I'm reading this book called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. I just finished reading "The 100 Mile Diet". Well now I feel horribly guilty and really want to start to do something about our diets. Add to the equation that I am a hopeless cook and a picky eater. Now if you don't know anything about either of these books you should read them. They are basically about knowing where our foods comes from and trying to eat according to the seasons. Well I live in an area that there aren't any farms, well not many. We live in mountains with bears and deer who love to munch on anything you try to plant or grow. My parents always try to grow a vegetable garden and have fruit trees but every year the deer munch a good proportion of their vegetable plants before they can fruit and the bears always get the apples before they are even ripe enough to pick. So you can see how this makes gardening for food a huge challenge not to mention our short growing season.
Then I read about how most seeds are genetically modified so that they won't produce seeds that can be replanted. These multinational companies don't want us to be able to grow our own food from seeds we save ourselves like our ancestors did. They want us to have to buy seeds every year from them. Plus they have reduced the genetic diversity of the plant seeds you can buy to almost record lows. This lead me to look for anyone in my area who sold heirloom seeds. I bought some seeds for cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkins, peas, beets, potatoes, and cabbage.
Now all I need to do is figure out how to plant this bounty in my very small back yard! LOL! I'm really hoping my parents won't plant a vegetable garden this year and me and the kids can have their plot for carrots, peas and potatoes. These are some of the vegetables that they do grow and the deer and bear leave alone mostly.
I'd also love to plant some fruit trees and bushes but since we are most likely moving from here in the next couple of years I'll hold off on that until we find a more permanent home. I guess I'll just buy local fruit and freeze any extra bounty for the cold winter months.
I remember when I was a child and my parents had a cherry tree. That cherry tree produced so many cherries that we couldn't keep up eating them all. Can you imagine that with a family of 4 kids? My mom canned cherries and gave lots away. Then during the winter she would bring out the canned cherries and we'd have them over ice cream. They cut the cherry tree down stating it was too much work and you had to spray it to keep the worms out of the cherries. Now I'd love to have a tree producing those big juicy cherries even if I did have to spray it a couple of times in the spring to keep the worms out. Of course I'd find a more environmentally friendly spray.
We had several peach trees too and they produced the biggest peaches from the smallest trees. I remember loving those peaches picked fresh off the tree and eaten on hot summer days. I don't know what happened to those peach trees but I'm sure the trees were deemed too much work also and were cut down to keep the bears away.
We also had several raspberry bushes and they produced a huge number of raspberries. There was a hazelnut tree down in the wild area behind our house and even a couple of asperagus patches if you knew where to look. Mature trees were all around the yard which is now sadly empty of trees other than a few. The last large mature pine tree was cut down last year. It had grown to a staggering height and become a danger of being blown down onto our or the neighbors house. It stood proud and tall for over 40 years in that yard and was a very sad day to see it gone.
That reminds me of the weeping willow tree that also grew in my parents yard. It was a beauty of a tree and we loved to swing or try to swing on it's gracefully sweeping branches which hung down to the ground. The tree itself was our favorite place to climb up into and play in. We couldn't really climb that tree as the trunk was bigger around than 4 adults but we always found something to stand on to pull ourselves up into the top of the trunk where it branched into three sturdy branches. We would straddle those branches and play spaceship up there or hide from our siblings. It was a sad day when that willow tree was cut down when I was a teen. At the time I wasn't really affected by it's loss but now I feel saddened that this beautiful tree was cut down because it was too much work to trim the branches. My mom still claims it was "buggy" whatever that means but we played in that tree and it was always strong and sound not a bug or dead branch to be seen on her other than the ones that should be there. She wasn't ailing at all and was in her prime.
My parents also got rid of the rock gardens that were all over that beautiful yard. We used to love lifting the rocks to see what bugs were underneath them! LOL! Too bad we weren't as good at putting the rocks back when we were done.
To see pictures of what my parent's yard used to look like and what it looks like now is like looking at two different places. Now the yard is mostly grass that sadly enough doesn't get enough water because of the water restrictions. The few flower gardens they have are not mulched properly and should be terraced better to keep the soil from eroding down the bank. The plum tree down the bank has gone wild and it's babies are growing all over down there. They should be cut down as should the thorn trees that are taking over now. Even the hazelnut tree has moved where it was growing. It seems to have retreated down the bank away from the house. It used to grow right on the edge of the bank and you could climb down under it's branches where they formed an arch over a sandy place. We would go down there to hide of get gloves and collect hazelnuts. My fingers still tingle thinking about those nasty hulls around the hazelnuts that would sting your fingers with tiny little needles you could barely see.
We knew where our alot of our food came from and we saw some of grow right in front of our eyes. I didn't appreciate it at the time but thinking back on it I realize how important those gardens and fruit trees really were to me. I'd like to pass that on to my kids. So this year we will grow vegetables in earnest and eat the fruits of our labors. And hopefully I won't be the only one doing the weeding and cooking!
Then I read about how most seeds are genetically modified so that they won't produce seeds that can be replanted. These multinational companies don't want us to be able to grow our own food from seeds we save ourselves like our ancestors did. They want us to have to buy seeds every year from them. Plus they have reduced the genetic diversity of the plant seeds you can buy to almost record lows. This lead me to look for anyone in my area who sold heirloom seeds. I bought some seeds for cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkins, peas, beets, potatoes, and cabbage.
Now all I need to do is figure out how to plant this bounty in my very small back yard! LOL! I'm really hoping my parents won't plant a vegetable garden this year and me and the kids can have their plot for carrots, peas and potatoes. These are some of the vegetables that they do grow and the deer and bear leave alone mostly.
I'd also love to plant some fruit trees and bushes but since we are most likely moving from here in the next couple of years I'll hold off on that until we find a more permanent home. I guess I'll just buy local fruit and freeze any extra bounty for the cold winter months.
I remember when I was a child and my parents had a cherry tree. That cherry tree produced so many cherries that we couldn't keep up eating them all. Can you imagine that with a family of 4 kids? My mom canned cherries and gave lots away. Then during the winter she would bring out the canned cherries and we'd have them over ice cream. They cut the cherry tree down stating it was too much work and you had to spray it to keep the worms out of the cherries. Now I'd love to have a tree producing those big juicy cherries even if I did have to spray it a couple of times in the spring to keep the worms out. Of course I'd find a more environmentally friendly spray.
We had several peach trees too and they produced the biggest peaches from the smallest trees. I remember loving those peaches picked fresh off the tree and eaten on hot summer days. I don't know what happened to those peach trees but I'm sure the trees were deemed too much work also and were cut down to keep the bears away.
We also had several raspberry bushes and they produced a huge number of raspberries. There was a hazelnut tree down in the wild area behind our house and even a couple of asperagus patches if you knew where to look. Mature trees were all around the yard which is now sadly empty of trees other than a few. The last large mature pine tree was cut down last year. It had grown to a staggering height and become a danger of being blown down onto our or the neighbors house. It stood proud and tall for over 40 years in that yard and was a very sad day to see it gone.
That reminds me of the weeping willow tree that also grew in my parents yard. It was a beauty of a tree and we loved to swing or try to swing on it's gracefully sweeping branches which hung down to the ground. The tree itself was our favorite place to climb up into and play in. We couldn't really climb that tree as the trunk was bigger around than 4 adults but we always found something to stand on to pull ourselves up into the top of the trunk where it branched into three sturdy branches. We would straddle those branches and play spaceship up there or hide from our siblings. It was a sad day when that willow tree was cut down when I was a teen. At the time I wasn't really affected by it's loss but now I feel saddened that this beautiful tree was cut down because it was too much work to trim the branches. My mom still claims it was "buggy" whatever that means but we played in that tree and it was always strong and sound not a bug or dead branch to be seen on her other than the ones that should be there. She wasn't ailing at all and was in her prime.
My parents also got rid of the rock gardens that were all over that beautiful yard. We used to love lifting the rocks to see what bugs were underneath them! LOL! Too bad we weren't as good at putting the rocks back when we were done.
To see pictures of what my parent's yard used to look like and what it looks like now is like looking at two different places. Now the yard is mostly grass that sadly enough doesn't get enough water because of the water restrictions. The few flower gardens they have are not mulched properly and should be terraced better to keep the soil from eroding down the bank. The plum tree down the bank has gone wild and it's babies are growing all over down there. They should be cut down as should the thorn trees that are taking over now. Even the hazelnut tree has moved where it was growing. It seems to have retreated down the bank away from the house. It used to grow right on the edge of the bank and you could climb down under it's branches where they formed an arch over a sandy place. We would go down there to hide of get gloves and collect hazelnuts. My fingers still tingle thinking about those nasty hulls around the hazelnuts that would sting your fingers with tiny little needles you could barely see.
We knew where our alot of our food came from and we saw some of grow right in front of our eyes. I didn't appreciate it at the time but thinking back on it I realize how important those gardens and fruit trees really were to me. I'd like to pass that on to my kids. So this year we will grow vegetables in earnest and eat the fruits of our labors. And hopefully I won't be the only one doing the weeding and cooking!
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