Market Farming

[Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>]

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 18:04:13 -0800, you wrote:


>
>I was at the little local market yesterday.  A 4 ounce package of organic 
>mesclun mix was over $3.60.  I don't shop for much.  I have 2 freezers full 
>of meat, veggies and fruit and potatoes and other roots in storage,  Prices 
>seemed outrageous since last time I looked. The economy is in bad shape here 
>and people are hurting.  I saw an elderly lady with a list pricing items and 
>putting them back.  I was listening while standing in line.  Most people 
>were using charge cards to buy their groceries.  I will donate extra produce 
>to the elderly here next summer.  Ironically, it is very rural here and 
>almost everyone could have a small garden, a cage of rabbits and a couple 
>laying hens.  I guess they are forgotten skills.
>

This is true here as well.  

Many of the elderly, of course, no longer have the physical
stamina to garden or even to care for hens or rabbits:  they
are very frail and/or quite ill.  They might remember how to
garden:  but they can't actually do it anymore.

I'm just *beginning* to not have the physical ability to
garden myself (by virtue of illness, not of age).  It is not
a good feeling.  Not at all.  I have to 'garden smart' to do
it at all.  

It would be good if - in addition to donating produce to the
elderly - someone in each community taught people (who
wanted to learn) how to garden and helped the elderly and/or
ill establish and maintain gardens.  

Pat
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