My hometown newspaper (and employer) has an article about community gardens and the red tape that can accompany the effort to get one started. The Homegrown Minneapolis initiative is trying to change that, and I applaud the effort. Their very noble goals are:
• Using public and private land for community gardens and food production.
• Increasing access to farmers’ markets or mobile food delivery services.
• Encouraging restaurants, schools and other organizations to use locally grown food on their menus.
• Supporting entrepreneurs who want to create small businesses focused on local food production.
I am not going to be able to make this, but the Homegrown Minneapolis folks will host a public meeting from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Monday at Martin Luther King Park, 4055 Nicollet Av. S., Minneapolis. If you go, let me know how it was.
Here’s a slightly more critical yet still hopeful take on the project.
Stacking Functions Garden 
May 16, 2009 at 7:29 am
I went to a workshop at the Living Green Expo on organic food and how to be local and stretch our eating proximity even into the Winter Season. It was good even though they were preaching to the choir. One woman showed pictures of her second year doing a local Thanksgiving and really what a bunch of work it was. But her family now has taken this on as an even more personal holiday and challenge for themselves. She has “started something”. Mayor Rybaks wife was in my group and she was explaining this Homegrown Mpls. and it was so inspiring. It is her baby, with her husbands position making it possible. Hopefully she has started something also.