GardenLifeFood.com

By Mary Ann Archibald

In the last decade Michael Pollan emerged as one of the world’s top game changers in the way we think about food. I nod my head a lot when I read his work and articles like the one in the New York Times on February 1, 2010 by Jane E. Brody.

“If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”

Last summer I grew about $400 of groceries in my small urban backyard. The best groceries ever. Strawberries, garlic, six or seven types of mesclun salad, beans, rosemary, thyme, chives, basil (lots of basil, especially loved the licorice one), tomatoes (quite accidentally all of them were yellow (sweet) except for the little pop-in-your-mouth ones, those were red), beets, swiss chard, grapes that tasted like those little candy necklaces children wear and eat, garlic (garlic scapes are incredible, last summer is the first time I’d eaten them), squash, nasturtiums, pansys, and other things I can’t remember or that didn’t work (carrots and spinach, for example).

I still regret that I didn’t plant cucumbers like I did two summers ago because I loved the way they draped over the deck rail). Turns out a deck rail is a great place to store your lunch.

There are so many great things about growing your own food.

1. The discovery “wow, I can do this!”
2. The flavour “yum!”
3. The health “yes!”

Growing a garden helped me loose 10 lbs and keep it off. That is until now, or since packing up the garden for the winter last November. I could feel it starting to creep up on me in December, take hold in January and dow, if you’ve looked at the recipes I’ve inserted here lately, you’ll probably understand. It’s the sugar and bread and staying in the house.

Chipmunk cheeks are coming back again.

Store bought fruits and veggies don’t compare to the food I grow in my own backyard. I’m not bragging either. When you hand pick a cucumber for your lunch or snip a fresh salad from the baby green mesclun mix, or start your day with a handful of strawberries or beans, you’ll understand.

It is tougher to eat greens, rather than breads and sweets in the winter but I have a box of store bought salad greens in the fridge, so today, I’m going to shut my eyes, ignore the snow, click my heels and remember summer, the soil, the sweat, the delicious food.

And I’ll feel 10 lbs lighter for it.