Are Victory Gardens Returning Now?
By Neenah Payne
Food security is a national security issue. Victory Gardens were encouraged in the UK and US in WWII. We are told that we are now in a war with an “invisible enemy”. The policies attacking that “enemy” have been more costly than anything we faced in WWII. The lockdown has permanently closed many restaurants and crippled their supply chains. The Ice Age Farmer has been reporting on increasing shipping problems — including the recent one in the Suez Canal that shut down 12% of global trade. Farmers are under growing assault by new laws.
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So, there are multiple threats to our food supply now. In 2020, grocery store shelves were quickly emptied in response to fears about the “pandemic”. People in Texas stood in long lines at grocery stores during to the cold snap and grid shutdown in December only to find most of the shelves empty — something Americans used to associate with the Soviet Union.
Bill Gates is now the biggest private owner of farmland in the US after buying up 242,000 acres in 18 states. He is in partnership with Monsanto and is promoting synthetic meat made from soy and canola oil. Dr. Joseph Mercola explained in his interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva that this is a recipe for disaster because it will further load the American diet with unhealthy Omega 6 oils.
Thomas Jefferson believed that a nation of small farmers was the best guarantee for democracy because people who are self-sufficient are less likely to tolerate tyranny. Growing Return To The Garden of Eden discusses several people and projects devoted to greater self-sufficiency, going off grid, and organic gardening, farming, and permaculture.
This article expands on that discussion and introduces several very impressive people who made the commitment to change the world by changing themselves.
Gold Dealer Creates Urban Food Forest
In Lynette Zang: Why You Must Get Out of the System; The Fed’s Master Plan, Daniela Cambone of Stansberry Research interviewed Lynette Zang, Chief Marketing Analyst for ITM Trading. Zang explained that the system collapsed in 2008 and has been on life support since then. So, there is a greatly reduced purchasing power in the US dollar or any other fiat currencies now.
Zang stresses that it’s important to prepare now for The Great Reset of the World Economic Forum and Central Bank Digital Currencies. Since Zang sells gold and silver, it’s not surprising that she recommends the metals. However, Zang explains that everyone has to be as self-sufficient as possible now. She reminds us that grocery stores quickly became empty last year and the supply chain has not been fixed. She points out that food is the biggest issue for everyone.
She lists her top eight priorities to retain a reasonable standard of living as shelter, food, water, energy, security, barterability (silver), wealth preservation (gold), and community.
FREE PDF: 10 Best Books To Survive Food Shortages & Famines
Zang stresses that it is important for everyone to learn to garden now! In 2010, she sold her condo where she had planned to retire and moved to a home in central Phoenix. Although she had never been a gardener, she learned a lot and converted her half-acre property into a food-producing urban farm where she raises chickens, ducks, quail, tilapia, and fresh-water shrimp! Zang says she has a wide variety of vegetables in her Food Forest including peaches, plums, almonds, and walnuts.
She also highlights the importance of community now. She donates a lot of food to a school for homeless kids and set up a program so the kids are now growing their own food.
See BEHIND THE SCENES: Off-Grid Sustainability with Lynette Zang and Erin Scott below for a tour of Zang’s garden. These photos are some of the many on Zang’s Facebook page.
Urban Gardens: The Greatest Revolution!
Return To The Garden of “EDEN” Now shows that author Vin Armani also stresses the importance of self-sufficiency. Armani points out that we are entering a new age which he calls The Dim Age in which automation will put millions of people out of work. So, gardeners/farmers will be most likely to thrive. On April 5, 2020, Armani moved to Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth, in the Western Pacific with his wife, and their two young kids to escape the growing tyranny of Governor Gavin Newsom in California. Armani warns that we are in dangerous times now as the tyranny will escalate.
Gates’ Plan To Control World’s Seeds, Agriculture, Food features Dr. Vandana Shiva. Dr. Shiva says “Urban Gardens are the greatest revolution!” She says to save seeds because seeds may become difficult to get — especially heirloom seeds which, unlike hybrid seeds, grow again. Dr. Shiva’s 2020 book is Oneness vs. the 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom.
See Dr. Shiva on my Urban Gardens Revolution site which shows that people can grow sprouts and/or use an AeroGarden even if they have no land or access to sunshine.
Also see: Vandana Shiva on the Taking Down of Bill Gates’ Empires
Be The Change
We Can Do This Podcast: Healing Through Gardening with Dr. Vandana Shiva is a fascinating interview with Dr. Shiva by Rishi Kumar, an urban farmer in Los Angeles. After Rishi studied at Dr. Shiva’s Navdanya Farm in India for seven months, he quit his computer engineering job. He and his mother Manju converted their suburban tract home in Diamond Bar, California in 2009 into The Growing Home — shown in the film Urban Fruit.
Dr. Shiva also says we are witnessing the collapse of the unsustainable Western paradigm now. She quotes Thomas Kuhn as saying, “Changes of paradigms never happen because you convince holders of old paradigms to give them up. Paradigms never get given up. They just become irrelevant”. She explains that we don’t have to try to change anyone else. We just need to change ourselves. Dr. Shiva explains that the dying Western paradigm is becoming more tyrannical now in an attempt to maintain control as it is losing power.
The Growing Home began as a home garden with the idea that the way to change the world is to start in your own life. Rishi and Manju first created a small garden for vegetables, fruits, and herbs. In 2011, The Growing Home opened as an educational demonstration site. The Growing Home, on 5,000 sq. ft. of arable land, produces 1,500 lbs. of food a year. It is the largest permaculturally designed suburban farm, with 50 exotic fruit trees, ponds, wetlands, chickens, rabbits, and beehives.
With a CSA, the Kumars now feed 15 families. They created The Growing Club whose YouTube Channel has over 70 videos and has inspired a host of like-minded projects. The Growing Club now plans to provide organic produce for health food stores across the nation. Brother Rohit co-founded Brush With Bamboo and father Vinnie created Clean Planetware. The Kumars use the stainless steel plates, bowls, and cups they inherited from a great, great grandmother.
“Dr. Vandana Shiva & Farmer Rishi discuss healing through gardening, why our connection to soil and plants just may be the most important connection there is.  Stay connected at https://kisstheground.com/​ Join our newsletter at https://bit.ly/ktgnewsletter​
Kiss the Ground is a 501(c)3 increasing societal awareness about the extraordinary benefits of healthy soil. We educate millions of people across the globe and provide pathways for everyone to participate in the movement. Through our Leadership and Farmland programs, we directly support farmers and their adoption of regenerative agriculture and cultivate leaders who can implement change at a community level and within the key sectors of business, policy, media, and education. We also create inspiring media, strong partnerships, and shift policy.”
Film: Homegrown Revolution
The Dervaes family has worked since the mid-1980s to transform their ordinary city lot in Pasadena, California, into a thriving organic garden that supplies them and their “citified” backyard farm animals with food year round. The Dervaes transformed their home In the midst of densely urban downtown Pasadena into an urban homestead where they harvest three tons of organic food annually from their 1/10 acre garden while incorporating back-to-basics practices, solar energy, and biodiesel.
These modern-day homesteading pioneers also run a successful business selling fresh produce to local restaurants and the community. Not only are they successful at growing their own food, but have also grown a community. Through their website, homestead events, and countless skill share workshops, they are inspiring folks to take matters into their own hands and to be the change they wish to see.
Since their first press article in 2002, the Urban Homestead project has been featured on thousands of blogs, dozens of TV appearances (Sundance, CBS News, ABC Nightline, Oprah and many more) and hundreds of articles in LA Times, NY Times, Times of India, Germany Faz – to name a few.
The Homegrown Revolution film was a collaborative family project by Jules, Anais, Justin, and Jordanne with each member taking part in the filming, editing, and structure of the film.
The original version of Homegrown Revolution film was made in three days for a lecture Jules Dervaes gave at the University of California Los Angeles in October 2007 on the topic of Slow Food. It received a wildly enthusiastic response from the students, attracted an avid following on YouTube, and got the attention of several local and worldwide film festivals.
To Change The World We Change Ourselves!
The film not only won many awards, but it brought the audience to its feet with tears in their eyes. “Homegrown Revolution” has had an impressive impact in film festivals nationally and internationally. It was not created for a film festival circuit, but has a true homegrown, homemade story behind its creation. This film has inspired millions around the world to pick up a trowel and start a Homegrown Revolution in their own back and front yards.
Urban Agroecoloy: 6,000 lbs of food on 1/10th acre – Urban Homestead – Urban Permaculture
The Urban Homestead: Pathway To Freedom
In Memory of Jules Dervaes (1947-2016)
Jules Dervaes Jr (1947-2016) Memorial Slideshow
Dervaes Family Farm | The Urban Homestead | Episode 94
“In this episode, we are invited to Pasadena California to the Dervaes family farm, internationally known as The Urban Homestead. The children of founder Jules Dervaes continue his legacy, and maintain the family urban farm, it’s CSA, and it’s teachings. Justin Dervaes gives us a short tour around the gardens, and sits down for an interview about where they are now.”
Power of One
Anais Dervaes explains that 70 families subscribe now to their Community Service Agriculture (CSA) program in which they partner with two other farms and a “bread lady” down the street and there’s a waiting list to get on the CSA list. The Dervaes give workshops to adults and kids, teach at schools, and give tours of the garden. People who take the jam class Anais teaches learn to make jam and take the jam home. It is made from organic peaches from a farm two hours south of their home. She meets once a month with local farmers and food advocates.
Anais teaches an optional after-school “Farm To Table” class. She says some kids have taken the class three years in a row — and one kid has taken it for four years! She says kids often come back years later and tell her they remember being in her class when they were in Second Grade. Anais points out that that there’s a growing trend now as more people are gardening to grow their own food. Anais says she would like to see more Urban Homesteads on her street. She recommends that people start small by just growing an herb or two. Anais points out “Small steps have big impact”.
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$2,000/Week Growing Veggies on Half Acre
EARNING $2K in ONE WEEK Growing Veggies on his FRONT YARD! shows that Jim Kovaleski’s garden is on a half-acre in the front yards of his and his mother’s homes In Florida. He also gardens half the year at his home in Maine. Kovaleski explains how hard it is to get seeds now. He says his cauliflowers are seven pounds now. His CSA Buyers Club is full now with 50 people. He points out that the fact that he makes $2,000 a week from his garden is an indication of how other people could help feed their communities now just by growing gardens on small plots.
“Jim Kovaleski is having the best success he’s ever had with this market gardens and sales! He broke $2,000 in just one week selling his beyond organic produce! Stay tuned for the next update with Jim as his garden keeps progressing! ALSO, we filmed a Course with Jim Kovaleski a few years back. It’s called “The Grass-Fed Market Garden“. This course is packed with valuable information + content and is affordable! Learn from the Farming Master!
Field Trip to The CSA Buyer’s Club w/ Urban Farmer Jim Kovaleski
Healthier World Emerging Now
Humanity Is Living In Two Worlds Now! links to the article: We Are Bearing Witness to the Drama of a Dying World. It also links to the video DARK JOURNALIST – GIGI YOUNG: UFO CONSCIOUSNESS AHRIMAN & MYSTERY SCHOOLS REVEALED!  in which Gigi says, “There are two very distinct consciousnesses forming on the planet today, and they are going to have very different futures. They are going to have different realities. We don’t have a shared future. There is a splitting of time lines.”
Return To The Garden of “EDEN” Now shows that author Vin Armani explains that there are four repeating periods of history and we are shifting now from the Market Age in which bankers dominated to the Farmer Age. He shows that automation is going to put millions of people out of work. So, people who become self-sustaining by going off grid and growing their own food will be most likely to thrive.
How The West Lost Its Mind And Why It Must Regain It Fast Now To Survive shows that the West took a wrong turn with the Garden of Eden story when it forbade direct access to experiential knowledge. As Apple advises us, we must “Think Different” now. We are shifting from a mechanistic, materialistic value system of domination and endless greed that leads to death of the planet to a spiritual value system of cooperation with the Earth, other peoples, and species that supports life.
We are each choosing now which path to follow.
Top image: HISTORY
