A call for Victory Gardens

Remember those? During WWII everyone was encouraged to grow a victory garden to support the war effort. A little bit of self sufficiency went a long way. WWII was over more than 20 years before I was born, but I've seen pictures.

If we grow some of our own food, we won't be dependent on food trucked in from far away, we won't be as dependent on foreign oil and we will reduce greenhouse gases. Organic practices help the soil hold on to carbon. Vegetable plants use carbon.

Anyhow, I'm not really sure exactly how everything works (I'm no scientist) but I do know that I can produce really yummy food without too much work and even have enough to share.

So get on the bandwagon people. Start a victory garden.

Gardener's Porn

So I finally got my seed order together. I order from Fedco Seeds. It's a co-op in Maine. They have great prices, no GMO seeds and they do no business with Monsanto.

When my seeds arrived I had a refund for the eggplant I ordered. Since I never grew eggplant before, I had my heart set on this one particular variety "Rosa Bianca". Seeds Of Change didn't have it anymore. I finally found seeds at Baker Creek heirloom seeds. I spent $3 just for shipping. I got an extra packet of seed so I don't run out and I can share with my seed exchanging buddy Christy.

I took all my catalogs to the office I work in and explained how they are gardener's Porn. Seed catalogs sell a fantasy. In their pages there is the perfect amount of rain every season. There are no bugs, rabbit, voles or grubs. The vegetables are blemish free and never have blossom end rot.

In January the gardener is a motivated human with big dreams and HUGE ideas. By August a gardener is just a human with a lot of zuchinni.

Long time no post

The holidays are over. We have a little bit over a foot of snow. The boy has started skiing (strap on skis) and we are enjoying the snow.

I pruned the raspberries before the snow. Seed catalogs have arrived and I'm working up an order.

Frost

The frost was finally real. We had a couple of frosts that were light and didn't kill anything 5 inches above the ground, but last week was for real. The next door neighbor and I picked tons of raspberries the night before the frost. Now it's time to cut everything back and clean up. I love the Fall. It's a lot of hard work.

It's been a long time.

Garden is almost done and I'm cleaning it out. I should plant garlic. We don't have wood yet and I haven't even begun to make applesauce. Yikes! More later hopefully with pictures.

Latest Reading List

Harry Potter (finished)
Maxed Out (not started yet)
Four-Season Harvest (in the middle)
Barbara Kingsolver's new book about local eating(I'm on the list at the library.)
Food Not Lawns (Again, waiting to hear from the library.)

Why we do this

I want my son to grow up appreciating hard work and even enjoying it.