photo credit: Greensboro Daily Photo (www.greensborodailyphoto.com)

Back in the day there were called Victory Gardens. Today some have called them Recession Gardens, which grates on my optimist’s ears.

Let’s call them our Getting Back To All That’s Good And Taking Back Control of Our Lives Gardens.

By any other name, the tomatoes are are as sweet – and prodigious in their output. Mint, onions, blueberries, squash, cukes and zukes. Many people are planting vegetable gardens in their front yards or next to the driveway. Five gallon buckets can be seen, wooden poles sticking out, with all manner of vines climbing skyward. Downtown, uptown, on roofs, on front stoops. Herbs on window sills or on patios. People are keeping bees in their yards. Making compost bins out of huge plastic drums or discarded wooden pallets.

There are large scale urban gardens in Greensboro, where dedicated and creative folks are putting there hands – and shovels and rakes and trowels – where their mouths are, community involvement-wise. [UPDATE: The folks over at Greensboro Daily Photo just posted info about another community garden on their site. And you can read about their personal garden in the comments section for this post]

So, the topic for this week’s poll: Are you growing food at your house?

Hope so.

[UPDATE: This story was just posted on Public Radio Station 88.5 WFDD about this very topic and an urban garden in Winston-Salem (just about 30 minutes down the road from Greensboro). There's audio if you'd like to take a listen]