by Sharon Astyk
Growing your own food is only one part of the project - the next is preserving it, and making sure you have enough to eat, and things you like. Most places in the world have a period where you can't grow much food, either because it is too hot or too dry, too cold or too wet. So we have to put up food for those times. And then there's the job of resource management - if I left things up to my kids, I'd have strawberry jam every single day, until there wasn't any more, and then they'd complain until the next year's strawberry harvest. Someone has to be the one to say, "ok, apricot this time - let's save some of that strawberry for early spring when we'll all want something sweet." Someone has to look at the apples and the pears and take the ones that are getting soft off and make them into sauce or dried apples before they rot and spoil, literally, the whole barrel.
The thing is, being involved with your food means being really seriously involved with your food. It means changing the way we've come to think about the world back to the way that we once did - revisiting a life of seasonality, with a time to plant, a time to sow, a time to harvest and a time to rest. It isn't just a song, or a Bible verse, it becomes a way of life. And that's ok, because that link to nature may be the thing that we've been missing in our lives. There's growing evidence that people who work in the dirt, live with the seasons and connect to nature are happier and healthier than those who in more artificial circumstances.
So like all springs, my job now is to figure out how many cucumbers I need to plant next year, so that this time, the pickles (devoured by my three pickle-fiend sons) make it all the way until July, when I can make more. And how many potatoes to grow - and can I grow more of the cranberry colored ones that everyone liked do much? And I want to grow more of my own animal feed this year - the cost of corn is rising, and I'd like to stop buying feed altogether. How much room in my garden do the chickens need? How about the rabbits? Which of those weeds can I dry for hay? What I can I grow for them?
Preserving food is every day work - it begins now, with the first rhubarb that will be dried or canned or made into sauce (and a reminder that I still have a bit left of last year's to eat). Next come the strawberries (I don't bother to preserve asparagus - doesn't taste as good as fresh), and nettles (very nutritious dried in tea), and then the cycle begins in earnest. It really doesn't take much time, once you get into a routine, and is well worth it. There are always some busy days in the summer, but it isn't too hard to put berries in the dehydrator after work or mix up pickle brine while making dinner.
Even if you don't grow your own, preserving what is seasonal and fresh can provide you with a great deal of economic and food security - if you go to the farmer's market at the end of the day, you may be able to get bushels of produce for almost nothing. Then comes the work of dehydration, or canning, or pickling. But the work is worth it - both because it enables you to eat a local diet and frees you from dangers in the food supply, but also because it means you don't depend on corporations or others to provision you.
And that last point may be the most important. Food preservation, and food production are keys to democracy. We accept that a politician who is dependent on the money special interests provides cannot be wholly independent in their thought, and know that no matter how much personal integrity they may have, their intentions are fundamentally corrupted by being beholden to others.
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