Why Grow Food?

Most purchased produce in your local supermarket has traveled hundreds to thousand of miles, even crossing the equator and oceans. Time kills taste. The best chefs and cooks of the world know how to combat this fact. Their restaurants have gardens, even in their backyards and rooftops. So growing your own herbs, fruits, and vegetables will be a new experience for your taste buds and tummy! Until you harvest your abundance, and take that first bite into that scrumptious plant, you won't know what you are missing!

Soil Contamination, Degradation & Erosion: Concerns, Warnings, & What to do About it

Erosion removes topsoil, reduces levels of soil organic matter, and contributes to the breakdown of soil structure. This creates a less favorable environment for plant growth.

In soils that have restrictions to root growth, erosion - decreases rooting depth, which decreases the amount of water, air, and nutrients available to plants.

Erosion removes surface soil, which often has the highest biological activity and greatest amount of soil organic matter. This causes a loss in nutrients and often creates a less favorable environment for plant growth.

Nutrients removed by erosion are no longer available to support plant growth onsite, but can accumulate in water where such problems as algal blooms and lake eutrophication may occur.

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Soil degrades by losing fertility, which is invisible and rather unstoppable. Why? As the soil loses its functionality, that of producing food, the costs for past mismanagement becomes an increasing burden. Soil loss leads to other kinds of damage. On farms, as income tumbles while costs soar, there comes a point at which the farm must be abandoned. Much of the world's soils have been lost this way.

* Deforestation: forest soils contain much organic matter, indeed often more than can be converted by the soil organisms. When a forest is cleared, the trees are burnt, which leads to an immediate loss in organic matter, but above the soil. Some of the organic matter in the soil is burnt too. But in the years following, soil organisms become starved of a carbon source and burn the remaining organic soil content. It all leads to massive emissions of carbondioxide. In the wet tropics, forest soils do not contain much fertility. The tropical rains make farming a nightmare.

* Fuelwood: cutting forest for fuelwood is another form of deforestation. Fuelwood is usually converted to charcoal, which burns cleanly. In the process, all hydrogen and oxygen are removed, so that carbon remains. Humans need enough fuelwood for cooking, to be problematic. In arid regions, even the last tree and shrub is used, leaving the landscape barren.

* Overgrazing: when insufficient amounts of grass litter are left for the soil, the soil organisms die and the soil loses fertility. Sparse cover lets raindrops erode the surface. It is a common practice that leads to desertification.

* Agriculture: most agricultural practices are harmful to the soil.

* Industrialization: industries can pollute soils, mining operations do.

Plants Keep It in Place
Have you ever looked at the yard of a newly built home after a hard rain? Since there is no grass in the yard, gullies or small trenches form. This is called erosion. Erosion is the wearing away of soil by wind and water. When erosion occurs, the topsoil layer is washed or blown away. In the United States, erosion has caused us to lose 6.43 billion tons of soil per year. This would be the equivalent of 320 million dump trucks. If you were to park these trucks end to end, they would extend to the moon and three quarters of the way back. In Illinois, the majority of our soil loss is caused by water erosion. The best way to prevent wind and water erosion is to protect the soil with healthy vegetation.

On the Farm
Even dead plants help prevent soil erosion. In the past farmers plowed their fields after harvest to mix the plant stems and leaves with the soil. This is called tilling. Today many farmers leave the stems on the ground to help keep the soil in place. This is called no-till farming. Illinois has more no-till acres than any other state.
That makes us #1!

Just as time kills taste, time also kills nutrients. The best, most nutritious source of food available to be eaten is fresh picked food from that day. The second most nutritious food is if you eat local produce within 3 days of harvested. Depending on the fruit, vegetable, or herb - in general terms, third is frozen food, and canned food is fourth. In last place is produce that have traveled 5 or more days. Often it takes 2 weeks for certain food to reach one's table. So purchasing food that is in season for where you live ensures maximum nutrition.

Eating raw produce offers the most nutrition. Steam or boil? Water leaches nutrients, so unless you are making a soup, steaming is better. There are some foods that cooking add benefits. Tomatoes, when cooked and made into a sauce offer a higher source of lycopene.

Dollars and cents are important. Taste and saving money is a winning combination. It used to be that everything one bought in a grocery store or farmer's market was organic. The word was never used, because there was no need to differentiate one class of growing to another. With the advent of pesticides and insecticides, and in more recent history genetically modified foods, the word "Organic" has gained prominence.

Organic foods cost more because the ratio of fully grown produce eaten by various creatures is larger. Not all, but organic farms tend to be smaller. The price of organic foods has dropped, but have not reached levels comparable to "conventional" costs. Demand for organic products has risen steadily over the past 20 years due to the introduction of genetically modified engineering. Animal and animal by-products have seen a rise in hormone use to keep those animals healthy. But studies have shown for example, that girls are hitting puberty, most visibly developing breasts at earlier and earlier ages.* So eating organically is important.**

Get a sense of what you spend on produce via your food bill by collecting all receipts for at least one full month (realizing that season plays on what is available, so think about what you eat/purchase in other seasons). Find some older receipts if you kept them.) For garden, count all the fruit, herbs, spices, and vegetables (So, for example, if you have a bag of onions, count how many in the sack). The receipt should already give you the weight. For frozen foods, write down the weight on the receipt.

Sample result:

4 lbs of Blueberries
10 lbs of Roma tomatoes = 23 tomatoes
7oz basil
3 lbs Spanish onions = 5 onions
1 watermelon=
1 butternut squash
3 garlic bulbs
5 lemons
10 heads of lettuce
6 green peppers
1 lb banana peppers = 7 peppers
4 lbs of spinach = 4 bunches of spinach

Then plan what you will grow via your hardiness zone (see Agriculture Directory page). There are a lot of variables as to how much to plant,

1. Plant 5 times what you would eat in 4 months. Not every seed germinates.

2. Would like to trade?

3. Freeze? Can?

4. Donate produce to a local food bank?

You will never look at fruit and vegetables again! Start by purchasing official "organic" food. Seek information as to how to dry, collect, and store seeds via menu to the left.

There are often free seed programs via your local government department of parks and recreation. Call to ask.

Just like rechargeable batteries, the cost will seem high at first, purchasing proper nutrients (fertilizer), seeds, and watering, but in the long run, you will see that you have saved a lot of money, eat well, connected to earth and nature, teaching your family patience (things take time to grow and mature properly - disconnects instant gratification, technology....), and feel better about yourself, knowing that you earned your keep through work.

There is nothing more fun than playing in the dirt, is there? Bring out your inner child: Dig! Build! Look for four leaf clovers! Choose a great pair of pants of which to get grass stains on! Pick your favorite old shirt, that, well, has some built in "air conditioning." (holes)

Seriously, there is nothing more gratifying than a hard days' work preparing a garden, building a bat house, constructing a compost bin.... I bet you'll agree that the day or days you work on various projects are more satisfying and productive than even your regular job. And the best part is because you have planned with your family, neighbors, and friends when you are to start and finish each project, accomplishment is 100 percent!