Reenvisioning Victory Gardens for Food Deserts

Abstract
Local organic gardening once experienced great popularity with Americans. At one time promoted and prominent, local gardens became obscure, old-fashioned, and outmoded. However, in the last few decades, for various reasons, local organic gardening has made some progress. This study seeks to assist high-density, low-income, inner-city Americans, who often do not have have easy or affordable access to fresh whole food by creating sustainable, resilient, local, urban gardens. However, this effort does not attempt to address the needs of entire populations of census tracts, rather one suburban home, one small apartment complex, or one small community garden. O​ ne solution to the problems associated with food insecurity is to put the creativity and responsibility into the hands of those who need the food, allow them to work within a self-sustaining garden, and decide what to do with any excess food. W​ ith the help of Greg Peterson, Phoenix’s own urban farmer, this project set out to create a system using Phoenix’s limited amount of rainfall to create a aquaponic gardening system which will be used in micro-communities such as multi-family complexes, middle schools, or high schools, in order to help grow food for these communities and alleviate some of the difficulties of finding fresh food in the desert.