Re: home food gardening trends

**Margaret Lauterbach m*@earthlink.net**

At 11:09 AM 7/5/2006, you wrote:
>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.

I was just thinking earlier this morning how easy veggie gardening is 
when you're properly set up.  I have 14 raised beds, garden from the 
seat of an electric scooter because my right leg prosthesis is not 
conducive to gardening.  I topped each bed with strewn alfalfa meal 
and about 1-1 and 1/2" of finished compost.  I started tomatoes from 
seed, and have 37 plants of 37 different varieties planted, and 
mulched with grass clippings, so no weeding.  Lettuces, salsify, 
Asian turnips and some cole crops are under row cover.  Occasional 
weeds pop up where the bed is not mulched with grass clippings or the 
soil level shaded by plants, but I can weed the whole garden in an 
hour, not have to do that again for weeks.  Apart from the tomatoes, 
the other beds comprise about 272 s.f.  Each bed has its own faucet, 
sending water through soaker hoses.  Haven't seen a tomato hornworm 
for about 8 years, co-exist with wasps in search of larvae with which 
to provision their egg cells, and have beneficial insects well 
established in the vicinity of the veggie garden.  The only real 
problem I've had with malevolent critters is squash bugs (not yet, 
thank God),  and slugs.  I could ring the beds with copper, but 
there's already a crop of slugs in the beds.

Ditzy teenagers have told me they don't want food that's grown in 
DIRT, they'll just go to the supermarket to get their food.  I'm 
still in such shock over that "revelation" that I delighted in 
showing my grand-nephews my garden two nights ago, and encouraged 
them to find and eat sugar peas.  They had a wonderful time, asked 
intelligent questions, and were even interested in seeing the 
bedegaurs created on the suckers of my climbing rose at the entrance 
to the garden.  At least they know where food comes from.  Margaret Lauterbach 

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