"Eat Your Yard"

One of the websites that I follow had, as a title to a post, "Eat Your Yard." I didn't read the post, but the idea intrigued me. I would guess that most of you have a larger-than-postage-stamp sized yard, which consists mostly of a high maintenance crop, namely, "grass." (And not the kind you can smoke.)

There have been some highly-publicized cases recently, of folks who were persecuted, if not prosecuted, for growing veggies in their front yards. I would also guess that most of you reading this don't live in a community whose homeowners' association is so rigid as to determine that vegetables don't belong in the front of the house. (If you do, good luck. Quit reading now, before you become frustrated.)

Unless you have one of those spouses who just can't wait until it's time to mow the grass again (and I know that there are some of you out there...) why not reduce the mowing burden by planting up some of the yard (front or back) to vegetables and fruits? If the mowing spouse throws a conniption fit when the need arises to mow in a curve instead of a straight line, then make sure the veggie/fruit area is a definite rectangle in shape. But the space that is wasted (sorry-- my opinion there...) by growing grass could be helping you to reduce your grocery costs, improve your health, and educate your children to the fact that food does not originate in the grocery store. It really isn't that hard. And the rewards far outweigh the effort.

Focus for 2012

The focus of this blog for 2012 will be self-reliance. I'm going to concentrate on becoming less dependent on the grocery store with their dubious produce and meat sources and more reliant on my own efforts to grow fruits and vegetables, and doing more toward producing my own meat and eggs. And as I learn, I'll share my successes and failures with you so that you can do it, too, if you've a mind to.

As you may remember, we have a small flock of chickens for producing eggs. They are now beyond their peak laying age and we'll be replacing them with a mixed flock of peeps in the spring. And we'll butcher the hens and the rooster for stewing meat. When the weather moderates, we'll be adding rabbits to the meat mix.

The blueberries should begin to produce this year, and the strawberries will be plentiful now that the deer can't eat them. We'll have more grapes, and we'll add more raspberry bushes. Come along for the ride... Oh, the places we will go!

Food Porn

The Huffington Post Food Section has an interesting discussion today about Food Porn-- those luscious, almost-too-good-to-be-real photos you seen in some magazines and a lot of food blogs. There were a lot of very strong opinions expressed by the participants, and a lot of very... um...sensual comparisons of food porn with other porn.



What do you think? Do you like these images? Or do you think they are unrealistic and discouraging to those of us who are lucky if we get the food to taste as good as the recipe suggests, let alone look as good?



Me? I think that as long as you aren't anorexic and using the images as a substitute for really eating, food porn can't be bad. I like to look at photos of unblemished flowers and garden vegetables, too, but I don't actually expect my gardens to look like that. They just give me a goal to aspire to.