This is an entry in this month’s contest “What Got You Started In Growing Your Own Food?”. Be sure to rate this article!
When I was younger, I never valued food production. I never appreciated the differences in the quality of the food produced. I am saddened to say, I would have harbored the snobby opinion that only poor people without skills would waste their time growing food.
My husband always grew some of his food. It was just the most natural thing for him to do. He grew up rolling around in the dirt of his Mother’s garden. Growing food was like breathing. Of course a person would have a garden, compost pile, and hens in the back yard!
I used to wonder why he wasted his spare time on growing food when it was so cheap in the grocery store. There were many times I stated he should apply his efforts on something more… valuable.
My husband in those early days, didn’t really value the quality of the food he was producing. He didn’t value his gardening produce at the price of the best local organic food but at the equivalent industrial food price. Maybe in those early days, he didn’t truly appreciate the difference either.
It was after getting really sick myself and dealing with a sickly infant that my awareness of the quality of food came into my consciousness. At one time, I studied ecology and would have called myself an environmentalist but I had this funny disconnection between my body, food, and the environment. I think many modern city people have this same disconnection.
Now, we both know there is a difference between organically grown food from our own garden and the fake food coming out of the industrial food system. There is no going back once one learns the truth. We value the quality that comes for homegrown food and there is nothing more valuable then good food. In turn, good food bring good health.
My biggest influence came from the Weston A Price Foundation. I became a leader which started a continuing process of learning. This process lead to starting a blog about how to find local food and make nourishing traditional meals. Later, it evolved into documenting my personal experiences growing, processing and storing my own food. During this process, I have had many setbacks, because all learning involves failure. Actually, if someone never fails they are likely not learning anything new. Learning and failing has been a blast!
This is the blog I started based on the work of the Weston A Price Foundation. There is a listing of over 150 ranches and farms in the area around Kamloops, BC, Canada: http://eatkamloops.org/blog/.
This is the GO BOX Permaculture Project on Facebook about my family’s daily personal successes and failures trying to grow our own food in an industrially zoned area: https://www.facebook.com/pages/GO-BOX-Permaculture-Project/231437333647814?ref=hl.
The prize for the winner of this months contest is valued at $100 and includes a copy of the “Grow Your Own Groceries” video set, “Alternative To Dentists” video set, and 3 months of free membership in the Core Community. If you want to enter this month’s contest, write an essay on “How You Got Started Growing Food” and submit it here at this link: http://growyourowngroceries.org/contribute-here/
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