This article offers a solution to promoting healthy lifestyle through home gardening and how gardening activities create social capital through social interactions among family members and people within communities, through sharing. This article begins by reviewing general social, psychological, and physical health benefits of home gardening followed by barriers associated with starting a garden that include lack of time, scarce resources, insufficient knowledge and skills, and inadequate space. This article argues that beyond the skills and knowledge, inspiration is the key in creating and sustaining a home garden. Through the idea of networking with families in a community and building these social relationships, it increases more opportunities to inspire and be inspired, fosters a greater sense of joy in gardening, encourages a chain reaction of sharing, and connects people together. As people share, it creates a pattern of social interactions and reciprocity among those who share and the recipients within the network that will then lead to increased social relationships, trust, and a social norm of sharing. Sharing itself also creates an opportunity for others to share back because in some situations, people do not know how to initiate the sharing process or have difficulty doing so. The article ends with a discussion on promoting a sustainable, active, and healthy lifestyle by engaging children in the process of gardening and sharing geminated plants/produce with their peers and other families, hence fostering a lifelong appreciation and consumption of plants they grow, learn, share, and heal together in the process.

When examining food systems in contemporary, industrialized, and globalized nations such as the United States, there is a quantity over quality cultural mind-set driven by capitalism. This creates an environment in which consumer desires for convenient lifestyles run high, mainly focused on the production of food and individual financial gain rather than the food systems as a whole. This approach neglects the overall outcomes in health, wellness, health disparities, and the sustainability footprint associated with consumption. Food is more than just food. It involves a network of different levels and elements that creates a multidimensional framework in which food systems, and the choices produced within those systems, can either positively or negatively affect consumers’ lifestyles and health. This article discusses the importance of food systems and the ways in which they can be incorporated into a lifestyle intervention for general food consumers as well as those suffering from dietary-related diseases. With a critical understanding that structural barriers associated with current food systems are partly responsible for dietary-related diseases, individuals’ self-blame and guilt can be alleviated and liberated, thus enhancing overall emotional and physical health. Drawing on social cognitive theory, food systems are conceptualized into triadic, dynamic interaction of environment (eg, food production, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, disposing), cognition (eg, learned experience, and knowledge of food, nutrition, and wellness), and behavior (eg, food purchasing, preparation, and consumption).

Extension plays an essential role in serving local communities. How it can support farmers during the pandemic is a novel phenomenon that necessitates careful analysis. Drawing from a survey responded by 313 farmers across Hawai'i in late April 2020, this study assesses how farmers feel Extension can support them best during the pandemic. Farmers identified five areas of needs: community engagement and networking, information sharing and education, funding, research, and local sustainability. Discussion regarding the role of Extension support during the pandemic is offered.

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