Victory Garden 2012 Log - July 23

Getting Ready to 'Shop'

Master Gardener Donna Berard spoke today about eating locally or becoming a locavore. This is someone who seeks out and savors food grown, raised, or produced near home. The Locavore Way by Amy Cotler is a good reference source.

Really Local Produce

Learning to eat seasonally, when produce is picked ripe and available right from the field is a delicious way to eat and also helps the local grower if you buy directly. Some grocery stores have special areas where local produce is displayed.

Spent Beans and Peas

Today we cleaned out some of the crops that are no longer producing; peas, some bush beans, and also had a few Colorado Potato Beetles to be picked off.

Soon Met a Soapy Death

We harvested a good number of green bell peppers, cayenne hot peppers, yellow and green zucchinin squash, cucumbers, beans, beets, carrots and swiss chard.

Butternut Squash

Waiting for the fall is the butternut squash.

Pole Beans Still Climbing



Picking Bell Peppers



Cayenne and Jalapeno Hot Peppers

Corn in the Three Sisters Garden

Of course, it's never as simple as it seems.  Here's an alternative view:  The Locavore's Dilemma:

In The Locavore’s Dilemma, they explain the history, science, and economics of food supply to reveal what locavores miss or misunderstand: the real environmental impacts of agricultural production; the drudgery of subsistence farming; and the essential role large-scale, industrial producers play in making food more available, varied, affordable, and nutritionally rich than ever before in history. At best, they show, locavorism is a well-meaning marketing fad among the world’s most privileged consumers. At worst, it constitutes a dangerous distraction from solving serious global food issues.

Deliberately provocative, but based on scrupulous research and incontrovertible scientific evidence, The Locavore’s Dilemma proves that:Our modern food-supply chain is a superior alternative that has evolved through constant competition and ever-more-rigorous efficiency.  A world food chain characterized by free trade and the absence of agricultural subsidies would deliver lower prices and more variety in a manner that is both economically and environmentally more sustainable.  There is no need to feel guilty for not joining the locavores on their crusade. Eating globally, not only locally, is the way to save the planet.