Last time I wrote about salmonella and the persisting state of food (in)security. I advocated for buying locally. This time I’ll address getting down and dirty.
Grow your own. This is as cheap as it gets. And frankly you can do something no matter where you live. Window boxes or two acres or two hundred acres – grow something.
Our family sat down and made a list of what we eat from week to week. Sadly, it wasn’t as varied and innovative as I would’ve liked but I’m still learning… But the list we came up with served to guide our planting strategy. Tomatoes, goodness do we eat a lot of tomatoes. Spaghetti sauce, salsa, BLTs, pizza, and so on.
So we decided to try to make a dent in our grocery bill by growing the things we used the most.
And we have. I just bought the first head of lettuce I’ve had to buy since May. And that’s saying something because we eat a lot of lettuce too. Tomatoes are doing great. We just canned 8 quarts of tomato sauce with more coming off the vine daily. Jalapenos, herbs, and green peppers that I can’t use fresh I’m dicing up and freezing.
And the best part… The best part is that since we’ve been eating more local and home grown food I’ve not had any allergies this year at all. Is that because of the food? I suspect so, but I’m no expert. I’m too old to have just simply outgrown them after all these years. Our family hasn’t had a cold or flu yet this year. And the only real thing we’re doing different is gardening and eating local. More exercise? Better food? Win.
Are we totally self-sustaining, shunning the grocer? No. But every dollar saved by the garden, or spent at the farmer’s market is vote to empower the producers to make better food. Start somewhere.
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