My 30 hour introduction to Growing Power was motivational to say the least. How often does coursework make you want to join a revolution? I suppose they were preaching a bit to the choir in my case. The second day I was in I took home a bucket of worms for my own little worm farm. Granted that’s something I had wanted to do for a while but from the beginning I was very eager to delve in and learn what the Good Food Revolution was all about; to get my hands dirty.
The juxtaposition I had mentioned in the last reflection about the burger joint across the street from Growing Power where you are served through bullet proof glass continues to ring loud with its irony. Another mild irony is that I was studying Urban Development in another class which explored with some depth the conditions that lead to housing projects the likes of where Growing Power is located. Cast in this light, The Growing Power story becomes (I’m gonna go for broke here) a fantastic, epic representation of good and evil. Forces that have molded our cities into regions ranging from almost demilitarized zones up to the affluent areas where birds sing and land on your shoulder. Growing Power as an entity, something to identify with represents a resistance to conditions in society that yield poverty and disintegration of our cities and society.
My worms are doing good. Are they going to multiply into an army and march out to dismantle the fast food enterprise and fix the follies of city planning mistakes? Depends on how you think about it. What they’ve accomplished so far has been to dispose of all the kitchen waste from our apartment and turn it into black, nutrient rich soil. More important than that is the adjustment they’ve made to our routine in the kitchen. First we tried using the five gallon bucket the worms came in to collect our kitchen scrapes in before carrying them down stairs to the little 1.5 x 1.5 x 2.5 ft bin they live in. But the open bucket attracted flies so covered it. That turned decomposition from aerobic to anaerobic and stunk like a baby’s diaper. So now we use a small one quart yogurt container instead of the five gallon bucket. It doesn’t breed fruit flies and needs to be emptied before it has time to stink.
What has all that gotten us? Awareness of not just of the types of waste we throw out but of little it takes modify our routines in ways whose byproducts are not waste full and don’t contribute to the deterioration of our cities.

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documentary short 1 of 2

When the moment came to compile 8 pictures and 250 words from the images and bits of information assembled for this project, I realized I would need a big scissors. The amount of activity occurring at Growing Power and intricate nature of its process’s are far out of your typical routine. Rather than delve into the details and background of the activity and people of Growing Power, I decided to recapture and express my first impressions of the place. People were constantly running around with big exhausted smiles doing curious chores that begged to be explained to the untrained eye. It was an exotic jungle, complete with water falls!
A photo / text spread worked better than a power point presentation for me for two reasons. The images I was using did not fit linearly with the ideas I wanted to describe in text. Offering the pictures as a spread allows for the viewer to look many different directions at once, much like I felt seeing the place for the first time. I felt they communicated best with specific spatial arrangement. I was also able to make the text describing Growing Power’s philosophy a central focal point.
I was previously aware of Growing Power through news and radio and was looking forward to volunteering with them. When I toured the grounds, my expectations were dwarfed by what I saw. Clearly there was much more happening here below the surface, no pun intended. It’s an intensely controlled and maintained little ecosystem you’re surrounded by. From the employees to the interns to the volunteers the hierarchy is leveled as everyone works side by side, all seeming to share a common motivation.
Growing Power is not a retreat full of tree-hugging dirt-worshipers. Two elements are in action. One is a precise, commercial food production facility with clients whose orders needed to be filled. The other is a stoic will to engineer food growing techniques more rooted in nature than in petroleum based fertilizer. Aquaponics and vermaculture create nutrient rich soil by employing fish and worms; organisms whose natural role in the ecosystem is to produce fertilizers.
While that is obviously noble and good, the true purpose of such an enterprise became apparent after visiting the antithesis of Growing Power. I stopped in at a carry-out joint less than 200 feet away from Growing Power to grab a quick bite. Bulletproof glass divided the stark waiting area (that may at one time have customer seating) from the kitchen and cash register. When my gyro came, it was in a brown paper bag translucent with grease. Next door to a McDonalds and kitty corner from a Popeye’s, Dino’s Steak & Lemonade represents the staple food source for much of the neighborhood which Growing Power intentionally chose to move into. Now I’ve been on country farms before but Growing Power’s location gives it a sense of urgency that conventional farms lack. Working here, one quickly makes the transition from observer to participant. The intrigue of all the activity exposes many avenues to explore further.