SITTING AT A KITCHEN TABLE with like-minded neighbors in her English hometown several years ago, Pam Warhurst helped found a dynamic greening group called Incredible Edible Todmorden. No board meetings, no surveys or reports first, she says: They did it “without a flippin’ strategy document,” because they thought that creating gardens–especially food gardens–in unused spaces around town, reconnecting citizens to the source of their food as a first step toward sustainability, was very simply a good idea. “We call it propaganda gardening,” she says. Indeed.

“I wondered if it was possible to take a town like Todmorden and focus on local food to re-engage people with the planet we live on, create the sort of shifts in behaviour we need to live within the resources we have, stop us thinking like disempowered victims…,” Pam is quoted as saying on the TED site.

Visit Incredible Edible Todmorden’s website to learn about its orchards, herb gardens, and more that now grace a range of unexpected spaces and are strengthening the fabric of its community in the most delicious way. Not content to rest on veg alone, a fish farm is planned for the local high school, and a growing network of locally produced eggs.