How Does Your Garden Grow?

I'm the shopper in our household, there's no getting around it. In the (nearly) 15 years that Jeff and I have been married, the job of stocking cupboards and planning meals has fallen on my shoulders 99.95% of the time. Often, the Mister will stop on the way home from work to pick up a gallon of milk. Occasionally, I'll send him up to the village to the Mom-n-Pop grocery store with a list of 4 or 5 items in order to make due til the next all-out grocery excursion. I know the better brands. I know the better prices. I know the sales cycles (to some extent.) Plus I can't trust that Jeff won't come home with 4 shopping bags full of Munch-n-Crunch, Cheezy Doodles, Chocolate-Covered Sugar Bombs and HFCS-Smacks. He's a good man and a great husband, but in terms of grocery shopping, he's a cave man.



After the last grocery trip, I told Jeff prices were going up. Sugar is up .50 a bag. Broccoli is double the price at about $3 a bunch. You can count on $4-5 for a dozen brown eggs. And don't get me started on meat prices...on that subject, let me just say Thank God for Bambi! I try not dwell on it because I know that most prices are cyclical, but it would appear that these prices may be here to stay. According to the PPI Report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, March saw the largest one month jump in food prices in 26 years! In it's sixth consecutive monthly increase, food prices rose 2.4%. Some of the 'startling' increases they report include:



Fresh vegetables up 56.1%



Fresh fruits up 28.8%



Eggs up 33.6%



Pork up 19.1%



Beef up 10.7%



Dairy products up 9.7%



So what does it all mean? It the trend continues, it means that $100 bag of groceries that you're buying this year will cost you $124 this time next year. Wrap your mind around that. If you spend $100 a week on groceries, you'll be spending nearly $1250 more this year on groceries! Twelve hundred and fifty dollars. It's frightening, isn't it? And what makes it even more frightening is the fact we can't avoid it. We can't opt out of eating. So what do you do? GARDEN my friend! Take up your trowel and get some dirt under your fingernails. Spend $25 dollars on seeds and reap the benefits ten-fold! Spend a little more for canning supplies and eat all winter on that $25 investment by preserving your harvest!



Things are getting scary, folks. As my friend Sue said, "this country is going to the dogs," which I think is unfair because even dogs have standards! We've outsourced all our basic needs to the lowest bidder, forgotten the skills necessary to accomplish/acquire those basic needs and now we're complaining because we're snared hook, line and sinker. We're completely at the mercy of corporate America and unless we take action to free ourselves, the hook is only going to dig in deeper. Reclaim your freedom by standing on your own two feet and relinquishing convenience for knowledge, individuality and ingenuity!


Think you can't do it? Think you're incapable of feeding yourself? My dear old great-aunt Margie did it right up til the end. She lived on the 17th story (give or take) of a retirement high rise in downtown Ashland, Kentucky and raised a garden on the balcony of her apartment. She simply split bags of top soil and planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants right in the bags. She was about 80 at that point.

Still don't think you're able? Too complicated or difficult for you? Both of my children had small gardens last year that they tended themselves. Sure, they had a bit of help from mom, but the kids planted their seeds, pulled weeds and harvested the bounty of their own accord. They were 3 and 4 at the time. You're smarter than a 3 year old, right? I'm afraid that we're coming to a point that we won't have a choice in gardening. You'll either raise your own food or you'll go without. As for me and mine, we'll eat. And we'll eat well.