grow my own food

I recently moved into a place that has enough space to plant a (very compact!) garden. Much of the usable space is heavily shaded by a pair of giant Catalpas, but with a little creativity and by sticking to smaller varieties, I think I can grow some exciting edibles. Because I love forest gardening so much, I know I’m going to grow at least a few low-maintenance perennial species, like black raspberries, thimbleberries, wild strawberries, nodding onions, and wild garlic. In honor of my Swedish grandmother, I might try some lingonberries as well. Herbs are a given, especially herbs that can grow in the shade. In the sunny space next to our kitchen, I’m going to grow annual veggies, like tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, peas, peppers, and beans. I’m going to experiment with some techniques like companion planting, organic fertilizers, composting, and seed-saving on a small scale, so when I do move to an acreage someday, I’ll have a little bit of practical experience that I can apply in a larger garden.

Just think of what the world would be like if everyone grew their own food! No more relying on big agra pesticide herbicide fungicide sprayed crap, but rather picking a juicy tomato to use in a dinner salad, or munching on raspberries straight from the bush! This is probably a radical concept to some, but all it takes is a little education, some land, and the motivation to make a positive change in the world! I’m far from my goal right now, as money and land are limiting factors. But I am working on getting there!

Chefs with their recipes and their networks.

Well I planted them in the summer, I’m still waiting for them to get ripe. So I’ve managed to GROW my own food, now can I eat it?

My husband and I are in the process of moving to our property in the country. We will have to do quite a bit first, but we want to grow our own fruit, vegetables, and livestock. I have grown herbs for years and we have a lot of wild blackberries.

Is there anything more delicious than the taste of the fruit of your own labors?

due to poor planning, we’ll only harvest:

1 watermelon (about 6” in diameter)
4 cucumbers (about 9” each)
a few apples (3” at best)

Next year, however, I’m aiming to significantly increase our homegrown food supply by using succession planting, second-cropping, and interplanting.

In addition to watermelons and cucumbers:
-broccoli
-carrots
-scallions, onions
-tomatoes
-cabbage, lettuce, spinach, kale
-peas, beans
-parsley, chives
-cantaloupe
-squash, pumpkins

Inspired by super wealthy-in-health friends, I’ve got to get growing once I move house in 1 month. The goal is for my boyfriend and I to get healthier, do a fun joint activity and for me to work on my nurturing/responsibility skills!!!

I have built my own earth boxes out of paint buckets. It seems to be working well. Out of the hand full of plants I have started out with only one has passed to the great unknown. My charlie Brown pepper plant has moved on. It hasn’t fallen over yet, I just keep whats left as a reminder. I am getting tomatoes. I call it my Godzilla plant. My tomato plant was supposed to be about 4 ft tall. Its now about seven. I do not know what I did but its still getting taller. My basil has reached about two feet. I do not know if that is normal but it seems big to me. My parsley is the same. My chives would probably be the same size but I could not resist…I ate them. They are about a foot right now. My sage did not fare to well, the tomato plant hogged all the sun. My dill did not make it too far either….I ate them too. They were good on the fish…problem was I ate too much too quick. My next step is to remove all the soil and find and alternative medium to grow them in and move them 100% inside the condo. The big problem i have right now is that I have to pollinate them with a toothbrush because they are basically inside the condo now.

I’ve just watched a documentary about what really goes into our food (‘What’s Really in Our Food?’)....and gosh, it’s made me more than ever want to stick with and achieve this goal fully.
It seems that packaging is everything – and it fools and misleads so many. Rules are bent and laws only just adhered to.

Some of the shocking things I learnt from the programme:

• Many products for pork like to use the description: ‘Outdoor bred’, but the pigs actually spend 80% of their time indoors. They spend only their first 4 weeks outdoors.
• Food labels only have to say where the product was produced – not where the ingredients are from. For example the chicken in a ready meal could come from….Tanzania, but as the product was put together in the UK – that’s the county listed on the box.
• Most egg boxes state that the eggs are Class A eggs, making it sounds like they’re high quality….but Class B eggs are illegal to sell to the public. Also, many eggs boxes state that the eggs are fresh – that just means they’re ‘legally’ fresh.
• Products such as pies contain a mixture of different ingredients – and even though the label may say it contains pork/chicken….it could contain the less desirable parts, such as (and the example in the programme): pork fat with connective tissues, pig skin, reformed ham, mechanically recovered chicken.
• Organic ‘ready to eat’ salads are very often washed with more than just water – an organic wash product is used, and a few times these products have been found to contain small quantities of chemicals (one in particular – antifreeze).
• Some factories re-use old meat which has nearly, or has indeed passed it’s use-by date – they mince and mix it up and add it to new products.
• Some fish and chip shops had been replacing cod with the much cheaper catfish.
• So much chicken contains added water, which hugely increase the size of the chicken. Protein powder is added to the water to hold it in….this protein is quite often from beef and pork.

They say it’s not dangerous…but it certainly is misleading. I want to know just what I am eating, and know that it is all ethical and fresh. Nothing can be much more satisfying than growing your own food, taking care of it, watching it grow and finally enjoying it with the satisfaction of knowing where it has come from and how it was grown.

It’s better for me and the environment!