Commandment #4 Grow Your Own
In our very recent history, the concept of “grow your own” has been all but lost. What would it be like to have grown up 150 years ago? You would have lived off what your family and the neighboring families could grow, sell, or trade. The only food they had was what they could grow and cook themselves. They could also sell their goods to buy other items. This took the form of having a farm to feed the family, as well as feeding the animals they raised. The animals provided meat, milk, cheese, and eggs to feed them throughout the year. During the winter months they would live off of food storage from their cellars and canned produce they had saved from the previous season.
There was no big chain grocery store or Amazon pantry. They ate what they grew. For those who did happen to live in a more urban, populated environment, the food stocks were the same. They came from the local farm lands surrounding the cities.
You can still grow your own!
If you want your family to be healthy and you want to eat high quality food, you can save money by growing some of your own. You cut out the farmer and the grocery store and you get to learn a little in the process.
Do you think: I could do that? Or no way. I am way too busy to every grow my own food. That’s what grocery stores are for. Times have changed. We now live in much larger homes with much less space around us than ever before (if any at all). But it doesn’t mean that you cannot get a small taste of this yourself. You aren’t going to go out and buy a farm, pigs, chickens, cows and churn your own butter on the porch, but you can get your hands just a little dirty!
There are lots of excuses why you can’t.
The following tips will help to combat all of those lingering arguments like:
- Who has time to garden?
- There is no space to grow my own food.
- I don’t know the first thing about growing anything.
- I have a black thumb, I can’t keep any plant alive.
Maybe you have a tiny apartment with only a small balcony that is crowded with your BBQ, bikes and other items that won’t fit inside. Tons of great companies are popping up with grow-at-home products.
Have you heard of hydroponics? These systems allow you to grow just about anywhere, with very little maintenance, very little effort, and most importantly, very little space! You install a system one time, and then you can grow an abundance of food right in your own home!
Even with a small backyard you can grow many herbs. Do this in small pots and put them on a drip system with an automatic timer. You can do this in half an afternoon. There is little time commitment after that.
Start with something simple, like growing herbs. Herbs are hard to kill, and grow easily with little help. Rosemary is the simplest of them all (warning: it grows like a weed and will quickly take over any space you put it in so make sure it’s potted or otherwise OK in the area you want it). Another wonderful and stylish thing to do is wall gardens. You can fashion a pot right in your kitchen or hanging from the ceiling to grown just about anything right in your home! This site has some incredible tips on how to do that.
Of course, be sure to buy organic seedlings to grow your own produce.
Growing your own is a great educational experience.
A fun experience is going to a “you pick your own” farm, walk the rows, and fill your buckets with big, bright, juicy fruits that you munch on all week long. You might notice how fascinated children are by the concept that our food comes from a plant, which grows from the ground and needs to be picked. How far we have gone from our roots that our children have no concept of where food comes from. It certainly wasn’t grown in a drive-through.
An incredible way to get the family involved and teach everyone where food comes from is to grow your own. Grow your own herbs and stop paying $5.00 for a tiny plastic container of rosemary and thyme. Instead, when the recipe calls for fresh ingredients send a family member out to cut off some of your own. You will have taken such a wonderful step towards better health.
We really hope you got some good information from this blog. Feel free to leave me us comment or email us with questions. We look forward to hearing from you. Check out the link below to see a live presentation of this information on our youtube channel!
At I am a Clean Eater, we do not want to tell you what lifestyle eating plan you should be on. We only want to help support you wherever you are on your journey. The message is about understanding what’s at the end of your fork and making the best and most informed decisions for yourself!
Further Resources.
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For more information on this commandment, watch this video:
