Facing Challenges

Since the beginning of our country, we have faced challenging times. Our families through the generations have found ways to overcome these challenges. We hope to look backward in order to move forward. Meaning, with unemployment and under-employment where it is now, many families are trying to balance the family budget with needs. We hope to look to our history in order to simplify our future.
One of the challenges many families are facing right now, is how to feed everyone a good and healthy meal. As parents we are always wanting to give our kids the best nutrition we can. But with limited income that isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Prices in our local grocery stores are a lot of the time price prohibiting. So, what do we do? Hot dogs, that’s it, hot dogs. Oh yum, nitrates on a bun. Frozen boxed pizza; I don’t know if it still an ingredient because honestly I haven’t had frozen pizza in many many years, but glue was once an ingredient. I’d rather give the kids Elmer’s for school, not dinner.
So, what do we do? Garden, wait listen, I haven’t lost my mind. Yeah yeah I hear you, I live in the city or even worse an apartment. I can’t do that. Yeah, you really can. If you don’t have a lot of room in a yard or you live in an apartment you can still garden. Garden in containers. You heard me right, it doesn’t have to be a fancy container. I’m thinking the plainer the better. Try using a 5 gallon paint bucket. You can get them at most big box stores and local hardware stores. Then let the kids paint the outside of the container. Two reasons for letting the kids get involved. The more involved they are, the more ownership they have. The more ownership they have, the more they are likely to eat the food you’re going to grow. Make sure to drill drainage holes in the bucket. Good drainage, means good roots, means health and fruitful plants. I have personally grown, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in buckets. All you need is sunlight, water and good soil. Let us not forget lettuce. Ok not a good pun but lettuce can be grown in flower boxes. For those in an apartment a window with good sunlight and table works, if you don’t have even a small balcony. You can also use hanging baskets. Instead of an ivy plant try strawberries. Think how much the kids or even you would like to pick fresh strawberries for breakfast or even a snack for school or work.
Think upward; all gardens don’t have to be in the ground with straight rows, (if you want that it’s ok.) Go to yard sales and flea markets and think outside the box. Did you see that old ladder, you know the one you wouldn’t let your cat stand on. It’s only a dollar. I know you’re thinking that’s dollar wasted. As one of my favorite comedians would say, Oh nay nay. The ladder is now a tower for climbing plants such as pole beans. Fresh green beans that sounds good and don’t worry if you have more than you can eat. You can always freeze the extra, but I like to can. There is nothing better than eating food you grew yourself in the dead of winter.
Let me give you another reason for growing your own food. How many times have you gone to the grocery store only to come home and listen to the nightly news and hear of another food recall. I love knowing where my food came from and what was used on it. In my case I don’t use pesticides. My husband has some health issues and because of the medications he’s on I really want to know where our food comes from. I guess it really hit home when I was listening to the news and heard what some thought was the funniest thing they had ever heard, but it scared me. A field of watermelons blew up. Yeah I said blew up. The watermelons were over sprayed with growth hormones. Growth Hormones are not only for professional ball players it seems. They spray it on produce and feed it to our livestock.  Which means it is in the veggies, fruits, meat and yes milk our families eat and drink.  A few years ago I was talking to a doctor. I told him I had a conversation with another doctor about growth hormones being used in our food. I had said I thought the hormones remained in the food after it had been harvested or slaughtered. She had disagreed. But he didn’t. He told me he had been practicing medicine for many years. When he started young girls started their menstrual cycles around age 12. Now he was seeing young girls as early as 8 and 9 years old starting their cycles. Something’s changing he said and the use of growth hormones was at the top of his list.
Having said all that, I’ll conclude with this. Our grandparents and great grandparents fed large families with very little money. For them like many now, there wasn’t the opportunity for overtime. Money was used as sparingly as possible. Everything they ate, they grew. They harvested and preserved the food. Saved seeds from the food they harvested to plant in the future. Looking to the past can and will help us now and in the future. Should you decide to leave the local grocery store for your own yard, please remember to find seeds that have not been genetically modified. After your first harvest you can gather the seeds so you can continue gardening over and over.