HOMEGROWN.org will get a whole lot bigger next week when we open the gates of the framework  we’ve been quietly building for a year. Our founding contributors - folks like Wendy and Mikey from Holy Scrap Hot Springs and Willi from DigginFood - are poking around right now, posting their thoughts, photos, videos, links and more.

Imagine it: a forum where we can ask questions like: “my vermicompost bin has hit a plateau, the worms seem sluggish - what’s going on?” and “what the heck kind of squash / gourd / pumpkin thingy is this?”; and where you can proudly post photos and videos of the ways that you are living; get to know what and who is in your area doing similar things; share, connect, learn, grow…

Our founding contributors are folks who are living in pioneering and creative ways, and who share the passion of their convictions by using photos, videos, popular culture and technology. Wendy’s beautifully poetic post about why she lives the way she does illustrates that passion:

In 2000 when I quit my job and reoriented myself away from money and towards the gathering of skills: welding, sewing, building, growing food, many of my friends thought I was nuts. I did not make these changes with a doomy perspective. The epiphany that inspired me was one of a better world that followed a great collapse. So here we are. Some of my friends no longer think I’m nuts…

…We’ll all find our place soon enough. As we slide deeper into what’s being now called the ‘greater depression’ I suggest we consider this collapse is also the renaissance in disguise. If your tempted to savor what was: money, consumerism and greed, consider how little life it contained.

Looking forward to continuing the conversation with all of you!

I really love food, and I think that if you like to eat, if you love vegetables, and you want to cook with the best produce around, then you should garden. I’m definitely a better person and care more about the earth because I have a vegetable garden. And the reason why is pretty simple. I come into intimate and very literal contact with the earth almost daily. It gets in my hair, under my nails, smudged across my forehead. And I like it.

Sinking a trowel into my garden bed and planting a seedling takes the kind of abstract concept of “The Environment” and makes it tangible to me. Which is why I think vegetable gardening, and teaching people to grow their own food, is so important. Gardeners, consciously or unconsciously, can’t help but be environmentalists because they care about, and for, a little patch of earth and all the living things that
rely on it.

Watching a plant grow, nurturing it along, and harvesting food from it has the transformative ability to make you feel deeply invested in the earth and the food you put in your body. Gardening also teaches you to respect and appreciate the amount of work it takes to grow food and the people who grow it for a living. When you’re a vegetable gardener you learn what plants grow when, which makes it easier to learn how to
eat more seasonally. And when you have a veggie patch, eating healthier is not just an option, it’s a necessity, because you have tons of vegetables growing right outside your backdoor.

If I was in charge of the world, I would make sure that everyone had the opportunity to learn how to grow their own food and a place to grow it. But since I’m not, I decided to start DigginFood. My hope is that it inspires people to try out vegetable gardening and cooking seasonally. I update the site several times weekly with recipes, photos of awesome kitchen gardens, gardening techniques, and product round-ups, and I chronicle what is happening in my own little veggie garden.

Laura and Vance are two of the most creative and passionate HOMEGROWNers we know, and we’re thrilled to welcome them as contributors to HOMEGROWN.org.

They will be sharing their adventures of CSA roulette, party cupcakes and wildly successful DIY projects. We’re not quite sure where they find the time - they are in the midst of planning their sure-to-be 100% HOMEGROWN wedding on the coast of Maine, as well as working “day jobs” and taking their hound, Olive, for long walks. The happy couple lives with their vast collection of cooking implements in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.