In which I present, by request, a tour of the Great Container Garden of 2006.
I should start by saying that I have never had a garden before. (My mother once called me “Dr. Deathfinger” because everything I tried to grow eventually died.) So what in the world possessed me to try jumping in with both feet?
One thing I’ve been concentrating on this year is the concept of sustainable living. There are a number of reasons for this: DH is just a few years from being able to retire and we are seriously discussing moving to New Mexico. This will necessitate a much simpler (read “frugal”) lifestyle. Depending on where we settle, we may be quite a distance from grocery stores. Right now I can hop in the car and run up the hill if I need fresh garlic for dinner, but if I’m 20 miles or more from the store that won’t be an option.
I’ve also been working toward eating food that is not processed to death, laden with chemical stabilizers, shipped 2000 miles or more to my local grocery to sit on a shelf for weeks or months before I take it home. I want to eat things that are fresh and produced locally. I want to be able to go to the dairy farm and watch the cows grazing in the field; see them milked; watch the milk being bottled on premises and take it home with me. What better way to become reacquainted with the source of my food — the very building blocks of life, intimately part of my self — than to try to grow some of it with my own hands?
