The Value Of The Home Garden

Paul Taylor shows us why the home garden is becoming more and more valuable, please follow the link below to learn more....
Thanks
Kane Abbott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SbSA3faHpE

when you price food you sure can see how valuable your gardens are..I especially noticed early on how high fresh berries were at the store..as much as $3 a 1/2 pint..generally..and I was picking buckets and buckets..

make your own jellies and you can get 8 jars for the price of one at the store..and you can't buy elderberry, chokecherry, black raspberry, etc. at most stores but you can make them in an hour in your home.

that is one of my favorite things about a home garden, you can grow things you can't buy

For me the garden is a convenience as well as a money-saver.  I don't like having to drive to the store frequently for vegetables which never seem to stay fresh for more than a day or two, probably because they're already a week old.    Especially salad greens, they're often just nasty from the store.

Raising my own food is a lot like commuting with a bike for me. I can afford to drive a car, and I can afford to buy my own food, and I can afford a membership in a gym. If I don't ride my bike, swing my scythe, dig the garden, run after sheep, well I have to go to the gym. And the satisfaction of eating a tomato or a cucumber off the vine (and okra!) is so much more to me than how many reps I can do. And lambs are infinitely amusing.  This morning one was playing mountain lion jumping on the others. Really funny.

Thats right  , we do theses things because it a better way to live, a more enjoyable , rewarding lifestyle, the fact that its cheper and healthier  is a confirmation that where on the right track.

Seeds make me feel safe in an unpredictable world... The garden (seeds all grown up)  is my happy safe place.

The garden makes me feel humble - "Look what God can do."

The garden makes me feel superior - "Ha, look what i can do."

Humble is better i think.

Working out the value of what you can grow has been a big help for my parents who are year 3 into their retirement.

I challenged my mother to record what produce they brought in week and then compare it to the prices in the flyers. Now every week mom excitedly gives me a report of 'oh this week we are up to 50 dollars' and then a list of what has been growing well. It seems to make them actually more excited to expand their garden, try new crops (I was able to overturn the 'zucchinis are too productive' myth for them) and make more permanent garden infrastructure.
Likewise, asking my father to root cuttings from the berry bushes I bought them 'so I can have some when I get back' has put him into a propagation mode and has started to produce a nice gooseberry/raspberry hedge and a grape arbor for them.

Having a monetary number really helps people realize just how much they can get, other than fresh healthy food and exercise, from playing around in the garden.

Money is a great motivator.

I think gardening is a perfect pass time for retired folks.  Unless they are wealthy enough to travel all year, they will spend a lot of time puttering around the house getting bored.  What better way to occupy their time productively and cut down expenses?

Refer to my sig. This is how I see it.

LivingWind wrote:
Refer to my sig. This is how I see it.

whats  your sig? and how do i refer to it ... 

kane Abbott wrote:
whats  your sig? and how do i refer to it ... 

His 'sig' is the quote at the bottom of each of his posts:  "..the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter." bill mollison

Kathleen

Thank ya Miss Kathleen. 

My quote below my name!

Peace -

Yes ! thank you kathleen and livingwind, i am new to this and still learning
That quote by bill opens up a whole other disscusion ?, people (revolutionist with no gardens) have become trapped in a systems that no-longer serves there highest needs (high rise building etc) and so like a fox caught in a trap, they chew off there leg to escape the suffering , but bleed to death somewhere eles.... free.

kane Abbott wrote:
Yes ! thank you kathleen and livingwind, i am new to this and still learning
That quote by bill opens up a whole other disscusion ?, people (revolutionist with no gardens) have become trapped in a systems that no-longer serves there highest needs (high rise building etc) and so like a fox caught in a trap, they chew off there leg to escape the suffering , but bleed to death somewhere eles.... free.

Yeah.. These 'people' are also taking less and less responsibility for their actions concerning the 'wilderness'.. Signing over legislative actions that will in-turn harm the environment, sometimes irreversibly, without a second thought.

I still belive in nature and the nature of man,  we have more dna related to fungi then what is human derived. On a higher level who is charge , nature is oviously more intelligent then us  but are we seperate? If we harm our inviroment and wipe our selfs out , maybe fungi will be the only thing to survive,(Paul stamets rave), we think where so great that we can destroy the earth.., but it created us maybe its in the process of composting us ? Any way its a rainy day here and i m gonna get out side and enjoy it