New Mexico Central

Grow Your Own

by John Weckerle

As gas prices continue to rise and our economy softens, more and more people are looking for ways to cut down on driving and save money on essentials. Anyone who has bought fresh vegetables recently knows that vegetable prices have been climbing, and it’s likely to get worse based on fuel price increases and other factors. It takes gas (and money) to get food to the grocery store, as well as from the grocery store, so it seems that it may be time for us all to think about returning to something that has perhaps faded in popularity: the home vegetable garden.

This year marks a return, for me, to vegetable gardening – several years after adjacent trees grew up and overshadowed my existing vegetable patch. My methods this time are different. Earlier this year, Wildlife West Nature Park founder Roger Alink mentioned Square Foot Gardening, a method contained within a book called The New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholemew. The premise is relatively simple, inexpensive, and involves building raised beds and dividing them into square-foot sections. I’ve meddled with the concept a bit, making my beds 12 inches high as opposed to 6 and creating a different soil mix, but otherwise I’ve pretty much followed the concept. This year, in a relatively small area, I have tomatoes; green, red, and golden bell peppers; broccoli; cauliflower; brussels sprouts; string beans; eggplant; lettuce; yellow squash; zucchini; cucumber; cilantro; basil; thyme; dill; sage; and oregano.

The broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts came in six-packs, so I ended up with four “extras” apiece. Rather than throw them out, I stuck them in the ground outside the office window. At worst, they’ll make a meal for the rabbits – but then again, it’s possible they’ll end up making a meal or two for me.

In Fall, I’ll replace some of the summer crops with winter squash, kale, chard, green onions, etc. The frames I built to support the chicken wire covers will also make it easy for me to make plastic covers – effectively turning my beds into mini-greenhouses and giving me a few extra weeks of production later in the year. The judicious use of weed cloth below and chicken wire (above and on the bottom) gives a reasonably sound protection against rabbits, gophers, and other local animals that would like to compete with me for the food, while making the beds relatively maintenance-free. They were relatively easy to build – two of them, from ground up (so to speak), took some part-time labor on two weekends.

So many of the solutions proposed for our economic problems seem focused on the short term. Tax rebates, gas tax holidays, and so on may provide some temporary relief, but perhaps it is time for us to look at lifestyle changes that can actually improve our health, save us money consistently in the long run, and maybe even re-learn skills that we have let go to seed (pun intended). Maybe this is a good use for some of that tax rebate money!

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008, by admin and is filed under "Gardening ". You can leave a response here, or send a Trackback from your own site.