Three cheers to: Helena Durst, whose McEnroe Farm donated 30 cubic yards of top soil and compost to help rebuild Joan's garden; the folks at Stone Barns who relaid Joan's brick paths; Dave the landscaper who's toiled tirelessly to raise the soil level, along with Joan's spirits, and salvage as many plants as possible; and everyone else who's helped lay the groundwork for Joan's new garden.


 

  

 

Donations

Q. Who is Joan Gussow?

A. Joan is an influential and beloved leader of the real food movement, cherished for her insight, candor, humor, and warmth, and equally celebrated for her bountiful and beautiful garden. She's a passionate environmentalist, an acclaimed nutritionist and author, a visionary who's been championing the virtues of low-impact living and the need to relocalize our food chain for decades.

Currently, she's the Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita of Nutrition and Education at Teacher’s College, Columbia University (NYC), where she formerly headed the Nutrition Education Department.

Q: What's the purpose of this page?

A: To give Joan's friends, fans and colleagues a way to show their support for her as she gamely embraces the Extreme Garden Makeover which was thrust upon her by the historic nor’easter of 13-14 March 2010.

When the word got out that her legendary garden had been destroyed, Gussow groupies eagerly volunteered to round up a "crop mob." But it's not really feasible, (nor desirable), for busloads of exuberant agrarians to descend like a swarm of locavore locusts on Joan's modest patch of Piermont.

The volunteers that Joan's missing most are the ones that vanished in the storm; i.e., the ground cherries and mache that returned year after year, uninvited.

Q: OK, so no crop mob. How can we help?

A: We've set up a guest book where you can convey your best wishes to Joan as she labors to restore her garden and thereby preserve her sanity. As she wrote in her memoir, "the production and consumption of fresh local food is so rich an experience for me that I find it hard to imagine how I would live if I couldn't grow what I eat and eat what I grow."

If you'd like to chip in to help offset the costs she's incurring to rebuild, you can donate at the bottom of this page and your contribution will go directly to Joan.

You could also gladden her heart by joining the Slow Money Alliance, of which she is a founding member.