April is National Gardening Month! You know the basics of how to start your own vegetable garden, but where do you go from here? Here are some crops that even the least green thumbed among you can tackle, and tips on how to make them flourish.

FULL

*

“Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people in need of food aid,” said Daniel, “but paradoxically the government has already offered at least 7.5 million acres of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world’s most wealthy individuals to export food back to their own countries.”

FULL

*

Across the city youngsters from K-12 are engaged in growing food, raising animals and learning about bringing life and productivity back into their community. Sometimes gardens begin with collecting oral histories in the neighborhood or testing for soil contamination. Sometimes they begin with collecting the stories of earlier immigrants and the plants they left behind. Sometimes by learning about photosynthesis, watching beans sprout in paper cups. However they begin, these gardens are creating new ways for children to understand the complexities of their world and their own capability to become producers of the essence of life. Nearly half the schools slated for closing cultivate these gardens.

FULL

*

More than half of consumers say they would pay more for a product if they knew it was better for the environment, according to a national poll conducted this month by ad agency Venables Bell & Partners.

Yet, some of the spending is misplaced: Overhyped and overpriced enviro-friendly impostors share shelves with the truly planet- and human-friendly products. Misleading claims are so rampant, there is actually a term for it: greenwashing.

FULL

*

This is a tale of two parcels of urban land that have been reborn in the last year.

In their past lives, these spaces had little in common.

Today, they share new identities as community gardens, where the smell of dark rich soil and the sight of dirty hands on friends, neighbors and strangers are sure signs of spring.

The larger of the two parcels was once a public playground in a gritty downtown industrial buffer zone between Des Moines’ East Village and the south side.

FULL

ANDREW AVRIN sits on a beige couch in a nondescript room, a fruit still-life partly visible on the wall behind him, twisting his fingers while, off-camera, an unseen interviewer prompts him to talk about his sister, Melissa, who died last year at the age of 19 after a long battle with bulimia.

FULL

*

The first genetically engineered crop case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court will be argued on April 27 and it has already attracted a lot of interest from food companies, farmers unions, scientists and legal scholars.

FULL

*

Winne said the Rural Sociological Society estimates 800 rural counties in the United States are “food deserts,” or regions without grocery stores. In food deserts, the only food options for people with lower incomes are either convenience stores or fast-food restaurants.

FULL

*

But then, contemplating the scene on my table shown above, my pesky little brain couldn’t ignore the contradiction between the Greenware cup and the food on the table next to it.

Because the environmental impact of eating that hot dog outweighs the benefits of that “eco-friendly” cup many times over. Eating less meat is arguably the most effective way average Americans could reduce their impact on climate change.

FULL

*

A comprehensive 2004 meta-analysis of the medical literature concluded that artificial dyes affect children’s behavior, and two recent studies funded by the British government found that dyes (as well as the preservative sodium benzoate) adversely affect kids’ behavior. Unlike most previous studies, those British studies tested children in the general population, not children whose parents suspected they were sensitive to dyes.

FULL

*

The total value of the fresh vegetables author Rosalind Creasy grew in her 100-square-foot garden in 2008 was $683.43!

FULL