Portland Yard Sharing - Why are we doing this?

September 24th 2008

I was sitting down to catch up on my corporate media and local KGW channel 8 had a news story entitled “Demand Grows for community gardens in Portland” I watched the story and came to the conclusion that with a waiting list of over a thousand people something simple could fix this. Why couldn’t people who own their homes open up yard space to other members of the community to create a food/herb producing garden.

And that’s what got me thinking about the many wonderful things that can be done with this project. Imagine the little slip between the street and your home, that small plot of grass. Now imagine it producing food for 2-4 families, including yours.

I was mesmerized by the fact that the people who have plots in the community gardens were producing so much more food than they could use that they were donating it to the Oregon Food Bank and I thought to my self why couldn’t everyone do this?
How wonderful would it be if everyone in our community had easy access to produce?

This is my vision: that in these hard economic times Portland can sustain itsself and lower the population of the hungry in the city. If on every street in Portland there were 2-3 gardens there would be more food than we would even need. Our social network of sustainable living could export from the Portland metro area fresh produce to feed the hungry around Oregon. This is what I wish for.

-Joshua Patterson