It's March 1st, 2022....Today I planted strawberries, potatoes, zinnias, bush beans, pole beans, and cucumbers and I'm on a mission to grow more food this year than ever before.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow all your own food? To live off of things you've grown in your own backyard? I’ve thought about it for a long time and people have done it for generations, so why not me? Or you? We've lost so much knowledge around providing for ourselves and we've become so reliant on the grocery store, I'm feeling we need to regain the old knowledge and be a little less reliant on the grocery store.
A victory garden
This winter I started taking steps to grow as much of our own food as possible There are six of us. I have fours kids; two girls and two ravenous boys. We love good food (and we eat a lot of it).
This is us. + my parents.
I'll be honest, the idea of trying to grow enough food to feed our family is daunting. So why do it? Why the urgency all of a sudden?
Well...this past weekend we were out of coffee creamer so I made a quick run to the grocery store before everyone woke up. I was shocked by how little creamer they had in the cooler. It was mostly empty. I mean, creamer is a staple item... right? Then I saw a young mother trying to check out with two jars of formula. My jaw dropped when she was told she would have to put one back! There was a one jar limit.
At first I felt shocked, then I felt a bit selfish (I couldn't help being thankful I'm past the stage of life when I need baby formula), then I felt uneasy...and exposed...and dependent...on a food supply system that's proving to be less and less reliable.
I don't think quantity restrictions and food shortages are going away.
I think our food supply chain is kind of....broken, and I'm worried it won't be fixed any time time soon.
I'm thinking it's time to be proactive; to take back some control over our own food supply.
We've been growing some of our own food for a long time, but now we've decided to get serious about it. I want organic, farm fresh food at my fingertips and I want as much of it as possible. I don’t have a lot of land, (about 3/4 of an acre), but we're going to use every bit of it to pump out as much food as we can. I want enough to feed our family, our friends, and if possible our neighbors too!
Here is a small view of our space.
For the most part, we already have the vegetable garden pumping. We recently purchased a ton of fruit trees, berry bushes, grape vines and tropical trees. We're going all in and we feel like we can do this!
We're not pros, but we’ve been gardening for a few years so we know enough to make a very solid go of it. We'll learn the rest along the way. There will be a learning curve. I've decided to give myself grace when I fail, to double down on the things that succeed, and to just keep getting better at growing my own food.
I haven’t given myself a day when I'll stop going to the grocery store. Maybe I'll always go to the grocery store for a few things here and there. Maybe I can limit grocery store runs to special occasions. I'm okay with not knowing; with not having a hard and fast rule. For now, I'm just looking for progress, I want to rely less and less on the grocery store and more an more on our little patch of soil and the vegetables and fruits it bears for us.
I bought a few new books, I'm figuring things out, I'm learning....but most importantly, I started and I'm excited (and a little excitement goes a long way)!
If you're feeling a little uneasy about the prices at the grocery store or what's going on in the world...maybe starting a garden or digging a little deeper into the one you already have is the answer for you too. If so, I hope you'll join us as we share this story around our gardening and food forest adventures.
Our next update should include info about our new food forest and what we've learned so far! Until then....
Thanks and Happy Gardening,
Jenn