Self Reliance comes in many forms….

Faith & Survival Patio Garden

Growing your own food.  Seems as though this would be something that all of us would do.  Every time you eat food that you grow in your own garden equals less money you spend on groceries.  Your own tomatoes have not been radiated, genetically modified, or fertilized by who knows what.  When you eat chips and salsa it tastes ten times better when all the ingredients to make that salsa came from your own labor. 

However, it seems that this ability or the willingness to grow our own food has disappeared. How can it be that if you don’t eat you die, but yet this essential skill no longer seems essential. It seems the blame could be squarely placed in two areas.  First is education. I grew up in Ohio, in a farm town.  As I entered high school what was considered cool was to be taking college prep classes, sports, and hanging out at fast food restaurants.  What was considered a complete waste of your life or sub-human was to take a horticulture class or to spend time on your family farm helping harvest the crops, or tend to the animals. Educating ourselves on seeds, watering, fertilizer, composting, cultivating, and harvesting had little use since food was abundant at every corner store, grocery store, and restaurant.  Why should I concern myself with buying land, and all the equipment needed to farm, when I could go to college, spend four years enjoying my youth, and graduate with a degree in Business Administration.  I would never have to grow my own food because society will pay me enough to manage a Home Depot, enabling me to buy my own food till I am fat and happy.

Image via Wikipedia

Education is not alone in blame, we also have to look at corporate farming.  Somewhere in the twentieth century America, and one could argue the world, decided that the United States would be the food producer for the world.  You would have thought with that decision that a huge marketing push would have went forward to promote every American to produce their own food, to become self reliant, because the rest of the world is RELYING on AMERICA for food, since we have so much land that is perfect for growing crops.  JUST THE OPPOSITE has happened.  A few “chosen” corporations began buying up much of the fertile land.  Those same corporations put markets into place where they controlled the buying and selling of commodities.  Congressman received large CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS from those same corporations to write laws where the few corporations received subsidies and preferred treatment, forcing thousands of local family farms to either sell to corporations or be foreclosed upon.  Now a few large corporations control the agriculture market in the United States, from the land, to the seed, to the genetic modification of all the food we eat.  For anyone whom does not believe me I ask you to spend 30 minutes researching the size and scope of the following corporations:

1. Monsanto
2. Archers Danials Midland
3. Cargill

So here we are today.  How many of you that read this article feel that if you had one acre of land, that you would have the knowledge, much less the physical resources and ability to cultivate, plant, seed, and grow your own fruits, vegetables and grains.  I believe that I could, maybe not perfectly, might struggle with certain crops, but over a few years I believe I could.  Why do I say that, because for the last two years I have been planting my own patio garden.  Even though I don’t have my own backyard, that is not an excuse for me to try and take what I do have and become self reliant.

The Garden is Growing

Over the next few months I will be harvesting, 2 varieties of tomatoes, chili peppers, cilantro, potatoes, and three types of green beans, with roses on the edges for good color and smell.  I also have worked on my own compost, and using solar power right next to the planter beds so that if needed I could wire up a water pump to solar powering. 

It is not much but it is a start…a start that I ask everyone to begin to take.  When our society collapses and collapse it will,  the handfull of us that have learned to grow food from seeds will once again take their place as some of the most admired and talented people in the world. I shake the hand of every person today that calls themself a farmer.

God Bless You

God Bless America