Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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A Visit to My Kitchen: Michele Owens, author of Grow the Good Life
February 17, 2011 by Maria Rodale
http://www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com/a-visit-to-my-kitchen-michelle-owens-author-of-grow-the-good-life/

Michele Owens is in my kitchen today, talking about her love for the 
all-natural, and her guilty pleasures, gardening catalogs and fashion blogs.

Michele is a gardener, business writer, former political speechwriter, and 
author of Grow the Good Life: Why a Vegetable Garden Will Make You Happy, 
Healthy, Wealthy and Wise (2011). She’s a founding partner of Garden Rant, 
one of the most popular and influential gardening blogs, and writes about 
gardening for publications including O, The Oprah Magazine, and Organic 
Gardening.

She lives with her family in Saratoga Springs and Salem, New York. You can 
follow the progress of her 2011 vegetable garden at Michele-owens.com.

Why is living organic important to you?

It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Using chemicals to grow food crops 
is completely counterproductive. The science increasingly demonstrates that 
you only wind up with more pests, less-resilient soil, and lower-quality food.

I find that the more my vegetable garden resembles a natural ecosystem, the 
better it does. I don’t do anything anymore except mulch once a year—no 
tilling, no fertilizing, no liming, no fussing. And my garden is gorgeous.

Plus, I’m organic because I’m a total foodie. Conventionally grown food 
tastes nasty, while homegrown organic vegetables are just sublime.

What was your favorite food growing up?

My mother’s spaghetti and meatballs. Those meatballs were stuffed with garlic 
and herbs, and her sauce was delicious. My mother is European and made 
everything from scratch. So while my friends were being fed Ragú and Chef 
Boyardee, I was getting the good stuff.

What’s your go-to comfort food now?

I’m not really looking for comfort in my food. I want excitement, adventure, 
sex, spices, revelation….

But if you ask me which quick-cooking meal leaves me aglow on a winter 
weeknight, it would have to be a wonderful Indian stew out of a Madhur 
Jaffrey cookbook, or an equally wonderful Italian stew—maybe beef with 
pickles and capers—from Marcella Hazan.

What’s the one thing in your kitchen you just couldn’t live without?

Oh, I like nice equipment, but the only thing I really couldn’t live without 
is my vegetable garden. I’m constantly pushing into new frontiers as a cook 
and an eater, thanks to the garden. I’ll grow anything—I love trying the 
weird and unfamiliar—and then I have to figure out how to cook it, so I’m 
always learning something new.

What magazine, website, book, album, or product are you most obsessed with 
right now?

Is anything in the world more fun than a seed catalog?  I adore Fedco Seeds, 
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and Seeds from Italy—read every word of them and 
order profligately from them. Spend $1.50 on a package of seeds of some 
unfamiliar vegetable or unfamiliar variety, and it can open up a whole new 
world in the kitchen.

What’s the most important news story today that you think we all need to pay 
more attention to?

Climate change, the stress it is putting on agriculture around the world, and 
the challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050 without destroying the 
planet. It drives me crazy that in this land-rich suburban country, we 
Americans generally produce nothing in our yards but lawn clippings. I wrote 
my book to make new gardeners. I think everybody should grow a little food in 
the backyard—and not just to ease the pressure on the world’s limited supply 
of arable land—but also because gardening makes people happy.