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  • From: Rob Halgren <halgren@msu.edu>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Re: Grow your own
  • Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:28:54 -0500

Regarding lifestyle choices. I grow fruit for many reasons. One of the reasons is that my dad was a big gardener. I want my kids to have the same experiences that I was blessed with.

Can't agree more. I grow fruit and vegetables because I was blessed with having fresh fruit and vegetables growing up. My father always planted at least an acre of garden (with help from us kids, of course). And perhaps I was cursed. I cannot eat most store bought fruit out of season, nor tomatoes (in or out of season). They suck. I can eat my own, as they taste like food. I preserve my produce because my mother always did, it is wasteful not to, and because I like to do it. It is a hobby, not a career. Actually I do sell vegetables (corn, tomatoes, and pumpkins), but I donate every penny to a local charity. Gave them a few hundred dollars this fall. It isn't the money, it is the act of growing that is important.

I'd consider raising meat animals, but given my career and lifestyle it is all I can do to take care of my half acre of garden. I don't think that everyone needs to be self sufficient (nor could they), but it would be nice if everybody had at least a windowbox with a few tomato plants in it. Seeing things grow, flower, and produce food is an invaluable experience. I'd argue that everybody should at least visit a slaughter house, as well. Not so they could be grossed out and converted to vegetarianism (heck, I used to eat sausage pizza after my trips to the abattoir), but because they should get a healthy appreciation of the fact that an actual animal is what turns into their pork chop.


One of the advantages of growing food, even one tomato plant, is that you can grasp the basics of the entire venture. Water and compost (or commercial fertilizer) make the plant grow. Sun makes the fruit sweet. Air flow keeps the rot away. Staking the plants keeps the fruit off the ground, away from the slugs. The Enron embarassment would not have happened if corporate accounting was as transparent as the cause-and-effect of growing tomatos, and if the consequences of stupid decisions was as quick and ruthless tomato hornworms or slugs eating 'maters.


I'm not sure that any corporate accounting scandal would have been solved by garden ethics... But I agree that it is important to teach our children how to grow food. I suspect (but can't prove) that part of the reason the American population is becoming so obese (and I'm a little big myself) is because we don't understand where food comes from. Comes from the supermarket, right? All wrapped up in nice plastic packages with pretty colored labels. If you pick it yourself, and prepare it well, there is no reason to eat most of the crap out there. I eat frozen blueberries as an evening snack. I picked them, I froze them, I eat them. Importantly, I don't eat a bag of chips or something equally processed and removed from reality. Works well.

Rob

--
Robert G. Halgren, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Specialist
GTSF - Michigan State University
http://genomics.msu.edu
(517) 353-7236 - halgren@msu.edu



  • [NAFEX] Re: Grow your own, Rob Halgren, 12/19/2003

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