Food is Free Tacoma | Interview 282 with David Thompson | Building Community Through Food

The biggest question I’ve gotten this year again. Is what do I do for my earth friendly landscape and what do I do with all these dandelions? But I was at someone’s place the other day, I could just tell right off the bat, looking down, you don’t have very healthy soil, so I suggested planting some clover, and then also IDK if they have a bag for their lawnmower so when they mow they might be spreading those seeds, where if they put them in the compost pile it would be better. I think… Anyway…

It’s Thursday May 30, 2019. I’m feeling a little mic shy as I haven’t been on my mic for almost a month!

David Thompson from Food Is Free Tacoma is here to share his journey.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a navy veteran, 35 year mechanic, and I am retired. Wht I do is I have a free table and everything I grow in my garden I give away.

Tell us a little bit more, how did you get started with this? Did you just say one day I want to put a table in front of your house?

I saw food is free project on Facebook, it was about veterans and giving away our extras to your neighbors.

I started with a small garden about 700 sq feet and now it’s 4000

tried to give it to family

kids

I tried a table where the food is free and started from there its grown into quite the little non-profit.

I like the way it started with Facebook.

I have my FB page

food is free

Started a new project called gardens for the people

Parkway gardens throughout the city of tacoma for people to share their food directly between the sidewalk and the curb. Hoping to do 10 of those this year.

I love that idea, because where my mom lives there’s all these places just like that are covered in these little yellow flags and that’s where you’re talking about growing the ood?

We ammend the soil and remove the sod with local compost and plant straight into the ground.

I love this idea!

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I used to watch Crockets victory garden, I used to dream about having a garden but it wasn’t till I got older got this house with a small garden

10 years now.

I made a lot of mistakes, vertical gardening, I tried a lot of different things before.

Tell us about something that grew well this year.

my cabbages

grew really well

tomatoes didn’t do too bad last year either?

I think we had a cool summer last year. That really helped the cabbage a lot.

Did that help with the tomatoes? Do you put them in a greenhouse, they don’t like the cold do they?

Yes, that’s true. The only thing I grow in the greenhouse is peppers.

Is there something you would do different next year or