Reaping What Is Sown

            Turning over the soil, I saw how important growing food was to me.  My eyes enjoyed the color of the different varieties of crops we grew.  The lush green squash, the cherry-red tomatoes and the bumblebees hovering around it all gave nature its crucial identity.  This was my introduction to fruit and vegetable gardening.  Living on about a third of an acre in Long Island, it was easy for one to become disconnected from nature’s inherent beauty and value.  Despite this, my family and I cherished the fruit of our labor. 

            I first read John Jeavons’ classic How to Grow More Vegetables Than you Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine. This familiarized me with the bio-intensive method of gardening, which taught us to grow crops close together to prevent certain diseases.  Modeling from the book, we started a 5x10 square foot dense garden; consisting of peppers, tomatoes, peas and zucchini.  Encouraged by how productive these crops were (except for the peas), we decided to keep these and expand our growing space next year.  This pattern continued for the next two seasons, until now, where we’re ready to make instructional You-Tube videos for others wanting to start something similar.  We use organic seaweed fertilizer and compost to keep nurturing microorganisms in the soil.  Our consistent results serve as a testament towards the effectiveness of these all-natural methods.  More recently, we discovered two important You-Tube channels: MHP Gardener and The Bayou Gardener; which have furthered our progress.

            Growing food is important today for several key reasons; chief of which is the mounting food-insecurity.  Consisting of rising prices, persistent droughts, the emergence of super weeds from biotechnology and a host of other reasons, America is witnessing a bleak future for healthy and abundantly available food.  Of course right now we have a gross excess of processed foods within reach; but how will these help us in any real way.  If our society expects to be healthy, it should value the availability of local farmer’s markets and co-ops.  Although commercials bombard us with sugar and fat laden commercialized “food”, we see these same products contributing to chronic diseases.  To fuel the fire, “miracle” pills are promoted while wholesome and healthy nutrition is moved to the back burner when we try to cure these very ailments. 

            At a time when obesity, diabetes and heart disease are contributing to billions in healthcare costs, and pharmaceuticals are viewed as the main cure, one must assess the effectiveness of this strategy.  This is an economic and health disaster.  Anyone who grows their own food can attest to how much more satisfying it is than depending on commercialized goods where quality is often sacrificed for profits.  It has been argued that personal change does not equal political change; however if the masses thoroughly involved themselves with gardening and demanded their health be placed above revenues, we’d see more than political change.  As the old saying goes, “One reaps what they sow.”