We connected with LEHR Garden inventor Ed Williams on the Old Moon of April 2020.

Learn about LEHR Gardens here:

https://youtu.be/XMuZgU-qE6g?si=0ehr-uR0NAn5xSgE

And here:

https://youtu.be/yfriLp5ikfc?si=9c_xWfWKgmXXds9q

It wasn’t until May 2022’s new moon that we finally got plants into our own LEHR at our garden. In testing it out for ourselves, we were shocked at how effective it was at growing food despite our lack of knowledge of how to do so. Not only that, it proved to be a low maintenance, and didn’t need much water to produce a high yield.

The raised bed aspect was also crucial because years back the mine dumped their tailings waste on our side of town and increased lead and arsenic levels of the land to unsafe levels. By testing the LEHR Garden out ourselves, we knew we had the right kind of instrument to help relocalize our food system in Superior.

Our approach to relocalizing our food system is not to have a centralized growing area for the town, nor is it to have a set of decentralized gardens throughout town. Instead, we seek to distribute growing capabilities throughout the yards of Superior.

Through our LEHRs in Yards program, we’re creating employment opportunities for locals who want to learn how to build LEHRs, then we’re putting them in our neighbor’s yards free of charge. The more funding we get for this program, the more households we’ll have in town able to grow their own food AND soil. Whether people want to eat the food themselves or sell it at our farmer’s market is up to them. Either way, we’re increasing the amount of locally grown food that’s available to us, thereby increasing our town’s health and resilience.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1YAk2yV8lIzFlmma9RJXUJEDcTXngSFE&ll=33.29057554700137%2C-111.08960439305582&z=12