The produce outside the capitol building at Madison, WI, is donated to a food pantry.(Kelly Hafermann/Flickr) Chard is one of the many plants growing in the Montpelier, Vt. state house vegetable garden.Photo: Waldo Jaquith via FlickrThere's a new breed of urban agriculture germinating throughout the country, one whose seeds come from an unlikely source. Local government officials from Baltimore, Md., to Bainbridge Island, Wash. are plowing under the ubiquitous hydrangeas, petunias, daylilies, and turf grass around public buildings, and planting fruits and vegetables instead -- as well as in underutilized spaces in our parks, plazas, street medians, and even parking …
Get Grist in Your Inbox
Thanks! !
Darrin Nordahl is the city designer at the Davenport Design Center, a division of the Community & Economic Development Department of the City of Davenport, Iowa. He has taught in the planning program at the University of California at Berkeley and is the author of My Kind of Transit and <a href="http://islandpress.org/bookstore/details607b.html?prod_id=19155"Public Produce, which makes a case for local government involvement in shaping food policy.
Most Viewed
Antarctica’s “bleeding glacier” is kind of terrifying
This app helps you avoid supporting Monsanto and other terrible companies
Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided
Monster ice sheets destroy homes, terrorize residents
Brooklyn police bust rooftop grow operation … of heirloom tomatoes

Macklemore credits Seattle parks with launching his rap career
What the frack do we know? (Not much)
Holland is better than we are at everything