Grow your own... | Bread & Butter

Spring has finally sprung and with it, so have my crocus, gladiolas and daffodils. Little happy bursts of color are now littering my previously barren flowerbeds as the warm air has swept into the Ohio River Valley.

Per usual, planning has begun on just what to plant in my beds; the bulbs have been bought and a fresh layer of peat moss spread. But this season my planning has been extended to a new sort of garden out behind my little tool shed.

This year – in the wake of a recession and in the midst of a volatile economic climate – we’re banking on a fertile summer to yield our very first, thrifty, earth-friendly and carbon footprint reducing vegetable garden and apparently we’re not the only ones.

While people are ready to tighten their proverbial financial belts they’re not necessarily willing to have to tighten the ones holding up their pants to do it.

And when faced with having to cut their grocery spending in the face of fiscally tough times, they’ve decided to hoe it up; not on a street corner but in their own backyards.

According to an Associated Press story March 15, garden seed distributors, like Burpee (the biggest mail-order seed company in the U.S.), are struggling to keep up with the increased demand as people prepare to sow their own veggies in order to save a little green.

"We’re selling out,” said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds. “I've never seen anything like it."

Garden advocates are thrilled with the development, both in the renewed interest in the art of cultivating and in hopes of a return to the pioneer days of a more self-sufficient nation. They, along with media outlets, have dubbed the veggie plots spurred by the sad state of economy “recession gardens.”

The environmentalists on the other hand, are lauding the effect this will have on reducing a household’s carbon footprint. Those who grow a garden will not only play a part in helping to reduce the amount of produce being shipped thousands of miles by some of form polluting transportation but also could potentially reduce their own trips to grocery.

And lastly, the Slow Food movement advocates, (who are perhaps a little mix of both of the above) have been promoting the Grow Your Own cause since their founding.

(Try not to mind all the “I told ya so’s.”)

Even the Obama's are growing a veggie garden at the White House.

Anyway you slice it: homegrown veggies are a good thing.

And in this same vein, Alex and I have embraced our inner green thumbs and decided to try our hand at producing… well... produce.


You’ll be able to follow our progress here on my blog in my DIY Grow Your Own series in which I’ll detail our trials and tribulations. The series will be complete with our findings of what does and doesn’t work, along with some (hopefully) helpful how-to tips.

So stay tuned!