When the recent covid 19 drama enveloped our world with fear and self-quarantine, it created extreme changes to our lives and I just dropped out of communication. Not intentionally, but I didn’t want the news media and fear mongering of others to bring stress into my life. We all know that stress is the number one killer. And if you have any dis-ease especially cancer, you need to eliminate it. That is a topic for another blog, but Today it’s about GROWING FOOD!
So, I dropped back and started doing something entertaining and fun – gardening. As many of you know from my book, John and I had a hydroponic farm and that’s what started my eating real food campaign.
In early April, my sister Christine sent a video of a person gardening from food he bought in the store. I found it fascinating and did my own experiment. The picture shown on this blog are the scallions I started from the roots of the scallions I had purchased. It’s so amazing that you can re-grow food – feels like magic when it happens. If you take the 1” section of root from the scallions and place them in a dish of water, they will start to grow. Once you put them into some nice soil, they take off! Really! I now have several plants growing and will be harvesting shortly. My next experiment is with ginger, garlic and turmeric roots that have started to show buds. According to the video they will grow nicely.
One thing that was emphasized to me during this period was – “We all need to have a small garden for some source of food”. It doesn’t have to be big, but I feel it’s important as time goes on. Labor, truckers and deliveries made harvesting and shipping stop or become very slow. Many grocery stores were empty of many essentials and fresh food. I’m not an alarmist, but I do feel growing some food is smart.
During WW ll the government encouraged citizens to plant “Victory Gardens” to help them have fruits and vegetables and to help the war effort. The Department of Agriculture estimated that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted during that time. People grew food, shared food, and exchanged food with each other. And when the war ended, so did the promotions for maintaining a victory garden. A big mistake, I think. Life is busy and maintaining a garden is work, but if you think of it as meditation, relaxation or quality time spent with loved ones, you will find the time and can do it. It doesn’t take much.
As something to do during this quarantine I spent my evening time researching gardening and composting; something that has always fascinated me. I keep a bucket on my kitchen counter prep area and each day as I cook, I notice all the peels and greens that could have been turned into great compost. Since the soil is so depleted of anything healthy for a plant to thrive on, composting is the answer to many things. Also gardening with rich soil is important and to buy it continually is very expensive.
So I am on a mission now to purchase a composter because I live in a city house and don’t want to taunt my neighbors with odd smells or small rodents. Should be interesting and will update on my progress.
I hope you all find the time to grow something edible!
To your health, and happiness.
Alis Jordan