Organic food rich, land poor.

At best guess, I'm currently sitting on a few thousand dollars worth of organic meat and produce.  And all we paid for it was a few bucks in seed, and countless hours of canning and processing.

Let me tell you, growing organic is HARD.  I can see the appeal of hosing down my garden with chemicals and mind-altering drugs to keep away potato bugs, squash bugs, harlequin bugs, and stink bugs.  But we choose not to.  We are feeding our kids these foods, and I want to be confident that they can, at any moment, go out into the garden and pick some tomatoes for a snack.  I don't have to worry about making sure the Round-up is dry before going out into the garden.

But you know what?  My tomatoes aren't always pretty.  They're spotty, misshapen, and I might have to flick a bug from one here and there.  And they're delicious.

I can understand the appeal of subscribing to a CSA and supporting your local farmer.  It seems that people are martyring themselves to be the 'most organic' and lamenting about the prices of organic food and how hard it is to eat clean, and wah wah wah.  You know what?  Rent yourself a garden plot and grow your own organic stuff.  Then you'll see how hard it is to keep away bugs and get the pretty produce that you see in the stores every week.  Even if you replace one or two of your landscaping with an edible plant, then you're taking charge of your own food.  I'm a fan of Rosalind Creasy and her Edible Landscaping idea.  Long ago, land was for gardening.  You had space, you grew something to eat.  It was the rich who flaunted their wealth with ornamental gardening. "Look at me! I'm so rich, I can use my land to make pretty knot gardens and will just buy my food from you peasants!" That attitude had remained to this day.  I truly hope it changes, and people start going the way of victory gardens.  I see all this development and the one thing I see is that when new houses go up, the builders plant one bradford pear tree in the front yard and call it a day.  I hope, one day, developers will put in apple, pear, cherry, and peach trees as landscaping.  And blueberry bushes as ornamentals that flank your welcome mat.

I'm definitely not against industrial farming.  I think it's saved millions of lives.  Our generation (and perhaps the one before us) may remember not getting strawberries year round.  Or corn.  Or salmon.  People who didn't can their summer bounty perished or were malnourished in the winter.  Remember the story of the grasshopper and the ant?

And for now, I'll go back to my garden and dig up some potatoes for dinner.