Re: home food gardening trends

**"Yvonne Cunnington" y*@ispnet.ca**

Veggie gardening is a lot of work. People don't have time, and nowadays they 
don't have the skills. Furthermore, they don't ask anything of their kids. 
My childhood summers were spent (grudgingly) helping out in my parents' huge 
vegetable patch, weeding and harvesting and then preping and preserving 
(usually getting things ready for the freezer). This was the way my family 
fed six kids cheaply.

I would rather have been at the beach or the pool, (anywhere else actually). 
But I learned how to grow veggies. As a kid, I complained a lot and wasn't 
popular with my parents. These days parents don't dare be unpopular with 
their kids.

Anyway, fast forward to the summer of 2006: after growing veggies myself for 
at least a decade,  I'm giving it up too, in favor of supporting a bunch of 
young idealists who started a local organic farm seven years ago. They 
deliver fresh produce to the house. I will keep space for a few tomato 
plants and my asparagus patch will continue to serve us for a few more 
years, but I'm simply tired of being a slave to my garden, and I'm cutting 
back where I can.

In my early fits of enthusiasm when we moved to our farm (10 acres in 
southern Ontario), I had a huge patch for squash and pumpkins, plus a 
veggie/cutting garden 25x50 feet. We grassed that in last year in favor of 2 
small patches that are 8x15 feet. This fall that will be grassed in too.

Yes, I'll miss my fresh-from-the-garden fare, but I won't miss the time it 
took. And I'm liking having local organic produce delivered to my door. As 
for the idealist young folk with their organic farm, I hope they continue to 
make a go of it. They haven't chosen an easy way to make a living. 
Interestingly enough, they are all city kids, who were not raised growing 
veggies. 

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