Growing some food....

Ever since we started reading about this local food stuff I have been trying to think of a way to provide some of my own food. My first thought was creating a garden in the back yard of my house, even though it's pretty small. But I don't really know what I would grow. To be honest I don't like vegetables that much. The one vegetable I could really see my family growing and enjoying would be potatoes. Every single day we have potatoes with dinner. Its kind of ridiculous. Even my dog enjoys eating them, and he's pretty picky when it comes to food.

My mother's obsession with potatoes is pretty amazing. When I was about five years old she told me I needed to grow a potato plant. So she hypes it up and finally talks me into going outside, finding a good place and planting this potato. So every day I would go out there and water this patch of dirt and watch for my own little potato plant to come sprouting up, and then there would be something of my own creation. Well weeks passed and nothing happened. No sprouting potato. I asked my mom what could be wrong, why hadn't I seen any growth yet. She walked out there with me and looked at my dirt patch and acted confused. She said she didn't know what was wrong, but thought that my dad probably ran over the young plant with the lawn mower.

I didn't really give no, because I was five and it was a potato. Last year however, I brought the story up to my mom and she just started laughing. It turns out, the night I planted that potato we were running low on our stash of potatoes. Of course, we had them for dinner, but when my mother was preparing dinner she realized we didn't have enough for dinner, so she went outside and dug up my potato just minutes after I plant it. I ate my potato for dinner that night but had no idea.

So a potato garden is one option, but I should probably learn from the mistakes of our past which brought my family here to begin with and branch out a little. Maybe I'll plant some carrots or something....

Another idea I'm working on is getting some chickens. We have a little bit of land about 100 yards beyond our city limits where my dad has his shop. Since it's outside of the city you are allowed to have animals and stuff there. I'm thinking it might be nice to have some fresh eggs, and I could always sell any excess to the locals. The only problem with this is that my family isn't hard like me and probably would feel sad having to kill a chicken once it gets too old or sick or whatever. My uncle lives next door to me and he grew up on a chicken farm with hundreds of thousands of chickens. He and his brothers went through the chicken houses everyday grabbing sick birds and swinging 'em till dead. He strongly advises against the chicken idea.

Even if I don't go through with any of these plans I know for a fact I am going to start to frequent my local farmer's markets. Eating food that is grown near me seems like a better idea now that I have some understanding of the importance of it all.