How to Grow Vegetables

"Honor the face of the old man; stand up in respect for the old..." Leviticus 19:32

We are well into the spring time here in the northern hemisphere. With the possiblity of a mild end to winter, many thoughts turn to the growing of things. It may be the green spaces alive in your town square, it may be the return of the farmer's market and the lovely spring abundance it brings for you and your table.

For most all of us in terms food, our choices are actually limited: we must buy food from one source or another. We are indeed absolutely dependent upon those sources for our very lives. Who grows our foodstuffs? Why not us? Why do we think it fine to pay others to do the manual labor of bringing fresh, healthy food to us for the table? Have we really ever thought about it at all, thought about the lifestyle that necessarily results from tolerating, accepting, even encouraging this practice of others raising our food? One thing leads to another, like a slippery slope.

In these days of rising concern of stewardship for the air, the land and the water, do we suppose that we have relinquished all that to the approximately two percent of the population who (feeding more than 98 percent of Americans and a vast percentage world-wide) are indeed the oligarchs? Are we okay with that, or should we react? How we react depends a lot on us, and our current lifestyle.

Some while never thinking about it, work like vassals to a "state of consumption" in which they participate. Yes, we are called consumers, but aren't we more than that? And what if the farmers rebelled, went on strike and demanded their homage? To a serious threat like that, then what are we? While in a civil society something in just that form may not occur, many other potentially damaging disruptions may well be affecting our daily lives in myriad, subtle ways.

Take for example, the price of sugar, oil, wheat and corn. These commodities have been greatly on the rise the past few years. Why? Agricultural economists explain it in several ways: weather, market "forces," export demands, domestic consumption and yes, things like ethanol driving up prices. Farmers as a group are notorious for growing crops which bring the highest return. Who can blame them?
And when they all do, an overabundance may result, actually depressing prices. Then producers are on to the next "big thing," and lately that has been corn. Remember there is only so much land for all crops produced. A balance of supply and need produces price stability; overproduction in one crop results in shortages in others. You pay the difference.

Corn may be used to produce many, many foodstuffs and meats. Most recently it is used to produce not just grain alcohols such as whiskey but also a product they call "ethanol," a less efficient, grain alcohol used to fuel gasoline powered engines. The result is that millions more acres are now being taken to produce this product and not grain to feed you or produce meats or oils for your table. Did you ask for that? Did you clearly know that certain demands for a better environment would be answered by big business in this way? Did they ask any of us? Well, yes and no. Regardless, we all now pay ever increasing prices to those who grow for us. This topic is ongoing. It's another chapter in the politics of food.

So back to you and me and the springtime garden. Yes, we can grow some, or most of our own food! It's not hard, doesn't require a lot of money or equipment and just may be the best tomato, potato or peach we've even eaten! There is a time investment however; also a time and fuel savings too. It takes time to garden, but the time you'll spend at the store shopping, driving or commuting to places where you obtain food can be used in your own garden. If you have land, own a house, you have space and can garden. Others may take advantage of community garden space, or start a community garden in their neighborhood. Grow some tomatoes, herbs or miniature fruit trees on your apartment balcony or grounds.

Nature has a lot invested in the success of your garden. For example, seeds are adapted to your environment. Choose the ones for your area. Plant them according to the package directions, water and they will grow! Weed your garden and provide nutrients. Grass clippings, compost made with the waste produced in your kitchen, leaves chopped or composted in the fall will all provide food for your plants and mulch to conserve water as well.

Choose vegetables you like, those that are your favorites will be best. You will not be pleased with an abundance of vegetables you prefer on occasion. Plan your garden space accordingly. It is not necessary to have a large garden. For many families a space of eight feet by ten feet will be sufficient. Many vegetables may be grown both spring and again in fall, leaving the hotter summer open for others like tomatoes, melons and eggplant.
Don't forget fruit trees.They are pretty with flowers in the spring and luscious with fruit afterward. They also produce at different times. For example, cherries in May and June, apples as early as late July, peaches and pears in August and September. From them you will have fresh fruit, pies, jams, or anything your appetite inspires.
For a family of four, two "dwarf" to medium sized trees each of any type of fruit is plenty, and may be too much some years. Don't forget small fruits like strawberry, raspberries or grapes!

Many locales now permit small numbers of chickens, ducks or rabbits; some allow goats; if yours does, you may be able to almost entirely feed your household like many of our great grandparents did. Enjoy the satisfaction of your own home grown table. Enjoy the calm of the garden, the reduction of time spent as a consumer shopping, driving, and always be confident about your food. After all, you grew it and you know how! Goodness is in the garden.

Ethanol Update

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT HAS ANNOUNCED IT WILL NOT EASE THE MANDATE TO PRODUCE ETHANOL DESPITE THE LIMITED CORN SUPPLIES RESULTING FROM THE GREAT DROUGHT OF 2012. 

It's official. 
The government in full knowledge that world supplies of corn are critically low, that there is also a poor crop forecast for South American producers which is negatively impacting world grain supplies, has sided again with the big business of American agriculture.
When supplies are low, prices are high and now going higher. Our farmer continues to benefit at the expense of the less fortunate the world over. So much for brotherhood of mankind.

Posted here previously:
"In these days of rising concern of stewardship for the air, the land and the water, do we suppose that we have relinquished all that to the approximately two percent of the population who (feeds more than 98 percent of Americans and a vast percentage world-wide,) are indeed the oligarchs? Are we okay with that, or should we react? How we react depends a lot on us and our current lifestyle.

Some while never thinking about it, work like vassals to a "state of consumption" in which they participate. Yes, we are called consumers, but aren't we more than that? And what if the farmers rebelled, went on strike and demanded their homage? Could we starve? And how easily, like the recent hurricane Sandy has demonstrated! It won't take much. Will others world-wide starve too? In the face of a serious threat like that, then what are we? While in a civil society something in just that form may not occur, many other potentially damaging disruptions may well be affecting our daily lives in myriad, subtle ways.

Take for example, the price of sugar, oil, wheat and corn. These commodities have been greatly on the rise the past few years. Why? Agricultural economists explain it in several ways: weather, market "forces," export demands, domestic consumption and yes, things like ethanol driving up prices. Farmers as a group are notorious for growing crops which bring the highest return. Who can blame them?

And when they all do, an over abundance may result, actually depressing prices. Then they are on to the next "big thing," and lately that has been corn. Remember there is only so much land for all crops produced. A balance of supply and need produces price stability; overproduction in one crop results in shortages in others. You pay the difference.

Corn may be used to produce many, many foodstuffs and meats. Most recently it is used to produce not just grain alcohols such as whiskey but also a product they call "ethanol," a less efficient, grain alcohol used to fuel gasoline powered engines. The result is that millions more acres are now being taken to produce this product and not grain to feed you or produce meats or oils for your table. Did you ask for that? Did you clearly know that certain demands for a better environment would be answered by big business in this way? Did they ask any of us? Well, yes and no. Regardless, we all now pay ever increasing prices to those who grow for us. This topic is ongoing. It's another chapter in the politics of food"

Food and the Politics of Eating

Eat this Bread  by the Taize Community, France
CHANTED: "Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to him and never be hungry;

Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in him and you will never thirst."

This song, a very simple chant to be sung during meditation calls our mind to a basic human need and desire, to be fed.Yet it isn't always so simple. We presume because we have enough others must too, and often they do. Except when they do not. But, doesn't the world produce more than enough to feed one and all. Well, yes it does, but no, it doesn't feed all. They call it food politics. In food politics a very complicated and messy issue becomes more obviously an issue of social justice, of equity and parity for all.

We all have a right to clean water and healthful food the world over, no matter what our status, but not all have the income or the access to obtain what they need, or they cannot produce it themselves. In my simple world there is a place in the country with a garden, an orchard, some livestock, and maybe some chickens-- all on a few acres. Producing good, organic foods for family consumption is as old as the Bible. True enough, but what if you produce food to sell your excess, or produce strictly for sale. Who do you sell to, what is their income and personal resources? Do you sell so that everyone comes to the sale on equal ground, with equal footing. Can the rich man pay the price for home grown, organic foods? Most likely he can and purchases what he chooses. Can that same seller afford to sell to the economically disadvantaged? Can they give to a monk in his begging bowl? Moreover, will the seller even consider to do this?

On a world scale, there is said to be enough land and food production to feed the world, yet millions go hungry. How can this be? Again enter food politics. Control and access to food stores is an old tool, and an ancient weapon. Political factions, party alignments, political will and might often conspire acting together, producing man-made hunger and famine. Again it's as old as the Bible. One group favors or disfavors another and in food politics, very often the losers starve. There seems to be no easy answer to a wide spread problem. And it happens in our backyard, in our town too. Everyday.

Farmers and Factors

 "The issue today isn't about 'farm factories,'  it's about factors versus access to land for the production of food." --Simple Mind Zen 

While many today disdain, consider farmers factories, as in 'a factory farm," fewer consider them as the factors that they are by necessity. The word  factory is an interesting one. It comes from the verb, to factor, meaning to actively contribute to the production of a result; in the instance of factory, there is the sense of a place wherein one accomplishes the production, usually in multiples. And that is a farm of any size!

It is becoming more the fashion here in the United States, especially, to toss about this term "factory farm" in a sort of pseudo-intellectualism, and a reaction arises to reject these 'factor-farmers' (those who produce in vast quantity to meet the demands of a population), in favor of the small, local farmer, and farmers' markets. As if these are a key answer; they are not. 
Access to land is far more important. While local food sources are tremendously important, bringing quality, fresh food from these "small" producers to the urban population centers is a challenge. The fact is that not enough of us are farmers. That is to say, there aren't enough producing food to meet the vast need. Thus the "factory farmers" arise to take up the slack.

It is nothing new to raise and produce one's own food; indeed, around the world many do just that as millions have done for centuries. Yet here in the United States, despite the intellectual sentiment against big agriculture, against corporate farming, is one basic fact: too many people who don't or won't produce their own food sufficient to feed themselves and their family. They will literally starve if someone shuts down the "pipeline" to their next meals, and in a short amount of time too. Why? As urban dwellers, those income producers, those with ideas and information, which by the way-- ideas aren't edible, now are paying money for someone else to operate the plantations and farms that supply food to their table. In doing so, these urbanites are extremely vulnerable to any and all disruptions involving food reaching their plates.

Relative to population today, there are about three per cent or less who are food producers for the whopping 97+  per cent of the population who cannot or will not produce their own food. The "small family farmer" can't do it. And if they are, they're not small. Take the example of egg production: Here in Illinois a producer-dealer is classified as "small" if he or she produces less than 600 cases (one case equals 30 dozen eggs of any size) of eggs per year (This level of production requires about 550 laying hens, consuming about 15 tons of feed annually, plus all the buildings to house them, storage facilities for their feed, and other needs such as water resources for the birds themselves and to clean the eggs prior to marketing. Let us not forget not to mention manure disposal of the converted 15 tons of feed on an annual basis each and every year). That's a bit less than a quarter million eggs a year. Some of these "small" producers are selling eggs at your farmers' markets; they are supplying eggs to the local food co-ops, the health stores, the alternative retailers, and many do buy them, thinking this is better agriculture. This consumer sometimes even thinks there is a great conspiracy to manipulate and control the market by "corporate" farming operations...

We groan; we complain; we vilify those who feed everyone else who otherwise cannot feed themselves. For those who are willing, pass up the markets, scrutinize more carefully what is meant by "small family farmer." Know that it varies according to species or crops produced by local, state and federal laws, or it may be completely unregulated. The answer is not factory farms nor someone else's "small family farm" either, if the average person is willing to take responsibility for their own foodstuffs. So in order to produce the best, most local, most organic food at the very lowest price-- the answer lies in the use of your own land! Your own flower gardens are nice; they are beautiful, but like ideas and information, they are not edible. How about  some tomatoes, cabbages, corn or other vegetables added to that "flower" garden? What about swapping those "ornamental trees" for real beauties who likewise flower in spring, then give wonderful fruits later in the season, or going full scale-- tearing out your lawn or parts of it for full scale food production? 
If you own a home, you have access to land. This may sound too silly to consider, but more and more people are returning to what our great grandparents and their parents knew well: producing their own food is a basic responsibility. Not doing so was irresponsible; people risked food borne illnesses, harmful contaminants or even starvation. Municipalities today are again permitting bees and other small animals such as chickens, goats and rabbits for food production. Nearly all permit growing vegetables and small fruits such as raspberries, grapes, blueberries and strawberries.

Don't have any land? Apartment dwellers can consider reducing their dependence on food from commercial sources by container gardening, investing in miniature fruit trees and other potential methods to maximize space. Check in your area for "community gardens," or start one for your community. They allow many people to have access to a plot of land to grow a large part of the food they need. Community gardens are now present in urban centers and in small to mid size cities. Growing one's own food is beneficial both to the body and the spirit. It is a holistic and confident lifestyle. The food one produces from the garden beats anything from a store or market. 

Moon Dances

Moon Dance

By VanMorrison

Listen Here

Well it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
You know the night's magic
Seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight
Seems to shine in your blush...

Can I just have one a' more moondance with you, my love?
Can I just make some more romance with a' you, my love?

Today I stopped by the local Saturday Farmer's Market. Not that I go there too often. I have been a few times, but I felt uncomfortable there. Why should I? It's just a little grocery shopping. Well, it is a little; the last two years I have been working to integrate this little Saturday affair. It seemed to me that some people are more represented there than others. Yet our local community is far more diverse both socially and economically.

As a matter of justice, I decided that I would not sell or buy there until it integrated. There are just too many in our community who could benefit from the market to give a blind eye to justice, an integral element of charity. It came to me then on a Labor day weekend of 2009 as I walked the market that I would talk about that to everyone until it changed, and I have for the past two years talked about the market. A lot. I talk about that market with vendors, with buyers, with people of faith, with politicians, neighbors, friends and co-workers. I am just not too proud to have this thing running blindly every week here. Every one deserves good food!


What's the issue? Food politics. It seems that for those who have high incomes, access to the market is possibly a whim. They pick and choose where to buy. This is a relatively tight, small group in our community. So the Saturday market has pressed on, quite successfully, growing by leaps and bounds, fed by the largesse of that small, tight community. Others are shut out due to various social factors like wrong job, no job, low education, mental handicaps, childhood, age, misfortune, illness and so on. Yet every person must eat and every person possesses the dignity of a creature of God. The wealthy as God's creature deserve good food and clean water as do those less fortunate. The dignity of a human person demands that each and every person living exist in a state that is observant to the basic needs of life, and afford one the means to obtain relief for those needs.

So now the nitty-gritty: it's Food Stamps, and poor people. These persons characteristically have had limited means to participate in the benefits of this particular market until now. It was announced recently that the market will  accept Food Stamps, and Debit Cards. So today I went and checked it out. Indeed the vendors were aware of this change. Some welcomed it and the possibility of new customers. After all money is green, regardless of the source. And as the French saying goes, 'money has no smell.'

Also I checked out the local Co-op grocery nearby and the Strawberry health store too. They both take Food Stamps. Funny, it's not on their door. I hope that will change soon. So I made a purchase at these places, but still I don't think I'll become a regular. I like food from my own garden just as well. Tonight I'll celebrate the 'country way' with a little Moon Dance of my own. It is spring after all; the moon is nearly full.

The Community Garden

PSALM 86*
Turn your ear, O Lord, and give answer
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am faithful;
save the servant who trusts in you.

You are my God, have mercy on me, Lord,
for I cry to you all the day long.
Give joy to your servant, O Lord,
for to you I lift up my soul.

O Lord, you are good and forgiving,
full of love to all who call.
Give heed, O Lord, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my voice.

*NOTE: Psalms are meant to be sung or chanted. This has been so for thousands of years.

Listen here.

 Again taking up the topic of 'making my garden green again,' it is now on the approach of spring. The growing season is ahead. In our community and in others around the United States there is a green movement, one that is truly green, that supports all who participate. The idea is a 'community' garden in which a large plot of land is made available to all who wish to tend a part of it. They plant, cultivate and harvest from their own parcel and because of their efforts, they and every other person who chooses to garden there, receive the produce of any other parcel. It is then, truly a community garden. In our community, the local University and some other smaller entities make land available for this use. The university may be the largest, giving several acres to this endeavor.
 Each person freely enters into the process, grows a crop that is shared with one and all alike. There is fresh produce for the season, an avenue for good health, irrespective of social status or financial wherewithall. This truly community garden does not require any significant financial investment beyond seeds and any other soil amendments the prospective gardeners wish to make; all benefit. They work ultimately for food and for collective justice of the common good. And that is good which does no harm, which engages in food politics in a beneficial  manner. Will you find a garden and choose your plot today?