Home Gardens & Urban Homesteads: Feed the Family
Home gardening. A plot out in the back yard, a handful of tomato plants, some peppers, a row of onions, beets and carrots. Hours wandering through the aisles and the greenhouses at local garden centers, or chatting up farmers at the market about which varieties of the transplants they sell are the ones they really truly love. Spade forking in the spring, weeding, snacking on a lettuce leaf before you head into the kitchen with the dinner’s salad.
A growing number of families in Kansas City are learning and re-learning how to create these humble and productive moments. Some are motivated by food scares, wanting to know at the most basic of levels where their food came from. Some are tired of tomatoes that just don’t taste like real tomatoes. Others, in a tight economy, are looking for ways to save money and reduce stress.
A growing number of people are aspiring to not only provide for their families through the growing season but into the winter by canning, freezing, and drying the summer’s bounty. Calls are being made to city planning- “Is my lot big enough that I could keep a few chickens?” and the empty lots next door are being bought and borrowed so more can be grown. This new phenomenon, recently named “urban homesteading” is, in fact, not so new. Our love affair with the monoculture of the lawn is the newer, and hopefully, more transitory phenomenon.
The tour features just a few families that are beginning to take home gardens and food production to this next level. Visit them, chat with them, and learn with them about how home gardening can change the life of your family and community.
Creekhouse Organic Community Garden
6310 N. W. Waukomis Dr.
Kansas City, MO 64151
(816) 665-5469
linnburdick AT hotmail.com
Urban homesteaders Linn and Neal Burdick share their large garden with others- if you join and work in the common garden, you share the food. A tranquil, flowing creek ripples alongside the house; there is art and whimsy in the landscape, and an eight foot high fence to see that the deer “let the garden grow”. Linn says the beauty of gardening is that it “physically connects me to what is coming out of the earth and makes me feel more thankful”, and as sideline benefit, “it gives adults a socially acceptable way to play in the dirt”.
Music: Tenna Shoe & Diamond Blues Band (Jim Echols) 2-5PM
Directions: From I-29 N take exit #3A/Waukomis Dr.
Go .3 mi. Turn west on NW Waukomis Dr.
Go 1.3 mi to 6310 on left. Park in grass on property or in church lot across the street.
(23) Hoop Dog Garden
3314 Troost
Kansas City, MO 64109
(816) 769-8994
cathrynsimmons AT earthlink.net
When you enter Hoop Dog world, you’ll wonder how you never knew such a place existed right here in town. It is reminiscent of a secret garden, hidden next door to the brick front of a former warehouse. Cathryn Simmons and Lori Buntin will grow “all of it” this year – peanuts, cotton, tomatoes, corn, peas, beans all in containers or beds of one kind and another – to feed ten people all season. Their chickens, charmingly housed in a hand-built chicken coop, provide eggs for family members, along with endless hours of amusement. Recycled materials serve unexpected purposes- wooden pallets create a fence, hog panels make an arch for bottle gourds to clamber on. Visit and catch the artistry as well as the productive purpose of the garden.
Music: Moe Shinola, (Joe Schnebelen), guitarist, songwriter-12-2PM
Spoken Word: The Recipe (Priest & 337) 2:30-3PM
African Drum: Alan Lott, Conguero, 4-5PM
Directions:
Hoop Dog is right on Troost Avenue, park on the street.
Off 435, take the Gregory Boulevard exit
Go east .5 miles to Sycamore
Go north to 7000. Park in the Lennington Day Lily Farm lot on the west side of the property or on street.
(29) Pearly Gates Organic Soapery/Gardens Inc.
7000 Sycamore
Kansas City, MO 64133
(816) 353-3602
soaper1 AT sbcglobal.net
www.pearlygatessoap.com
Nancy Gordon fits the bill of an urban homesteader. She has her hands in numerous sustainability practices- gardening, soap making, canning, and more. She is constantly experimenting with ways to get high yields from small spaces. She wants to become known for her micro-greens, which are baby plants (not sprouts), pack a whallop of nutrition and grow fast, a nine-day turnaround she says. Last year she had tomato vines that were so tall she had to climb a ladder to pick some of them. Nancy is also well-known for her organic body products in which she uses some of the plants she grows. She says being self-sustaining is in her blood, coming from a long line of people who did for themselves, and she wants to pass those skills along to others. Raw Food Demonstration
Music: Betty Simon, world renown accordion player
Directions:
Off 435, take the Gregory Boulevard exit.
Go east .5 miles to Sycamore
Go north to 7000
Park in the Lennington Day Lily Farm lot on the west side of the property or on street.