Why 2009 Will Be The Year Of The Vegetable Garden

Make veggie gardening with your kids a goal for 2009!

Vegetable gardening has been a part of my life every year minus a few years when I was lookin’ for Mrs. Right (and luckily found someone who also loved garden-grown veggies!)  Every January, I start thinking of what I will grow or try differently for the gardening year ahead, so each year ends up with a theme.

Planning for 2009 got us thinking that it is not just about our garden any longer.  It is much bigger this year.  It is not what is happening in our backyard, but in backyards across the nation.

2009 is the Year of the Vegetable Garden.  Here’s why (in no particular order):

• The bleak economic outlook is motivating people to find ways to save money.
• There is a movement to convert manicured front lawns into vegetable gardens.
• Produce and food supply scares in the past decade are making us think about safety and where we want to source food.
• There are people petitioning to have the US White House start a vegetable garden.
• There has been an explosion of gardening conversations on Twitter.
• It is now “hip” to be square … a square-foot gardener!
• The world is buzzing with “green” initiatives.
• People want to buy everything from apples to zucchini with an “organic” label.
• People are starting to walk the walk on “food miles“.

OK, so there’s no hard data backing up my predictions.  Call it conjecture from someone who has been a keen observer, but I’m excited about the prospects of more veggie gardens appearing on the planet.

So this year’s “theme” will be helping and interacting with more novice-to-experienced vegetable gardeners in getting the most out of their gardening endeavors!  Please feel free to email me with questions, stalk me on Twitter or submit a question/post on our Plangarden forum.

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The Radical Diet: Pare Down Food Miles to Food Feet

Food feet, not food miles, within reason.

The term “food miles” has been around for almost 20 years.  But it’s only been over the last few years that it’s gained significance with growing sustainability news topics, and the many tainted lettuce, spinach and tomato outbreaks that have caused us to reconsider what we’re buying at the supermarket produce section.

What we’d like to suggest is to pare down, at the very least, veggie food miles to FOOD FEET, within reason and according to your climate and dietary needs.  Our garden harvest is probably about 30 feet on average from the dinner plate.  Yes, it’s a miserably small lot, but at our Mediterranean climate, it cranks out veggies year round and feeds our small family sufficiently.

Now if you’re fortunate to have significant acreage, your FOOD FEET would certainly surpass ours, but you know it’s within hundreds or – ok, you’ve got a really big lot or farm – thousands of feet.  Just think of the benefits (do let us know if we missed others):

• Freshness and quality of produce
• Knowledge and control of where your food comes from
• Reduction of carbon footprint (local trips to supermarket, distant transportation of produce, etc.)

Thus: “grow-your-own” over “locally-grown” over “grown-miles-away” !

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