In my mind, it was easier to let other people take care of that for me. I outsourced my shopping and cooking, and others profited from my laziness. When I think of all of the money that I spent needlessly, it frustrates me. At least I figured these things out in time for them to make an impact on the family's bottom line. I have to believe that I was pretty average in this, and that we have generations of people that do not know what it is to dig in the dirt and grow their own vegetables.
In the past several years, I have come to find out that cooking can be quite an artistic outlet of expression, and I hope that gardening will also turn out to have been a wise thing to learn.
I have "meant" to try my hand at gardening for a few years now. It just somehow never quite happened. Going towards a more ancestral diet made it much more attractive to try my hand at growing vegetables. Getting out in the sun so that my body can synthesize the vitamin D that it requires is a nice side benefit of planting some vegetables for our own use.
So, I went and bought three raised bed kits (http://www.walmart.com/ip/16637038?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227000000000&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=21486607510&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem) and laid them out in front of the house.
I am starting with tomatoes, because I have heard that they are easy. I started the seeds in egg shells (http://voices.yahoo.com/photos/how-start-tomato-seeds-eggshell-5668158.html?cat=32) and am about to plant the resultant little plants into my raised beds. I was also gifted with three kinds of lettuce seeds by a lovely friend. She also gifted me with my first raised bed kit. I have spoken with her for the past two years about "getting started" in gardening, and I think that she was so excited that I am actually doing it this year that she wants to make it easy for me. She has had a garden every year, and she grew up on a farm, where gardening was a family event. She's a keeper! :-)
Another dear friend has also gardened for many years, and I got the idea of starting my tomato seeds in egg shells from her daughter, and that has worked fabulously for me. I have had a better than 80% sprout and grow rate from my tomato seeds. I started beefsteak tomato plants, and San Marzano types of tomatoes. The beefsteak are doing better, or maybe it is just that the plants are naturally larger - I will eventually figure it all out.
In addition to tomatoes, I am planting lettuce (courtesy of a lovely friend), zucchini, cucumber, and onion. These are things that we eat regularly, so I know that if they grow well, I will be able to feed them to my family in the recipes that we regularly consume.
Since I chose to garden in raised beds, the start up costs have been a little more than if I had simply tilled some of my yard and dropped some seeds in. The boxes were $29.98 each, and I bought three.
So far, I am in for three raised beds, soil, and seeds.
Raised beds 3 @ $29.98 = $ 89.94
Seeds 3 @ .99 = $ 2.97
Seeds 3 @ .50 = $ 1.50
Soil 22@2.88 = $ 63.36
TOTAL $ 157.77
For that kind of money, I surely hope that I get a good return on my investment. If nothing else, I would like to think that the gardening knowledge that I am going to gain will make the price of admission worth it.
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