Paul Fleischman Quotes

I really like the whole urban farming idea, because I grow my own produce in L.A., and I think it's great to teach people here in Manhattan so they can do the same.

Urban farming is not only possible, it is crucial. But it can't be like the farming techniques of yore.

Once you engage with the simple enough business of feeding yourself, of soil and water, weather, season and harvest, it becomes personal. It is about you, your family and friends. Food becomes an aspect of those relationships as well as your intimacy with your plot.

I have my own orchard, and I also work with the Bloomington Community Orchard, which has been one of the best experiences of my life.

If you go to Italy and you drive from the airport to the town, there isn't 30 square feet that isn't planted by someone. Even next to the train tracks, they see the joy of the interaction with the planet as integral to the experience. The idea that you can get free arugula just by planting seeds... because it will regrow itself the next year. We've come a long way from foraging to now planting. The next step of that will be continuing that expansion of planting and really owning the crops.

That's a big goal of mine, to try and grow as much of my own food as possible.

My parents had a gardener when I was growing up, and he and I would dig in the dirt together - my mom and dad were definitely not digging with me! When I was 5, he helped me plant some corn in our backyard, and I remember how fascinating it was to watch it grow. Little did I know that 50 years later I'd be growing corn in a different way.

Maybe a person's time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to buy food.

I probably grow half my food. It's a good way to keep perspective.

Understanding where your food comes from, trying to bolster local farmers and local economies and having a better connection to the food around you and the people around you, only good can come of that. I love to be involved with things like that.

I grew up in L.A. I actually grew up in the Valley, which was a pretty amazing place to grow up because everybody has nice, big backyards, and I was kind of a little nature being.

An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home production of food. We are too accustomed to going to stores and purchasing what we need.

It was, you know, probably 80 degrees out in L.A., and my dad took me outside and there was snow. At the time, I thought, 'Every kid doesn't have snow in their backyard on Christmas?'

When I was a kid, we always had big gardens, acres of stuff we grew out in the yard.

Even during the rationing period, during World War II, we didn't have the anxiety that we'd starve, because we grew our own potatoes, you know? And our own hogs, and our own cows and stuff, you know.

I tend to hang out with my friends in Los Angeles from high school. We know each other from back in the day. They still see me as just dumb Tyra. We have a strong bond.

Many young and beginning farmers start out in local markets. Some stay there, and some scale up.

There are blessings in being close to the soil, in raising your own food even if it is only a garden in your yard and a fruit tree or two. Those families will be fortunate who, in the last days, have an adequate supply of food because of their foresight and ability to produce their own.

When I was growing up in north-west London, our milkman's cart was pulled by a horse, and cattle still grazed on the meadows near Church Farm.

People in my neighborhood are so disconnected from the fresh food supply that kids don't know an eggplant from a sweet potato. We have to show them how to get grounded in the truest sense of the word.

It's become more readily apparent that we need to be growing our own food and growing more things organically.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to live in the Hollywood Hills, behind Grauman's Theater, and I'd always hit the matinees.

I have fruit trees. Cows for fresh milk, yoghurt. My own wheat. I'm basically self-sufficient.

If people grow things themselves, their children understand, then schools in the area know that this community's generating something with its own energy, to consume.

I always love going back to Los Angeles, because it was my home for 24 years, and I have many friends there.