Well, you just might have noticed a new little pick over to the left saying “Take Back Your Food!”.  It’s a rally cry to revitalize the lost art of gardening.  It’s an act of rebellion against the agribusiness sector that tries to convince us that all they produce, highly modified, genetically engineered, and smothered in an always better pesticide is good for us.  I, for one, and my household with me, don’t buy it any longer.  After seeing a close relative die of brain cancer last year, and rather quickly at that, we started thinking about what we eat.  That’s when we started buying whole grains and miling our own flour.

Now we progressed.  We have back yard poultry to provide eggs, and if I can get my ducks in a row (no pun intended there), compost as well.  After seeing a youtube video about the Dervaes Family who farm on a small urban plot in California, I’ve progressed a bit further. I’m now looking at developing more of our yard into garden space, balancing the acreage between gardens and play area. It’ll be tough, however. I dug a test pit last night: the first 2-3″, I could penetrate with a spade. The remaining 9″ or so required a mattock. It’s solid, dead clay with nothing living in the depths. That’s what you get when you live on an old tobacco plantation!

But I refuse despair. I’m pushing on, if nothing else than to have a 12″ deep planter of clay filled up to a 6″ raised bet, allowing adequate space for root crops to develop. And maybe, someway, I can find a way to revitalize this dead land and provide some nutritious food in the process!

Solo Deo Gloria,
jason