Barefoot Gardens

On Monday, our class was able to explore three of Macomb’s nature conservatories: Horn Field Campus, Barefoot Gardens, and Finks Conservancy. All three had different aspects to offer Western Illinois University students and the community.

Barefoot Gardens is a local garden that raises 300 varieties of vegetables and some fruits. According to John Curtis, the owner and operator, the garden’s mission is to revitalize local economies with wholesome and healthy foods grown by local farms.

This garden, and others like it, are considered to be Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA. This concept was first developed in the mid-1980s in Japan. Women in a Japanese community were saddened to find that certain plants were not being sold at their local market anymore. The group decided to hire a farmer to plant the produce for them to enjoy once again.

This same policy governs Barefoot Gardens. The farmer is paid up front and receives a share of what is harvested at the end of the season. There are now approximately 10,000 CSA’s in the United States. Curtis calls the CSA’s an “alternative force” to combat against the increasing number of large commercial farms.

Over the past 60 years, the number of large commercial operations has increased, while small, rural farms continue to decrease and disappear. Farming was once based on solar means. Farmers only grew or raised whatever plants or animals they needed to feed their families. They were able to “break-even,” and were able to produce wholesome foods that did not need to be sprayed with chemicals. The animals were raised on pasture or grass and were not fed mass quantities of grain.

In today’s economy, Curtis feels that feedlots raising cattle for slaughter, hog confinements, and corn and soybean fertilizer are responsible for the decrease in food’s nutritional value. He also claims that there are half as many farmers as 10 years ago. One day, maybe soon, he feels that farming will be a strictly corporate operation.

Barefoot Gardens’ goal is to “pick your own” food. Curtis and his staff plant year round and harvest all of the vegetables by hand. They are grown in typical gardens or in “hoop houses.” Hoop houses are structures similar to greenhouses, but they have no heat or electricity and are covered on the sides by plastic (which can be adjusted) and wheels on the bottom to move it from place to place.

“It’s like having two greenhouses,” said Curtis about the ability to move the hoop house.

The hoop house allows Curtis to keep greens throughout the winter (even in -10 degree temperatures!).

Once ready, the gardens are opened up to the public and customers can go to the gardens and pick the food themselves. They can come inside the screened porch and socialize and meet new friends at what Curtis calls a “third place,” or a place to converse with people on a weekly basis. Curtis, a board member of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, says that many lobbying acts and conversations about the gardens have been started on the porch.

Barefoot Gardens provides a nutritious and more environmentally friendly way to grow and buy food. By deciding how to spend our money on food, we can make the change back to this simpler way of production. As Curtis said, “Every dollar spent on food goes toward what you want to see in the future.”

By Chelsea Crawford