Aug 19, 2009, Vol: 16, No: 37
A few years back, Michael Selig-Soulseed, 27, worked as a landscape contractor. But as he grew more knowledgeable about food politics, he wanted to do something other than busting up yards. He sought a way to get people connected to their food and the environment. But how?
After constructing free gardens for a spell, Selig-Soulseed, in 2006, came up with a better solution: supply plant starts to people, so they could transform their yards into gardens. And not just their own land, but their neighbors’ too, with one yard supplying beets, say; another, kale; a third, tomatoes. Called Cascadian Edible Landscapes, the business puts a spin on the concept of community gardens by having neighbors come together as a collective to share their bounty with each other. He thinks of it as “gardening 2.0.”
A self-proclaimed “garden gnome,” Selig-Soulseed — along with fellow gnomes Stephanie Snyder-Soulseed, his fiancée, and Jake Harris — will, for a sliding-scale fee, offer instruction on how to make your garden grow. So far, he says. CEL has 50 clients. It’s helped turn city median strips into horns-of-plenty. And this fall, they’ll plant fruit trees at a teen center focused on recovery from substance abuse in South Park.
“We help take the barriers out of gardens,” he says.
To learn more, visit eatyouryard.com.
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