Gardens for Humanity has six gardens in Sedona, Verde Valley

It used to be the cook of the house just went out to the garden to get the needed ingredients for a meal.

Today, for most Americans, the food comes from the grocery store from the produce department, in cans or plastic bags from the freezer section. It is harvested, prepared and packaged sometimes more than 1,500 miles away.

Gardens for Humanity is trying to turn the trend around and have people grow their vegetables, fruit and other food items close to home — in the back yard or a community garden.

“The way to stay healthy is through eating healthy food grown in a healthy way. A person whose had a tomato off the vine compared to the store knows the difference. There’s no comparison to the smell and the taste,” Gardens for Humanity Board Member Ruth Hartung said.

The greater Sedona area has six Gardens for Humanity: Kachina Point, Sedona Schnebly Community Garden on Brewer Road, Three sisters at St. John Vianney, Crescent Moon Ranch, Hopi Garden Project in Cornville and the Karmapa Garden, which is a project between Sedona Creative Life Center and Gardens for Humanity.

“We’ve had projects with West Sedona School creating gardens there, and this year is the second annual Sedona Verde Valley Spring Planting Festival. People come together and learn about gardening hands-on,” Hartung said. The festival started Sunday, March 14, and will continue until Sunday, March 21.

People from the gardens also recently participated in the Sedona International Film Festival with a Locavore event to bring local chefs together with local growers.

“They both fall into one of the missions for Gardens for Humanity about educating the community about the different aspects of plants and gardening,” Hartung said.

Crescent Moon and Three Sisters are specifically for growing food and involving local gardeners and those who would like to learn about gardening.

Teri Bays, who helped get the garden started at St. John Vianney said the idea came about after she attended the 2009 Sedona International Film Festival and watched movies about preserving the earth.

“I thought it would be a good idea. We had the property and Father JC [Ortiz] is a gardener so it seemed like a good fit,” Bays said. “It’s good to bring the community together and get us all in touch with the earth, plus it’s good education for everyone.”

The Hopi Garden received an education grant. They will bring children from the Hopi Reservation and from local schools to learn and work in the garden.

They will teach them traditional Hopi gardening and the traditional way of tending the garden such as removing pests like gophers. Hartung said she heard about a man who talked to the gophers and told them the garden was not for them, then used a food trail to lead them out and away. They never returned, according to the story.

“Part of our job is to bridge the gap between traditional and the new green methods. There’s a need for both,” Hartung said.

The Sedona Schnebly Community Garden started as a rescue operation. The city was about to bulldoze the remains of the homestead to make room for a needed parking lot. Many townspeople objected. Gardens for Humanity took the lead, along with the Sedona Historical Society and the Sedona Main Street Program, and saved some of the land, and her irises, in her memory. Volunteers, businesses and organizations made the garden a reality.

The mission of Gardens for Humanity is to honor local farmers and build upon the crop raising legacies, inspire and strengthen community participation, connect diverse people, increase environmental awareness and make gardens welcoming places for the arts and celebration.

“We’re also trying to restore this area to agriculture, like it used to be. It’s been about 70 years since we’ve been away from that,” Hartung said. “There is a move to restore that culture and Gardens [for Humanity] wants to be a part of that.”

Hartung said Gardens for Humanity has focussed on the Sedona and Verde Valley region because of it’s agricultural past and hope something drastic could happen through the gardens. The goal is to grow enough food to feed 125,000 people.

“If we can do it here we can do it elsewhere. A community that doesn’t grow it’s own food is vulnerable to what happens, like shipping problems, weather and growing conditions,” Hartung said. “The quality of the food lessens the further away it is from the source.”

Saving good seeds is another goal of local gardening, especially preserving native seeds that do well in the area.

Gardening can be done is Arizona — even in the desert regions, Hartung said. With some knowledge and preparation, a garden can be grown in the ground, a pot on the window sill or outside under the eaves.

“You do have to amend the soil here. One of the things we focus on is building the soil. If it has lots of nitrogen and minerals, things will grow,” Hartung said.

Water is another consideration, but people can harvest rain water and use it for the plants.

Many of the skills for growing food and how to preserve it once it is harvested have been lost to the latest generations, Hartung said, but with some education everyone can reconnect with the earth and the plants.

“Something magical happens, and people get hooked,” Hartung said.