit as many sites as they like from 10am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

New to the tour this year are several bike tour options; a greater variety of food demos–snow cones, mead, raw foods and more; food wagons and other types of vending on some of the sites so folks can purchase food to eat as they tour; vendors selling home-made items for home and health; raising tilapia in the city and suburbs; an increasing number of community gardens in “food desert” areas and youth learning entrepreneurial skills by growing and marketing food.

June 15 at 6pm kicks off the urban food journey with an evening at the Central Library in Kansas City, MO.  Michael Ableman, author, farmer, photographer, and food system activist for some 30 years (wow, isn’t he ahead of the crowd), is going to help us see the big picture of the food revolution; choices about what we eat, from where it comes, whether it means we grow our own food or buy from local farms and gardens or a combination of both.  The real key is “keep it healthy and local, yokel.”  The event includes a reception with healthy foods and drinks.

Now the real decision-making begins.  Do we want to go to art & films about food?  One of the events, Us and Earth: Artistic Expressions of Urban Food and Farm includes an exhibit of art created by farmers and gardeners, with Chef Danny of Danny’s Big Easy preparing samples of food from neighborhood gardens.  Or do we want to attend workshops that teach us what to do with the food (cooking, canning, preparing it raw), learn about items to eat, other than plants (bee-keeping, raising chickens), or take in some activities our kiddos will enjoy, such as Grow a Book at Reading Reptile and Grow Fun Food and Grind Grains at KC Community Gardens?

There are several “Eat Out Local” nights when restaurants that use local food ingredients will donate a portion of sales to the tour budget, so we hardly even have to cook to eat healthy and local during farm and garden tour days.  One night will be a feast prepared by Chef Celina Tio, owner/chef of Julian Restaurant in Brookside, contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters and recent runner-up on The Next Iron Chef.  She will prepare this feast from food local growers bring from their gardens to be considered for a menu item named after their farm or garden on the Julian menu.

Topping off the pre-tour events will be a potluck local-food picnic co-sponsored by the Garden Center Association of Greater Kansas City, that will appeal to cooks of home- and farm-grown produce!  If we want we can enter our dish in a contest that will be judged by Ethne Clark, editor of the national publication “Organic Gardening,” Gordon Roe, publisher, tastebud magazine, Kansas City’s own eating-well magazine, and Mary Pepitone, writer of the Kansas City Star’s beloved food column, “Come into my Kitchen.”

Reach Janet at janetbridgeworks@sbcglobal.net.

By Janet Brown Moss

We’re back with the 4th Biennial Urban Farms and Gardens Tour, to increase the quality and enjoyment of our local food life!  Themed “Get Your Grow On”, the tour promises to have:

1. more opportunities to tour farms–both Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26, 2011
2. a greater variety of food demos–snow cones, mead, raw foods and more
3. more types of food production–in addition to farms and gardens, this year we’re hoping to feature activities such as aquaponics, edible landscaping and a city garden whose growers walk their veggies up the hill to the chef who buys them for use in daily yummy food offerings on the menu.

Aquaponics is a modern word for the age-old practice of farming vegetables, herbs and fish in a self-contained system; it is an eco-friendly way to naturally produce quality food for home use or for sale.  This scalable farming method is experiencing renewed interest with many small home growers and large operations employing the process as a means of producing fish and plant crops sustainably.

Edible landscaping is the use of food-producing plants in the constructed landscape, principally the residential landscape but also landscapes around businesses and in public spaces; edible landscaping combines fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, vegetables, herbs, edible flowers and ornamental plants into aesthetically pleasing designs.  These designs can incorporate any garden style and can include anywhere from 1-100% edible species, as defined in an Ohio State University Extension Factsheet.

Mead is a honey-based fermented beverage that has probably been produced since 7000 BC.  Because of its antiquity, mead has acquired an almost magical reputation.  Mead making was once the province of a select, trained guild.  Now, it is open to all who have the patience and skill.

Did you know all of these activities are happening in our metro area, transforming the quality, taste and variety of urban food production?  The “Get Your Grow On” Urban Farms and Gardens Tour will give you an opportunity to witness these activities and help you make local food a part of your life as well as of the lives of your family and neighborhood.

Past tour visitors almost universally speak of the fun, information and inspiration they gain from visiting the farms and gardens.  They’ve also said: “We want more time to tour the farms and gardens.  There is not enough time for us to visit all the sites we want.”  In response to those comments, this year we have scheduled two days for site visits, Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26.  In addition, the tour planning group has set aside the week prior to the tour dates as Urban Farms and Gardens Week to highlight the many ways our area is “getting its grow on.”

We are grateful to once again partner with the Kansas City, MO, Public Library System and other community groups to host the many pre-tour activities.  The kick-off event is set for Wednesday, June 15, at the Central Library.  Details of that event and other pre-tour activities will be listed in an upcoming issue of Urban Grown and other media outlets.

If you’re like many Kansas City residents today, you’re asking yourself questions like:  “Where does the food we eat come from? Where do we want it to come from? How can we increase the use of locally grown foods in our community?”  A report from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture shows that produce from conventional sources within the United States travels an average of 1,494 miles from farm to point of sale, while locally-grown produce travels an average of only 56 miles to reach the same points of sale.  And then, of course, there is “food so fresh that its trip from the farm to the fork can be measured in feet, not miles” (from Summer Jo’s Restaurant and Organic Farm in Grants Pass, OR).

Think on these things, then plan to join the KC Urban Farms and Gardens Tour 2011 where we can help you sort it all out so, you too, can “Get Your Grow On.”

We still need volunteers and financial support!  If you’re interested in donating time or money to the 2011 Urban Farms and Gardens Tour, contact Janet at janetbridgeworks@sbcglobal.net.  Thank you very much!

Archived posts from the last tour are still available here. Look for more new posts and “behind the scenes” details about Kansas City’s Urban Farms and Gardens coming soon for the 2011 tour!