The Garden Project

Sophie doesn't quite understand

 I'll be honest with you-- we're not really anticipating being able to feed a family of four throughout the whole summer with a small container garden. Basically, we just wanted the kiddos to learn a basic life lesson: food is not brought into the grocery store clean and pre-packaged by magical fairies or house elves.

People grow it. It used to be alive. And if it happens to be meat, this means that someone had to do something a little less than nice to get it to our dinner table.

Of course, I’m not ready for a cow or chickens or anything along those lines (read: J would absolutely kill me before he would kill a chicken) so the meat portion of the lesson will more than likely be illustrated with fishing. Which the boys love to no end. Plus, we have several farmers in the area which sell happy animals (no antibiotics, no hormones, free range). That part of the mission is accomplished.

The veggies— that’s another story. Even a trip to the farmer’s market (which, again, the boys love to no end) doesn’t fully bring the point home. Yes, there’s the lettuce and the tomatoes and the honey. Yes, there’s the people who grew it and/or harvested it. But the actual work involved? There’s no other way to see it other than to experience it.

Hence, the container garden.

We have peas, spinach, radishes, carrots, basil, chives, sage, and now, tomatoes. The Roma plants I picked up today were the best buy at the farmer’s market—four hardy plants for $3.50. I am ready for quarts and quarts of homemade pasta sauce! Okay, well maybe not quarts when you only have four plants.

If I could grow potatoes, corn, pumpkins and green beans in our small backyard, I would. I remember the Nana doing so when I was a small child, along with peppers and lettuce and cauliflower. We also had blackberry bushes in the woods, and a blueberry/apple/peach place where you picked your own on the other side of town. My grandmother used to can and preserve in her tiniest of tiny kitchens. There’s a large part of me that’s realized, as I grow older, that these are lessons our children must absolutely learn.

Radishes are already coming up!

So, this summer, we’re once again talking about our food. Last summer was introductory; this summer will have a heavier focus on making your own and finding local. Last year was about, “Oh! Look! The plants are growing!” and ‘Photosynthesis’ and this summer will be about baking bread and cooking from scratch and how the brown eggs from the farmer’s market will always taste better than the ones you can buy from the store.

This year our state is hosting a 10,000 garden challenge. You can read more about it here. We’ve registered our small container garden!  The more exciting news is that you are connected to thousands of others in the state who are doing the same thing as you, and in the future, I hope we will be able to see others who are gardening and selling things that we want to buy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am not the best plant mother. I struggle with growing things. I refuse to have houseplants because they usually meet their untimely end while in my presence. There’s no green thumb in this household, in fact—the boys aren’t much better. If I can keep carrots and peas and the like alive (and I did it last summer!) however, then perhaps others will see that they can do it as well.

We’ll keep you posted…