Our Story
I recently retired from the military and decided that I was going to grow my own food. My eldest child is Autistic and there seems to be a lot of info that chemicals in our food is a contributing factor. So I decided to give growing our own fruits and veggies a shot. How hard could it be? People have been growing food for thousands of years.
So I rented a small farm and started the adventure. I dug up a small plot and off to the local nursery for plants I went. $100 later I am home with flats of beautiful plants ready to go in the ground. I could just see the bountiful harvest of fresh veggies for my family.
Weeks went by and I dutifully watched for the plants to start feeding us. To my dismay, most of my wonderful plants shriveled up and died. All was not well!!
Some plants did grow but provided little fruit. I must be doing something wrong. I'm college educated, I can figure this out. So off to the bookstore I go. Wow, there are hundreds of books on how to grow gardens. Somewhere in this plethora of information, the answer must lie. Another $100 in books and I am sure I can figure it out this time.
I thought I was back in science class. PH testing, nitrogen ground infusions. It never ended. Tools and more tools needed. I quickly realized that I was going to go broke just to grow a few tomatoes for my family. The insanity had to stop.
One last thing to try. I went and visited my wife's grand-parents. They lived through the depression, they obviously survived. They told me that the government put out Victory Garden books to help everyone grow their own food. Everyone grew their own food.
So I got the book and perused it extensively. This was gardening for morons. Hey, that’s me!! So I started following the instructions from page 1 to the end. I had already failed miserably doing it myself. So I had nothing to lose.
I went step by step from the book. It showed me how to lay out my garden. Even how many plants of each type of food for my size of family so that I would have enough harvest to support the family for a year. Plus how to store my bounty.
Long story short. My garden is now full of fresh veggies. Wife and children are picking daily. The canner is busy preserving food for the winter. We have so much food that we are giving away some to the neighbors. Not bad for a retired sailor who lived on a ship for years. If I can grow a garden, anyone can. Seriously!!
If you are wanting to grow your own food and eat more healthy items, than dig in.There is no time like the present.
I can hardly wait till next year.