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by Sondra Wilson. Last updated 10/9/24.
Iowans are currently experiencing a record high of food insecurity, while many renters have nowhere to legally grow food – and often homeowners don’t know where to get started. Gardens Across Iowa! addresses this by making learning how to garden simple – via an app we’re developing – and by ensuring every Iowan who wants to grow food has access to soil.
First, funding will be used to hire our student-led team to develop an app – which works like a calendar centered around Iowa’s frost date. It provides notifications on dates tasks need to be performed, and step-by-step instructions for growing nearly any type of food crop.
Location services will eventually make this app useful to anyone in the world. For example, if someone in Colorado uses it, the dates shift to match Colorado’s frost date.
Second, Gardens Across Iowa is seeking business sponsors, who receive this in-store certificate and in-app advertising:
In turn, customers can access special offers available exclusively through the app!
Initial proceeds from sponsorships will be used to finish developing the app,. then once it is developed funding will be used to purchase land throughout the state to open up space for community gardens – prioritizing locations within walking distance of apartment complexes.
Here at ISU we have one of the top engineering colleges in the world, and one of the top horticulture colleges in the world: if we can’t engineer a horticulture movement to help solve resource issues – I don’t know who can!
We’re developing new technology:
Our Gardens Across Iowa! team, consisting of eight dedicated Iowa State University students who firmly believe in this project, are in the process of developing the Gardens Across Iowa! Google Calendar. You may be download the Calendar for free and it will instantly integrate into your Google Calendar. Once it is finished, the Calendar will include:
Soon our team will:
Double-planter technique for potatoes:
Cucumber tipi:
Rain gutter-planter hanging strawberries:
Oh my gourd! – what a cool tunnel!!
New Technology:
The Gardens Across Earth! App:
Once finished, the Calendar will be used to develop the Gardens Across Earth! App. This will include location services that will:
Why does Iowa need a gardening movement?
Gardens Across Iowa! represents a coordinated tear-up-the-grassroots effort to quickly and efficiently teach valuable gardening skills that connect people with nature, end community hunger, and reduce waste (because “gardens aren’t wrapped in garbage”). Our goal is to inspire people to get involved with private and community gardens in every town and city across Iowa. In addition, our program is set to eventually provide access to soil for Iowans who wants to grow.
The Big Picture:
Once the app is finished being developed, it will help:
Ways that Gardens Across Iowa! benefits society:
An en mass gardening movement recognizes the inherent flaws in a political system which bases political decisions solely upon economic factors. While the science of economics studies how people make decisions under conditions of scarcity, [1) a community garden movement seeks to alleviate scarcity through creating abundance. When people live more abundantly, they are able to spend their money on things they are passionate about instead of mere survival, thus breeding innovation and entrepreneurship. A community gardening movement recognizes that coercing people to live in scarcity is unnecessary and cruel. Our movement seeks to help people thrive instead of merely survive.
Although the Gardens Across Iowa! calendar is still only partially developed, a small group of dedicated students working together can and will help Iowa communities recover from the severe and unnecessary scarce conditions so many are currently living in.
Iowa businesses help drive the movement:
Premium advertising slots and sponsorship advertising slots will be available throughout the calendar and app. Here’s how this works:
Notice: Terms and prices may change in the future to meet program needs, but we will provide notice and will request and value feedback from our sponsors prior to making any major decisions.
If interested in becoming a sponsor, please email [email protected] with “Gardens Across Iowa!” written in the subject line. Feel free to choose your own price based upon what your company can afford and feels comfortable with. Minimum $25/month.
Gardens About Iowa! is a joint venture paid for by Wild Willpower PAC and Sondra Wilson for Iowa Governor.
Coming Soon:
Wild Willpower PAC will have Homesteading Starter Kits for sale. Instead of buying separate seed packets, then researching how to grow each plant, each of our kits each contain seeds and instructions for at least three different companion plants together.
Benefits of an
En Masse Homesteading Movement:
Why the term homestead? – The term “homestead” is actually a very important common law legal term which prevents a person who is working to live sustainably from having their home foreclosed on.
Thank you to Saboteur365 for this great commemorative graphic we’re using in accordance with Fair Use.
References:
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Other sustainability resources:
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