I have a friend who has a saying: Been there. Done that. Bought the t-shirt. Read the book. Saw the movie. I feel the same way when it comes to the current “crop” of euphemistically glowing reports of how much fun a “kitchen” garden can be and how little it costs. There is all that saving when you “harvest” your own fresh veggies. Even the new First Lady is embarking on such an endeavor.
Once upon a time I had much in common with the main characters in the corny television comedy, Green Acres. I was going to grow my own veggies, make pickles, pick fresh berries from the woods, turn them into jams and jellies, then give bountiful gifts of home made goodness for Christmas.
It was a great plan with unintended consequences such as having big, black, mama bear chase me out of her blackberry patch. The neighbors stole my entire crop of figs. Then, to add insult to injury, my mother would almost daily descend upon my beautiful snow pea crop and devour them like a horde of locusts.
I started out “small”, with a single large flower pot. In it I planted a couple cherry tomatoes, a large beef-steak tomato, and three cucumbers, a bell pepper, a single zucchini, and two packs of snow pea seeds. Aside from the bell pepper plant never doing much, the whole thing was a great success. My mother had fresh snow peas, daily, along with some very good cucumbers.
Unfortunately, success is the mother of defeat.
I spent the winter reading up on seeds, where to find just the right veggie plants, and the exact plans for a raised vegetable “bed”. It was going to be a wonderful summer, tapped off by my first venture into pickle making, and my first jams. I was giddy over the success of my two dozen jars of fig preserves.
I was hot.
You think I was going to build the blasted raised beds?
I hired Stanley, who had spent the previous 3 years remodeling my 10,000 square foot Mill Gallery. The final price-tag for the raised beds was about $300.
We’re not talking soil — yet.
I wanted an organic veggie garden.
Do you know what happens when you use regular yard soil in your beautiful, new, raised veggie beds? You get a veggie garden full of weeds! The only solution is to either nuke it with an unhealthy dose of weed killer, or, deal with potting soil.
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Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
Sounds like a good...
Oh, right. I forgot. Regulations are evil, government "control" is everywhere, yadda yadda yadda.
By the way, I love the linguistic tricks you play to parlay something into something else entire. That the bill will "basically outlaw" organic gardening and, apparently organic food in general along with small farms. How d'ya figure? It's a pretty important point, but you seem to have just snugly tacked it on after two pages of personal anecdotes and good times. Not for nothing, but one would think an important detail such as that would have gotten a bit more print space.
Also, where can I find more information on that fine of "a million bucks?"
All this bill seems to do is alter the regulatory job and move the authority from the state level to the federal level. Of course, that means we're all going to die...but who's counting?
2 - Joanne Huspek
Hid your veggies within your landscape. It's the only way to go... Or get a boatload of grow lights. I guess that second story in our vacant Detroit building would be good for that. The outlaw life, that's for me.
3 - Cindy
Good article SJ.
My grandparents' gardens never cost anything though. Maybe just the seeds.
Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ADM, Congress, and the rest of the government can all go to hell.
How do all the people saying that the bill is sponsored by these agri-corps know this? I don't have time right now to find out. But, I hate when all I can find is just a whole bunch of repetition of such a charge without the evidence. It's not like I find it difficult to believe; hearsay just never satisfies me.
4 - Cindy
chit
5 - SJ Reidhead
Cindy:
Your grandparents knew what they were doing! That's the big difference.
I think I put links to the information in the article. I read some of the bill. It isn't pretty, but then nothing coming out of DC these days is.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
6 - José Jiménez
Soy el José Jiménez auténtico. ¡Míreme tienen una marca de exclamación Española!
7 - Roger Nowosielski
Will the real José Jiménez stand up! Enough of this foolishness.
8 - Clavos
Cindy,
No se escribe española con mayúscula.
9 - Cindy
Usted descubrió ése era yo. Y gracias por la corrección.
'It is not' = no se
But, I thought, 'I don't know' = no se
Then I thought maybe I was thinking of 'no lo se', but when I looked it up, the translator won't say. ¡Clav, Ayuda!
10 - Matthew T. Sussman
Congratulations on finally getting to your point before the article ended.
It's called "inverted pyramid." Look it up.
11 - Roger Nowosielski
My name Bill Dana. My real name José Jiménez.
12 - Roger Nowosielski
The real José Jiménez.
13 - El Bicho
"I had much in common with the main characters in the corny television comedy, Green Acres."
Not from the description you gave.
I don't know how you can be friends with a person who has a saying like that.
14 - Clavos
It (he/she) is not = no es.
I don't know = no se
I don't know it (or that) = no lo se
15 - Dr Dreadful
Whatever it is you three are smoking, please toss some my way.
16 - Ruvy
SJ,
I see the fools on this site don't want to take you seriously. Their loss. In this case, it will be a big loss - for them, and possibly for you.
Friends of mine warn that there will be food shortages all over the United States. They are the kind of warnings that you might put credence in, SJ. But the geniuses on this list will not. They laugh at your Bible and at you; they laugh at the prophecies of the ancient Hebrew prophets. They look down to an abyss and say "this is high; they look up to a summit and proclaim, "this is low".
You are not the only one warning them - but they laugh in their contempt.
Contact me off-line if you want me to send you the warnings I have gotten. I will not subject my friends to the derision of fools here.
17 - Jordan Richardson
I will not subject my friends to the derision of fools here.
Finally!
By the way, know what I'm doing now? Laughing!
Oh, the horror.
18 - Jordan Richardson
In truth, Ruvy, and this may be a loooooooong shot, but maybe people just don't feel like being afraid all the time. Maybe fear-mongering and ignorance peddled as factual information doesn't always work. But, by Golly, I guess it's up to good people like you to keep sounding the ol' alarm bells and keep us all heavily concerned at how things really are because, Zeus knows, you've got that special insight there from your perch above the rest of us. I tell ya, if you weren't so darn condescending I might like you!
Maybe those old tricks don't work for everyone. Maybe people don't want to look at how horrific things can be. And you know, I guess if I magically run out of food down here with all the Silly Billies, maybe I'll starve with a smile on my face and a more fulfilled life. Or, and here's hoping I'm on to something, I can perhaps feed myself on the energy my sarcasm and humour brings me.
It's worked pretty well so far.
I respect the articles here, the people that post them, and the people who comment in the comments section. I truly do. But sometimes I wonder why some people seem stuck on "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEE! OH NOOOOOOOES! BRACE YOURSELF, SAVE THE CHILDREN, HIDE YOUR WEAPONS BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT'S GONNA TAKE THEM FROM YOU AND ABORT YOUR FETUS! ZAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
I mean come on, is it really that bad or do people like you just wish it was so that you could say "neener neener I told you so?"
19 - SJ Reidhead
I've read the predictions of food shortages, social unrest, etc. There is really only one way I can see this happening, and that is we continue on this absolutely idiot path of "global warming" foolishness.
No, I don't believe global warming is man made. I'm not that arrogant, and before additional comments are made, I'm not that stupid, either. I like my scientific facts cold, hard, and absolutely logical. The planet's temperature is tied to solar activities and the whims of the planet itself.
This said, we're dealing with some abjectly foolish, draconian, and potentially disastrous and needless new regulations that will try to "safe the planet". This is where I think our shortages will occur and a land of plenty will be reduced to less than a third world.
The regulation I've written about in this piece is another potential problem. This one isn't about "protection", saving the planet or even saving lives. It's about political corruption - pure and simple. It is payback for tens of thousands of dollars paid to a willing recipient in such a scope that it gives a bad name to "honest" prostitutes who are just trying to make a living.
I am cynical enough to believe that the allegedly earth friendly and draconian laws that are being forced upon us are going to be the result of the same thing - political prostitution.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't care if a person is liberal, moderate, or conservative. It doesn't matter. Perhaps it is time to either completely outlaw prostitution, both political and literal or legalize it.
Thus speaks the voice of the cynic. But - I am a hopeful cynic.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
20 - Christopher Rose
SJ, I'm not aware that anybody is saying that the current period of global warming is man made and, yes, it is indeed a natural phenomenon. If that were just the end of it, the implications for, certainly millions, possibly billions, humans living at or near sea level are pretty serious.
Would it not logically follow that the additional contribution to that process by the heat given off by human activity is going to hasten the process to some extent?
I'm not entirely certain that current initiatives are comprehensive or coherent, but it would be an extremely brave person that would risk the future of their family or country by doing nothing at all.