Hyperlocavore Yard Sharing
By Asiya Wadud
Did you know that 60% of North Americans under-use their yard? Recently a number of Internet-based groups have begun to set up networks to allow folks who want to garden to find others who have unused yard space. Yard sharing social networking sites are on the rise, with one better known site being Hyperlocavore: A Yard Sharing Community at http://hyperlocavore.com. Hyperlocavore is a site run by Liz M., who resides in a rural community in Oregon and is currently tending her mother's rich backyard garden plot. A hyperlocavore is a person who aims to eat as locally as he or she can, consuming what grows in one's immediate neighborhood whenever possible. Yard-sharing, or an agreement between two or more people to share yard space and resources for the purpose of producing food, has become quite popular with locavores as it is in line with the ultimate goal of eating as locally as possible.
Whereas one can live in a large city for years and literally only know their neighbors in passing, yard-sharing creates a community of people who know and care for one another through the sharing of healthful food, skills, and energy, and commit time to developing this mutually beneficial relationship. For example, yard-sharing can connect an isolated elderly neighbor with an abundance of backyard space to a new family two houses away who yearns for backyard space to plant a small vegetable garden. In sharing the elderly neighbor's land resources and the young family's strength and time, a new connection is formed, and in this fashion and community can be built.
The Hyperlocavore social networking site allows for active organizing in numerous U.S. cities. You are welcome to add your own city to the online community if it is not already listed. Thus far, there are seventy active individual pods, or hyperlocal yard-share groups. Once a city is added to the site, one can begin connecting backyards to enthusiastic neighborhood gardeners. Another site worth noting is Sharing Backyards (www.sharingbackyards.com), a project based out of Victoria, BC that connects would-be gardeners with those who have excess backyard garden space.
Benefits of participating in a neighborhood yard-sharing program are many, but here are just a few: more affordable and more readily available access to healthful foods; bridging the knowledge between the food we eat and its cultivation; retention of flavors because the distance and time traveled is significantly shorter, and it is an excellent way of exploring one's neighborhood and connecting to seasonality of the fruits, vegetables, and herbs one consumes.
If you live in Victoria, log on to www.sharingbackyards.com. Otherwise, point your browsers to http://hyperlocavore.com and begin exploring the planting possibilities!
