Krista said that I should write this week about why growing your own food is a good idea so I will. There are so many reasons that I can't possibly name them all, but here are a few of my favorites:
1. THIS IS THE BIG ONE!! The food you grow is fresher and tastes better. You simply will not believe how good a homegrown tomato tastes!
2. It is satisfying and fun to grow something you eat. It is very liberating to know you grew this for yourself and your family. Kids especially love to eat something they helped to grow and going out in the garden to "graze" encourages them to eat healthy snacks (and gets them out of the house).
3. You know what was put on the food as it was grown. You can grow conventionally or organically, or anyway you like. You also know where the water came from that was used to grow it. My hot button for this is green onions. I grow them indoors in the winter because I simply will not feed my family green onions grown in Mexico. There have been too many cases of food poisoning from those things and they are so hard to wash. If the ones in the store are not clearly marked I make the produce people go look up where they came from before I buy them. Of course in the summer I can simply get them at the farmer's market if I run out of my own. We eat a lot of them.
I also substitute chives, garlic chives and welsh onions for green onions if I run low. Those are all easy to grow even in a pot on the deck.
4. You can actually lower your food bill, especially if you preserve what you grow.This year there is a water shortage in California. That means that a lot of summer vegetables are not going to get planted. Tomatoes and lettuce in particular could be in short supply and expensive.
5. You can eat varieties of produce that appeal to you and your family. We grow over 40 kinds of basil plants, over 30 kinds of tomato plants, over 20 kinds of pepper plants, and lots of different cucumbers, squash, corn, and of course herbs for you. You can see our variety lists on our website: www.mountainsideherbalnursery.com
6. This is the ultimate in being a locovore ( someone who eats only food grown within a certain radius of where they live). How can you get any closer than your own backyard?
There are probably at least a dozen other reasons to Grow What You Eat, but these some of my favorites.
It's time to really start to plan what you are going to grow this year. Next week I will talk about my experiences with small space raised bed gardening.
Grow What You Eat!
1. THIS IS THE BIG ONE!! The food you grow is fresher and tastes better. You simply will not believe how good a homegrown tomato tastes!
2. It is satisfying and fun to grow something you eat. It is very liberating to know you grew this for yourself and your family. Kids especially love to eat something they helped to grow and going out in the garden to "graze" encourages them to eat healthy snacks (and gets them out of the house).
3. You know what was put on the food as it was grown. You can grow conventionally or organically, or anyway you like. You also know where the water came from that was used to grow it. My hot button for this is green onions. I grow them indoors in the winter because I simply will not feed my family green onions grown in Mexico. There have been too many cases of food poisoning from those things and they are so hard to wash. If the ones in the store are not clearly marked I make the produce people go look up where they came from before I buy them. Of course in the summer I can simply get them at the farmer's market if I run out of my own. We eat a lot of them.
I also substitute chives, garlic chives and welsh onions for green onions if I run low. Those are all easy to grow even in a pot on the deck.
4. You can actually lower your food bill, especially if you preserve what you grow.This year there is a water shortage in California. That means that a lot of summer vegetables are not going to get planted. Tomatoes and lettuce in particular could be in short supply and expensive.
5. You can eat varieties of produce that appeal to you and your family. We grow over 40 kinds of basil plants, over 30 kinds of tomato plants, over 20 kinds of pepper plants, and lots of different cucumbers, squash, corn, and of course herbs for you. You can see our variety lists on our website: www.mountainsideherbalnursery.com
6. This is the ultimate in being a locovore ( someone who eats only food grown within a certain radius of where they live). How can you get any closer than your own backyard?
There are probably at least a dozen other reasons to Grow What You Eat, but these some of my favorites.
It's time to really start to plan what you are going to grow this year. Next week I will talk about my experiences with small space raised bed gardening.
Grow What You Eat!
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