Why Grow Your Own?

“Why should I grow vegetables when I can buy them in the store?”

I’ve heard that question before.  There are so many reasons that I can site.  Last week’s news headlines point out another one: food safety.

Thousands have been sickened in Europe due to an outbreak of E. coli.  German officials have identified fresh produce as the most likely cause of the latest outbreak.

This is certainly not the first outbreak of E. coli linked to fresh vegetables and it won’t be the last.

I can’t and won’t stop buying produce out of food fear.  It’s just not practical.  But I can decrease my family’s likelihood of coming in contact with produce contaminated by E. coli by increasing the amount of produce that I grow, serve, and save.

I don’t plan on tilling under every blade of grass in my yard to create my own urban farm either.  I plant what I can maintain.  I do what I can.  By doing so, I know just where my family’s food originated.  I don’t need to check a label or hazard a guess.  I like that kind of peace of mind.

So many Americans plant every spring.  Some Americans buy a flat of begonias to plant along the front sidewalk.  Some pick up geraniums for a pot near the front stoop.  Nearly every big box store has a garden center or a hoop house in the parking lot.  All evidence points towards a gardening public.  Why not make some of those yearly Spring plantings edible?

Fruit and vegetable plantings can be just as beautiful as those of perennial and annual flowers and plants.  Food fresh from the garden is just as tasty as it is beautiful.  Fruits and vegetables harvested from my garden have not been contaminated by deadly strains of E. coli.  Every time I serve food from my own garden space, I am reducing my family’s risk of contracting a food borne illness like E. coli.

Last summer I read Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”.  It raised some thought provoking ideas about our production and consumption of food.  What I did take away from that book was the reassurance that gardening is good for my family, in so many ways.  I do what I can and my family is better for it.