where does your food come from?

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Creating a garden is about building an ecosystem.  You take your decomposed organic material (grass clippings, kitchen organic material) to mix into the soil which provides the nutrients for the plants. A rich soil provides food for earthworms. the plants grow and attracts insects, which provides food for birds and other critters, which help pollinate your plants. One sign that you have a thriving ecosystem is when you see earthworms and other insects that help your garden thrive.  You won’t find any life on a factory farm. The soil is basically dead from all the pesticide and weedicide. You’ll never see an earthworm. Its also void of any nutrients because organic material is never mixed in. Instead the soil is given its nutrients through chemical fertilizers which eventually renders the farmland dead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/business/energy-environment/11solar.html

A healthy garden is full of life. Ladybugs are commonly used in organic farms to fight off insects that would eat your crop.

I'd like to harvest honey next.

We need to take a step back and think about just where it is our food comes from.

Healthy, rich soil is the Foundation to the Healthy Food you eat.

you are what you eat

 

composting reduces landfill

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Black gold. Anything from our kitchen that can be composted , is piled up with leaves, lawn clippings and whateverelse is available to make black gold. Think how much we could reduce our landfill if everyone just did a simple thing as this, composting. Even newspaper and cardboard, paper could be composted. I refrain from composting paper goods unless it was printed with non toxic ink. If only we could get all packaging material to be made from recycled material, compostable plastics, non toxic inks, we can basically eliminate the need for garbage pickups from suburban homes. Landfills could be drastically reduced.

baby romaine and sesame leaves harvested by a 6 year old

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It’s still difficult to get my daughter to eat enough and eat a variety of vegetables and to finish her plate. However I do believe when she eats that tomato she picked or the sesame leaves she picked herself and watch grow, she appreciates the food more. As we eat I would remind her how long it took and how hard it was to grow that tomato. She would agree.

 

the first harvest

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Day after day we waited for the seeds to sprout and the flowers to bloom to tomatoes, waiting for the tomato to ripen and the basil to be picked. when time, my daughter and I would harvest together. She would find that red tomato and tell me ‘I’m going to eat this one!’ We also planted sesame plants, the leaves of which is commonly used in Korean dishes.  My daughter would love to eat the leaves she picked herself.