Growing your own

 Yes, Growing your own vegetables is far better, than buying the stuff from the local commercial grocery store. A couple reasons I will discuss. A commercial grocery store, get their food in fast and cheap. There is not much thought on whether or not it has been sprayed or pumped full of chemicals of just about every kind you can think of, and ones you can't.

When grocery stores get their shipments in of fresh fruits and veggies in, they aren't really as fresh as you may think. Or if they are, they haven't been pick at "the peak of freshness" or ripeness for that matter, more often than not, the food is picked very green. What do I mean? LOL for example, tomatoes are picked still green and very hard. they are loaded onto the trucks for shipment, and a shot of ethylene is added to the truck as it is closed up and ready to go, once to it's destination, the tomatoes have ripen (albeit, artificially), hence that "unnatural, creamy orange" color you find with so many tomatoes at the grocery store.

Anyone who has grown tomatoes knows what they are suppose to look like, and taste like, and the ones from the store, are nothing like this. Homegrown anything, is far superior to anything bought at the store. Hands down.

Same goes for anything else, from lettuce to cukes, onions, and asparagus. My philosophy is, if you cant grow it, at least go to the farmers markets in your area and by from them. I am sure you can find farmers that grow their veggies without the use of pesticides and artificial means. The food tastes better, and lasts waaayyyy longer. 

Another reason is the pride. Yes, pride in your work as a gardener. A tiller of the soil, working with your hands, caring for things and reaping what you have sown.

So, say you have no area for gardening, and cant grow veggies in ground, so what! If you have a small porch and windowsill, a patio, or maybe just a small patch of grass, utilize what you have! Almost any vegetable and fruits can be grown in containers. I have used buckets, old shoes (believe it or not) that I planted bunching onions in, and something as simple as buying a bag of potting soil, laying the bag down, poking holes in the bottom for drainage, then making slits in the top and planted my seeds right in the bag. Whatever works I say! If it can get you some garden greens from dirt to table.....so be it!

Later, in another post I will be covering many ways to utilize space for growing herbs and veggies, even if you don't have the space to do so.

I hope you stick around for more lengthy discussion on the topics I have planned for this blog. More new an exciting things to come!

Jo.