Growing your own produce is increasingly popular

With all the com­mu­nity gar­dens sprout­ing up around Delaware County, it is easy to see that grow­ing your own pro­duce is even more pop­u­lar than it was even just a few years ago. That’s a good thing. Reap­ing the rewards of grow­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles is a great way to recon­nect with nature and the ori­gins of our food.

There are lots of rea­sons gar­den­ing is grow­ing in pop­u­lar­ity, espe­cially in urban areas. A grow­ing aware­ness of eat­ing healthy, chemical-free foods; a desire to eat locally and reduce the food miles from field to fork (an aver­age of 1,500 to 2,500 miles); a need to teach our chil­dren that food doesn’t always come shrink-wrapped; and, finally, and let’s face it, the most moti­vat­ing rea­son is sky rock­et­ing food prices.

Our son Michael brought home a cab­bage plant starter from third grade and was all fired up about start­ing a gar­den. We’ve con­tainer gar­dened, but never a full-blown gar­den. Imag­ine try­ing to explain Home­own­ers Asso­ci­a­tion rules to a nine-year-old. Oh, bother. So we devised a plan to put some raised beds next to the house. We did try hav­ing a gar­den over at Strat­ford Eco­log­i­cal Cen­ter back when they offered plots for com­mu­nity gar­den­ing. It was a great idea, but a failed project for us. Those weeds grew way too fast and time to get over there to water never seemed to materialize.

If you are inter­ested in start­ing a veg­etable gar­den this year, visit backyardgardener.com/veg or check out the many books on the topic at the local library. Look for organic seeds. You can learn more at seedsofchange.com. If you are a con­tainer gar­dener like us, visit containergardeningtips.com and, if you sim­ply want to eat locally, be sure and visit our local farmer’s mar­kets this year or the Delaware County Com­mu­nity Market.

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and a mother of four and is in her fifth year of writ­ing this col­umn about green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Apr 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.