The organizers also needed to raise $700 for a water meter, and though they had been canvassing, flyering, and blogging for some time, they didn’t know if anyone would claim the garden beds they were planning, let alone volunteer to build them.

That day, more than 100 sets of hands showed up ready to dig, haul, and hammer. They built two dozen raised beds, a compost bin, and a fence made of wood pallets. The bloc of volunteers was so vast and their buy-in so fierce that soon the garden expanded from the initial planned 25 beds to 60. Soon, the area was studded with fruit trees, a berry garden, colorful hand-painted signs, and a public plot that can be collectively maintained and harvested.

Now, as it completes its first growing season, Wangari Gardens, named for the late Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, is a good example of the kinds of roller coasters scrappy new community gardens often face — and the power of persistence.

It all started in late 2011 when Singer, a graduate student studying history at George Mason University, noticed a grassy park sitting vacant in his food desert neighborhood. He started to envision a community garden. When he realized he had a project on his hands, Singer brought in McLaughlin, a school garden instructor, to help.

In a city that aims to put natural spaces within walking distance of 100 percent of its residents [PDF], one would think that a community garden project would be seen as a priority. This hasn’t always been the case.

One by one, city government offices denied responsibility for this plot of land bordering a large hospital in northwest D.C.

“Everyone was giving us different answers. Department of Transportation was saying, ‘It’s Washington Hospital Center.’ Washington Hospital Center was saying, ‘It’s Department of Rec.’ Department of Rec was saying, ‘It’s National Parks,’” Singer recalls in a fundraising video about the garden (see below). He waded through geospatial data and pored over maps trying to figure out who oversaw the lot. Finally, an employee at the Office of the Surveyor took pity on Singer and found a tie to the District Department of Transportation. DDOT then worked with the nascent community organization to form an agreement, and — finally — Wangari Gardens had itself a dedicated space.

Next came the water question. Even after the city’s water agency granted Wangari a usage meter (an instrument usually reserved for construction sites), they still had to convey the water over a busy street to their cistern and dispense some 1,000 gallons each week to the thirsty plots. With summer temperatures in the triple digits, a kink in either part of this process would have spelled agricultural carnage.

A Franken-hose made from half a dozen industrial hoses, some duct tape, and a lot of prayer took care of the first problem. The second problem was solved when plot holder Judea Lawton wrangled the support of another government entity called the Summer Youth Employment Program. So every weekday for most of the summer, a local teen was paid to water and weed.

Soon the garden was helping area residents eat healthier on a budget. “It’s like a sin to be healthy,” says plot holder Antoinette Inge. “You have to pay for it.” Over the summer, Inge packed her parking space-sized bed with kale, spinach, arugula, and radishes.

Some also see the garden as a safe haven. “It’s hard to be a parent in this city. The yards are small, the freaky people are many,” says plot holder Nat Malkus, an education research analyst and father of three. “[Wangari] is a setting that we need.” It helps that Singer and McLaughlin “really have a heart to not just have the young hipsters and the young professionals involved in Wangari,” says Angela Strange, coordinator of a kids program in the area.

As winter approaches, the garden still faces challenges. Passing traffic wore down the first Franken-hose, there’s still a waiting list of 20 people, and one of the founders’ first visions, a wheelchair ramp, has yet to materialize. But in November, a fully funded Kickstarter campaign allowed them to expand their shed. And they have plans for a community compost drop-off and rain-catching structures. The youth program will also continue next summer, and there is a plan for a seed library.

Wangari Gardens might yet encounter a deal-breaking challenge. But the organizers’ approach keeps Lawton optimistic. “When you’re generous and you’re kind,” she says, “I think the whole universe works together for good.”

Writer-farmer Wendell Berry reminds city dwellers that “eating is an agricultural act.” For many, vacationing has followed suit. Whether you’re bed and breakfasting it on the farm, biodieseling to a beach picnic, or touring the eco-vineyards of South Africa this year, you’ll need a sustainable food book or two for the journey.

Here we rounded up to a list of some of our favorites — all released this year and ready for the beach, farm, road trip, or wine trail.

1. In Change Comes to Dinner: How Vertical Farmers, Urban Growers, and Other Innovators Are Revolutionizing How America Eats, Katherine Gustafson goes on what she calls a “hoperaking” tour of sustainable food operations. Gustafson paints with Michael Pollan-esque strokes, managing to extrapolate broad ideas about meat monopolies and consumer appetites from the passenger seat of a school-bus-turned-mobile-farmers-market or the edge of an aquaponic tilapia tank. Casual summer readers might glide past the statistics and commentary en route to the quirky stories of eco-entrepreneurs, but it’s nice to know they’re there for later reference. This paperback will fit perfectly into a frame pack or beach tote, and the casual tone keeps it light.

2. Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World, edited by Psyche Williams-Forson and Carole Counihan, is an anthology of scholarly food writing. Though chock full of citations and academic language, many of the pieces read more like brainy Harpers articles than those in academic journals. And some selections roll up to sustenance-and-society intersections — say, soul food and Sunni Islam — that will make even the most well-read foodies sit up in their Adirondack chairs.

3. American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America comes directly from the first lady. Neatly steering clear of politics, Michelle Obama takes readers through the inaugural years of the garden on the South Lawn. Color photographs of lush plants and plum-cheeked kids splash across many of its pages. The book radiates beyond the garden’s three-year history, though, veering back to White House gardens gone by and the FLOTUS’ own family history, then looking ahead to her nonpartisan plans to curb childhood obesity. If you’re looking for a light read, this graphic-heavy book includes a two-page spread featuring a yellowed map of Thomas Jefferson’s garden on the right and a picture of a panting Bo on the left. In other words, it’s the perfect indulgence for vacation-induced ADHD.

4. Urban Farms, by Food Print co-founder Sarah Rich, profiles 16 food operations that feed cities from New York to Los Angeles. Employing an anthropological eye, Rich and photographer Matthew Benson highlight a diverse combination of agriculture and urban landscapes. Like American Grown, Urban Farms’ magazine-like feel complements distracting vacation locales. The heft of the hardcover volume (and some of its marketing) suggest resting it on a coffee table rather than a beach blanket. But carrying it along is worth it. Check out our interview with Sarah Rich.

5. In Eat the City: A Tale of the Fishers, Foragers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, and Brewers Who Built New York, Robin Shulman dives into the history of New York City and finds food at its core. In each chapter Shulman interweaves stories of food production past and present — from cow herding in Manhattan to sugar cane farming in the Bronx and butchery in Brooklyn. Shulman introduces her readers to an array of characters from a wide variety of backgrounds proving that today’s obsession with where our food comes from is not a trend but a return to something fundamental — even in the most urban environments. Read our interview with Shulman.

6. If the term terroir — “the taste of place” — doesn’t conjure up images of the desert for you, you’re probably not alone. Agricultural ecologist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan wants to change that with Desert Terroir: Exploring the Unique Flavors and Sundry Places of the Borderlands. In this short collection of essays, Nabhan invites his readers along in search of wild oregano, the long-horned Corriente cows of New Mexico, and Covina on the Baja Peninsula. Nabhan also shares his own work as a gardener and orchardist to bring foods grown in dry, southern counties up into the cooler hills where they might survive the next several decades of climate change, making himself an active participant in the ever-changing desert terroir. This an inspiring book by a man who knows the land he lives on intimately and a must-read for anyone who grows their own food or one day hopes to.

7. Are you looking to get caught up on the state of seafood and the world’s oceans without reading a huge stack of books? Ocean of Life is your ticket. And, it turns out, Callum Roberts, a well-respected professor of marine preservation, can also tell a good story! Collum details the escalating problems associated with bottom trawling, overfishing, noise pollution, an ocean warmed by climate change, and the resource-intensive practice of fish farming — but uses strong imagery and engaging narratives that will keep you following along, despite the bad news.  He also lays out a plans for “a New Deal for the Oceans,” arguing for a sudden, global-scale response to a crisis that has been invisible to many of us for too long. Ocean of Life isn’t the lightest book (in either sense of the word), but if you’re the type to use your vacation to get caught up on important reading you don’t have time to do otherwise, this book is for you.

8. Celebrity farmer and MacArthur laureate Will Allen relates his urban agriculture adventures in The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities. Even if you’ve read about the man and the story, get this book for his telling of it. The one-time Proctor and Gamble executive opens with his mother moving two young sons to a city she has never seen, joining the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the Jim Crow South. He goes on to quote Maya Angelou and Martin Luther King, Jr., and later tells how he helped a former Goldman Sachs analyst start a composting service. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there Allen transforms the lives of inner-city Milwaukee residents with Growing Power. If the poignancy of the facts alone doesn’t move you, consider the language: “[T]he desire to farm … hid in my feet,” writes this son of share-croppers.

They wanted the moist earth beneath them. It hid in my hands. They wanted to be callused and rough and caked with soil. It hid in my heart. I missed the rhythms of agriculture.

Read our interview with Allen.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) households know the cries.

“So many sweet potatoes!”

“Tomatillos again?”

But “Oh, man — more whole wheat flour!”? Not so much. Yet that may be coming.

On the East Coast, Virginia’s Moutoux Orchards is growing and milling wheat and barley to nestle beside produce, dairy, eggs, and meat in its Full Diet CSA. To the west, Windborne Farm of northern California offers a grain CSA featuring not just wheat and barley, but also rare grains like teff and millet raised using a pair of draft horses.

All over the country, small grain farmers like these may soon place the last piece in the local-foods puzzle.

There is no question that fruits and vegetables have been the backbone of the locavore movement. The number of farmers markets in the U.S. has increased 400 percent since 1994, while CSAs grew from a handful in the 1980s to an estimated 6,500 today. Eggs, meat, fish, and dairy have joined produce in market stalls and CSA boxes, but grains often lag behind.

“There are more small grain growers than a decade ago, but [the] trend here is growing quite slowly and is far behind small-scale produce, meat, and dairy growers,” says Erin Barnett, head of the local food directory Local Harvest. Out of more than 18,600 small farms listed on the website, fewer than 600 grow wheat, and an even smaller number offer oats or rye.

For generations, large-scale agribusiness has been seen as the most efficient way to produce commodity grains, such as corn, wheat, and rice (a fact that may be changing thanks to climate change). Big Midwestern farms churn out enough to feed every American 8.2 servings of grain a day. Farm subsidies (and, increasingly, crop insurance) have also given large farms an advantage for years. Buoyed by this system, large farmers and processors can grow grains at a price much lower than small producers can even imagine.

But as Big Grain has taken over, the variety of seeds available and the wisdom about growing grains sustainably have diminished. Until recently. Now some small-scale grain farmers have stepped back into the fray. They approach it not as direct competitors to commodity grain growers, but as an alternative for eaters in search of healthier, more sustainable options. Such producers claim a corner of the market with sustainable growing methods, value-added products, or specialty crops that customers choose for flavor. In fact, most successful local-scale grain farming relies on all three.

Photo by Elizabeth Dyck.

A new wheatail market

“This is the absolute opposite of large farming systems,” says Eli Rogosa, who grows grain for seeds and retail in western Massachusetts, and who directs the Heritage Grain Conservancy and coordinates the Northeast Organic Wheat initiative, funded by Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education.

Most small grain growers just got rolling in the past 15 years, but already consumers are smitten. A gluten-sensitive customer of Rogosa raves about an ancient wheat so pure and free of the allergenic protein that she could eat pita again. Grass Valley Grains of northern California ships whole wheat flour to a customer in Waikiki who will bake with nothing else. A San Francisco chef has gushed over cornmeal from South Carolina’s Anson Mills that “made love to buttermilk.” And the Moutoux Orchards CSA? It sold out with its 2011 debut — even with a price tag of $250 per person per month.

“There is a growing contingent of people who put a lot of importance on food quality and safety,” explained Mark Sorrells, chair of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. “Also, people want to support local economies and businesses that give back to the community.”

Before farmers can add grain to the local foods picture, farmers have to address some problems unique to these crops. That is where people like Ragosa and Sorrells come in.

For one, thanks to industrial agriculture, the array of available seeds has been winnowed down to very few varieties. And most of these varieties are patented. “This is a global, silent crisis of loss of biodiversity,” says Rogosa. And that biodiversity has only gained in importance as farmers face the increasingly brutal results of climate change.

For Rogosa, farmer-saved seeds — also known as “landrace” seeds — offer economic benefits as well. “Unique varieties help small-scale farmers earn a living and have a niche market,” she says.

Sorrells is focusing on farming wisdom. He noticed a problem when retailers like New York City’s Greenmarket reported that local grain was flying out of market stalls faster than they could stock them. Simply put, Sorrells says, “they can’t produce enough to meet demand.”

Sorrells and Cornell post-doc Julie Dawson started to talk to growers and organizations like the Organic Growers’ Research and Information-Sharing Network and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. Across the region, farmers found that growing local, organic grain posed unique challenges. Three of the biggest challenges were identifying the hardiest varieties, finding enough seeds to fill their fields, and managing their grain crops organically.

The scientists are now working, in part, to find the best seeds in the right quantity, as well as improve knowledge about management — the side of farming focused on fertilization, density of seed planting, and combating pests.

Grains as food, not filler

 Reed Hamilton of Grass Valley Grains on a tractor.

Another challenge stems from the price factor. Once grain farmers supply specialty markets, they have to face the same reality as all local producers — namely that mainstream consumers balk at the price of most of small-scale, sustainably produced foods. While seasonal herbs or vegetables can compete with supermarket prices, shoppers are unlikely to find local flour below $1.25 to $2 per pound.

Perhaps the biggest problem, though, lies in the food system itself. To truly fix grain production, Americans must change the way they farm and eat in a number of ways.

For one, says Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, we may have to eat more actual grain ourselves. “Ninety-plus percent of all the grain grown in North Carolina goes into the mouths of animals,” Roberts says. “It doesn’t actually [feed] people.” If we return to the model used by beloved agriculture pioneer Thomas Jefferson, who saw meat as a condiment, then local grains might sound more affordable. When we see grains not just as cheap fillers, but as unique foods, they become worth a little more investment — both of our money and our culinary attention.

We also have to recognize the power of landrace species. Roberts, who has started giving farmers grants to test such seeds, confirms that they are hardy enough to stand up to erratic weather. “They adapt, that’s what they do,” he says proudly.

And finally, research must appeal to large funders just as much as rogue researchers. This has already begun. Monsanto may not shell out for heritage seed testing any time soon, but the USDA has supported Rogosa’s trials and the research at Cornell.

Will we ever see local grain production scale up like meat and produce have? The next few years will tell. What is certain is that the small-grain influx has refreshed the idea that growers, scientists, and consumers can all play a role in tackling established behemoths and move into a new frontier.