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| From Dan's Freedom Garden |
I was recently watching a youtube video posted by ZeroFossilFuel about his Freedom Garden. In the comments, someone asked why a garden is associated with Freedom. They did not understand how growing a vegetable garden correlated to Freedom. To be verbose, here is the complete post:
"Why is the garden called a freedom garden ?Why do you correlate making a vegetable garden with freedom?Isn't it the other way around?Taking care of crops is a pain ,it's a thing of beauty that we can just go to a store that's full of all the food we can want and need and just buy it without having to manually grow the crops our selves or kill the animals ourselves. Now I'm not criticizing setting up a vegetable garden , but rather the name of it. In any case, looks like it's coming along nicely."
A Freedom Garden is, as the name implies, an enabler of Freedom (yes, I do have to capitalize Freedom every time I write it). Did you know that the average meal travels about 1200 miles to your home? Yes, food is shipped from very far distances using mostly oil in the form of gasoline and diesel to power the trucks, boats, cars, and trains that deliver it. Did you also know that he who controls the food also controls the population? I could go on and on with examples of how billions of (our) dollars goes to rogue states such as Iran and Venezuela to buy their oil, and is then subsequently used against us. However, that's as far as I'll go in this post.
For these reasons, and many others, growing a garden enables Freedom; Freedom from fossil fuels; Freedom from pesticides and fertilizers (also from oil); Freedom from having to work to produce funds that you may then purchase (expensive) food with. To put it simply, a Freedom Garden helps you stick it to the man. And I suggest you stick it to him good. Besides, what else are you doing with your time? Watching the latest Oprah or American Idol? Put that bag of potato chips down, turn off the TV, and turn some soil instead. While you are at it, maybe plant some of your own potatoes.
Circling back to the Youtube comment, I think most Americans have a similar viewpoint and do not understand just how dependent we are upon foreign oil and outside interests. I do believe that with a little bit of education (about 2 minutes to read this post), most folks will see the bigger picture very quickly. I'm sure that not everyone will see this correlation between gardening and Freedom, but for the ones that do, here are some other reasons to plow ahead.
Other benefits of growing your own food are many. For example, you will now know exactly where your food came from, and what fertilizers and pest control methods were used. If you only use natural methods of pest control such as companion planting and good old manual pest eradication, your food will also be organic and pesticide free. Did you know that one test found over 53 types of pesticides on a single fruit? You can read more about that scary fact here. You may also use the garden as an excuse, and I say that lightly, to do something productive with your spouse and kids. Heck, your kids probably don't know where fruits and vegetables come from. Why not show them? You may learn a lot in the process and build stronger family ties. I've also found that if kids are involved in the process, they will be much more likely to want to eat the food that they've grown.
There you have it. This is my definition of a Freedom Garden. And here are a few pictures of my Freedom Garden in process.
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| From Dan's Freedom Garden |
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| From Dan's Freedom Garden |
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| From Dan's Freedom Garden |
