Grow some food!
On this beautiful spring day I want to encourage everyone to try their hand at gardening. Whether you have a huge piece of rural land, a suburban yard, or a tiny porch in the city, you can grow some food. Its affordable, fun, and empowering. It makes you realize immediately we don’t have to buy into the propaganda of potential food shortages, tainted food, and “rising food prices”. Its all fear mongering.
Every family on this planet could grow food. Parks, squares, and yards could be full of food – and not just any food – really healthy food. In other words not only does there not have to be a food shortage problem; this concept of food gardens everywhere can lead to a dramatic shift in health around the world. If it became much more common to have fruits and vegetables growing all around us, at every home – then it would become much more common to eat salads, and smoothies, and vegetable juice, and so on. Then cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and all the other major health ailments would be that much less common.
The same way individuals, companies, and local governments spend so much time and effort planting, growing, and watering shrubs, trees, flowers, bushes, and grass – the same efforts could be put to laying down edible plants everywhere. Sadly its not very common. What’s more common are restrictive city laws, busybody HOAs, neighbors outcompeting each other for the most beautiful lawns, and other silliness. People who plant vegetables in their yards and/or apartment porches are likely to get some funny looks from others – as if it’s bizarre to grow vegetables, and you must be some kind of weird organic nut or survivalist. Well I’d like to see this stigma removed. “Real” food does not have to come in a package, purchased from a grocery store. I’d love to see it become the norm for people everywhere to have home gardens. This would also encourage real interaction with your neighbors, potentially fostering a thriving community market where we can trade and sell our goods with others face to face. By making gardening normal, we can make interacting with our neighbors normal again as well. We can practice a sort of self sufficiency and counter-economics in-tune with Agorism.
It really is a beautiful thing. We can take our food and our health into our own hands. You can choose to garden organically and with non-GMO plants. It can be great exercise and is a good reason to get out for some fresh air and sunlight. You can set up attractive raised beds, vertical gardens, traditional rows, or containers. You can learn about sustainable growing, permaculture, composting, and much more. Its a great activity as a solo hobby, a community effort, or a family learning experience. Food gardens are fun to work on. You learn so much by getting your hands dirty and understanding all the different plants, the seeds, the soil composition, the pot sizes, the germination times, optimal moisture levels, sunlight needs, and so on. It really feels great to dig into something like this; to put some hard work into it; to see the results, and know that it isn’t just for looks – but will serve a great purpose in your life, for years to come. Whats the point of all that grass? Use the space for something useful.
The picture you see above is my porch garden. Throughout the year, I’ll post updates and more information on gardening in general. I’m not an expert – just learn as I go, as we all can. If you have any questions feel free to ask in a comment or an email and I’ll do my best to answer or point you in the right direction.
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