Growing Food

The Great Depression followed the Roaring Twenties, a time, like now, when Americans believed the party would go on forever. During the Great Depression a lot of people did not have enough to eat. That situation was somewhat resolved by World War II.  But food remained in limited supply, especially for the troops, so the government started the Victory Gardens program.

The program was very successful. By 1944, there were over 20 million Victory Gardens producing about 40% of the total food grown in America. Today, that kind of nationwide food resiliency is essentially gone. Direct-to-consumer food sales from farmers’ markets, CSAs, and on‑farm sales now account for only about 0.3% of grocery spending, and it’s estimated that just 0.1% of food consumed in the U.S. is grown by homeowners for their own use. We are now highly vulnerable to food insecurity and do not realize it.

Growing food has never been a strong point for me, and I avoided it until about eight years ago. When a competent gardening friend came to live with me, I saw that it was a lot easier than I had imagined. When that friend left, I still didn’t know enough to proceed confidently on my own, so I simply asked my farmer friends what to grow and how to do it. Here is what I’ve learned.

• We were defeated by gardening until we matched our gardening ambitions and methods to our lifestyle. We have jobs and we do not enjoy weeding, so we designed our garden around low maintenance and low waste.

• Perennial fruit and nut trees pay off every year with relatively little attention once they’re established, so we planted those first and continue to plant and replenish them.

• Perennials should be chosen for insect and disease resistance. In our area, figs, blueberries, elderberry (cooked only), persimmons, wild blackberries, and chestnuts work well. We have Asian pears and cherry trees, but they can get blight or be eaten by squirrels and Japanese beetles. We did not have success with pawpaws, likely because we planted them in the wrong place. We’ve grown apples and they’ve done okay, but they invariably get cedar blight.

• Fish and chickens produce good protein without much cost or attention, so we stocked a pond with catfish and plan to get some chickens soon.

• The only outdoor growing setup that did not defeat me was raised beds surrounded by an impervious paver apron that keeps weeds under control.

• A 24×36 greenhouse is more than enough space to grow far more produce than two people can eat in winter. We only cultivate about half of ours. We got our greenhouse for free through the EQIP program and erected ourselves.

• Processing food for storage is a lot of work. Freezing is not too hard, but frozen food is really best within a year. Right now, we’re tossing eight large containers of tomato sauce and four big bags of figs because they are two years old. Home‑canned foods generally do not last more than about two years either. Home freeze‑dried foods can last 25 years, but we don’t particularly want to eat them, and it is more cost‑ and time‑effective for us to buy organic, long‑term freeze‑dried food than to make it ourselves.

• You can’t grow without seeds, so we always keep enough on hand to plant a garden for two or three years.

• We love potatoes and they are easy to grow and store. In an emergency, we might need calories more than variety, so about half our raised beds are devoted to potatoes.

• We’ve managed to make our own soil by composting trees, brush, and leaves and leaving them in piles in the forest for about ten years. We then add organic fertilizer to that soil and it seems to work just fine. We also compost our food scraps, but that doesn’t make much soil; the birds enjoy it now, and the chickens will when we get them.

• We could raise honeybees like our neighbor, but when we can buy about five quarts of honey from Costco for around 50 dollars, it’s not worth the effort to us unless you’re really into beekeeping.

  
  

In summary, we grow food for resiliency and for the joy of harvesting a modest amount of super‑fresh food with our own hands. If there is an emergency, we’ll keep growing, and if it lasts a long time, we’ll have the know‑how and infrastructure to expand. But we don’t want to depend on gardening alone to survive a 12‑month emergency. For us, this is the right balance for a two‑income couple. When I labor at home, it is usually to fix things or add new amenities that would cost many thousands of dollars to hire out.

Living out in the country, we do not participate in a community garden. We think it’s a great idea and applaud all who do, but I’m not a resource for that side of resiliency because I’ve never done it myself.