I've been bad.
I have not written anything in about a week. It is spring time in New England and the gardening bug has hit me. Even though I took a week off from work, I stayed at home, I spent so much time getting the garden ready that I didn't have time to write.
Tilling the soil is very relevant. Agriculture is God's favorite work. As I'm out there in the soil, I think about why this is so important today, as it was 200 years ago. I grew up with a poor family that gardened. We always had food because of this garden. My mother grew up during WWII when they were called "victory gardens." Her parents raised her during the Great Depression using Vegetables from their Garden.
Recently there have been riots in places like Haiti and Egypt due to food shortages. Yet in America we have government subsidiaries for farmers not to grow food. I understand that subsidiaries are used to help control the price of food and production. But if that's the case, why is the cost of food skyrocketing in America? Is the raise in price really Ethanol demand, or is it a mismanaged subsidiary programs?
I see so much land that is not used for food production. I'm not talking about farms, I'm talking about yards. Many of us have large backyards that do not get used for food production. We should not complain about the high price of food at the supermarket when we waste space by keeping a green grass filled lawn. Fill the lawn with vegetables.
We can also not complain about global warming when we are riding on our lawn mowers caring for this lush green lawn. Not to mention all of the chemicals that many of us add to keep this lawn so "green." It really seems so wasteful.
The catch phrase "organic" is all over the supermarket shelf. This term comes with a price but without an explanation. Does organic mean no pesticides used? Does organic mean only organic fertilizer used? Does organic mean no grafting was used? Does organic mean no cross pollination occurred? Does it mean that there were no additives added for shipping? Does it mean no wax coating to preserve the fruit for shipping was added?
I don't know what organic means when it is on the supermarket shelf. I do know what organic means to me and how I apply it to my garden.
The alteration of vegetables and fruit from their "wild" and "organic" state is not necessarily a bad thing. If we didn't have fruit grafting there would be no Granny Smith Apples. If we didn't have cross pollination there wouldn't be Cherry Tomatoes. Corn cannot grow wild as we know it. Corn has been greatly genetically modified that the corn seeds are so close together on the ear, if allowed to grow wild, will never reach a full mature stage due to the other seeds germinating too close to it. Yet the development of corn has saved billions of people on the Earth. Is corn organic? I don't believe that anyone would argue that corn should be allowed to go back to a wild state.
It seems to me that the only way to get away from the government and marketing bulls*$T is to get back to the basics. With gardening you have complete control of what you are entering into you diet. You control the organic issues without having to second guess some Manhattan marketing consultant in his cubicle might be determining what "organic" is going to mean today.
We all might not have big lawns to accommodate large gardens. But I'm sure that if you look around and become creative you will find some place to garden. Try some of the "hanging" tomato plants, people I know that have used them, and loved them.
Plant some veggies! It does the Earth good while you are helping your waste line and your health.
