Inflation Woes & Grow Your Own

Great resource for food gardeners

We’ve all been hearing about food prices going up. But when I looked at my grocery co-op sales receipt yesterday, I saw the head of lettuce I’d purchased had gone up a buck! I mean, in just a few weeks, the price hadn’t increased by 25 cents or 50–but an entire dollar in one fell swoop.

My first thought was, I’m sure glad food growing season is starting. My second was, it’s time to get busy!

Although I’ve written a gardening guide, I’m always happy to come across new information and gardening insights. So I heartily recommend “Mini-Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre,” a gift from John’s daughter. It’s loaded with detailed tips and techniques to increase your food-growing productivity and efficiency. 

Some examples of tips I found especially helpful:

*Use only vegetable-based compost for carrots. Composted manure may work well for many crops, but can make carrots bitter.

*When creating a new bed, dig the soil deeply, as much as 2 feet! That way, your crop can access more nutrients and moisture from the soil and subsoil. 

* Adding lots of compost to your soil every year will build that soil over time, with the same healthy-plant benefits as deep-digging.

*Trellised varieties of vegetables are more productive than bush types—this way, the plant gets more of a 3-D benefit from more light and room. 

The author runs some numbers regarding how much money you can save by growing your own produce, but it’s way outdated: the book was published in 2009, and we all know how much food costs have exploded since then! Still, the book does give you an idea of the economic benefits, and at the same time, shows the many, many advantages of growing as much food as you can.

I just learned that next week, April 3-9, is National Library Week! You just might be able to find Mini-Farming at your local public library—lots of public libraries will let you make a request for any title too. I have a handy list of more gardening resources at the back of my gardening guide, Little Farm in the Garden!