Healthy Roots in the City, Country, and In-Between

This is the first post from our guest blogger Kristy Apostolides, with some thoughts from Crete – I will officially introduce her next week. Thanks Kristy!

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal tells the story of some suburbanites who are reclaiming backyards and creating “mini-farms”: another old story turned new. Here in the city of Chania, on the island of Crete in the country of Greece and surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, locals use every free piece of land possible to grow food. And where there is no land, there are containers. The streets are lined with citrus and wild fig trees, pomegranates are planted in used olive oil containers and tomatoes spring from a free patch of land between the doorway and the street. Urban farming is no new mystery to these people; it is a way of life. The borders between country and suburb are very blurry. As soon as the building density decreases, rows of vegetables, fruit and nut trees extend from the street to the hills and pots of herbs and trellised grapes frame the houses.

Cretans don’t grow food because they can’t afford to buy it elsewhere or because they are trying to make extra cash; fruits and vegetables are relatively inexpensive and Crete is one of the wealthier areas in Greece. Life here revolves around food and everyone sees their role as both producer and consumer. Cretans are almost always either eating or preparing to eat and since food is at the center of life, only the highest quality food is accepted. They also believe that if they can produce food themselves, it tastes better!

If this WSJ article is telling of a new way of American life, the next Cretan generation, always struggling to keep pace with the changing fashions, might this time find themselves vanguards.