you can't eat money

my garden defies capitalism. i didn't purchase a single vegetable this year. i was gifted several tomato plants, some onion starts, broccoli seedlings, and a packet of basil seeds. everything else in my little circle garden is volunteer. a friend of mine had never heard this term, which i thought was common knowledge since i've been around farming my whole life. what it means is that the plant was NOT "intentionally planted." a bird may have come along after eating a seed from another garden and pooped it out in just the right spot and it took hold in my backyard soil. or more likely it was my heaping compost pile, rich in vegetables in various states of decay, was spread over the garden in the spring and those determined little seeds decided to sprout. simply, this is nature doing its job.

matt likes to point out my communist tendencies. my garden is no exception.

there are several varieties of tomatoes, i won't know exactly which kind until they ripen. the hopi red dye amaranth, and dill are prolific volunteers this year. there is summer squash and peppers and even petunias (i have no idea where they would have come from). it's lush and vibrant and colorful. and all purely accidental.

i love the wildness that exists here among the carefully manicured lawns all around me. i watch my neighbor and his never ending battle with creeping charlie (that is another post all together my friends). and i think 'what if we spent more time trying to cultivate things to grow, rather than trying to kill them?'

i ponder these things as i read "animal, vegetable, miracle" by barbara kingsolver. a book that is changing my life. i'm in the part where they are talking about seeds. and genetically modified seeds. and how Monsanto spends millions of dollars each year to prosecute seed savers (those farmers that intentionally or unitentionally try to save seeds from this crop to plant next year). those communistis! don't they know this is america, home of the capitalist regime? one farmer was sued for everything he had because they found "their" seeds in his field. as if you could patent a seed!

but they can and they do. and since monsanto has taken over the majority of all seeds sales in the US, the variety of vegetables available has dropped from 18,000 varieties to 600 in 20 years. there are actually extinct and endangered seeds.

but who cares about heirloom tomatoes when all you need to make most of what america eats is some corn? i for one do. i don't want a dried out, tasteless tomato that has traveled over 1,500 miles in a gas-gusling semi when i have savored the warm succulent purple-hued flesh of a brandywine fresh off the vine. no. i care about seeds. and luckily so do people like the folks at seedsavers and CSA farms.

now, i'm not perfect. i would like to say i only eat locally grown food. but the reality is, i don't. the past 4 years since working at Valley Creek Farm i've learned more than i ever knew about food systems and the social, economic and political nature of our food chain. and it's enough to know that people, we need to wake up!

how long it will take before we realize that we can't eat money?