Yet Another Reason To Garden

Like anyone who cares about food and where it comes from needed any more reasons to feel that growing your own is a great idea, the NYTimes today provided another article about the distances that food travels. This article actually gave me new information. I didn't know that one of the reasons that imported food can be so cheap (imported to anywhere, not just the US) is that fuel for international shipping is not taxed! The EU is considering changing that, according to the NYTimes, but can you imagine what a shock it would be to the average consumer if food prices suddenly reflected a more realistic cost of bringing food from across the globe?

Anyway, it renewed my determination to get a garden bed ready for fall planting. I've been trying to get an agreement about where I can start working on soil improvement. I can't have an open compost pile, unfortunately, but I do have access to other organic materials. There's a big pile of grass clippings just thumbing its nose at me every time I see it. We can't buy much in the way of fresh produce without driving 60+ miles, so even greens and some herbs would be a great addition to our lives.

I'm thinking of doing lettuce in pots for the summer if I can get them to a decent size before they bolt in our heat. I also just gave someone else one of those hanging tomato growers and I'm thinking of trying to get a tomato plant to set fruit before the nights are too hot. A girl can dream, at any rate, and I'm working on keeping my dreams manageable. There are more possibilities here in Desolationville than there were in Isolationville, but the weather and wildlife will still keep some serious restrictions on what and how I can grow.

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