This site, FreedomGardens.org, is mostly new to me. Our friends at New York Renovators blog joined and when I read their post it moved me to sign on too. The premise of this site is to encourage families all over the US and the world to become more self sustaining – at least as regards their food. They were inspired by the Victory Gardens of the late 40s and 50s that were encouraged by the US government after the end of World War II.
Today we have a different war to wage. A war against rising food prices, fuel prices and global warming. Even if you don’t completely agree with the global warming argument you can’t fight the fact that prices for everything – especially our daily necessities – are going through the roof. Freedom Gardens encourages the “pioneers” of today to use every available space in their yard, containers, patios, rooftops or wherever to grow some plants for food that you know you will use.
Personally, I like to grow herbs in doors in the winter. Just last week I planted some basil seeds. I love to make Caprese salad with basil, tomatoes and baby mozzarella cheese. Margherita pizza is awesome too. Other herbs that are good to cultivate indoors are chives, parsley and sage. These three are actually perennial (or biennial for parsley) in most areas. I have peppermint, chocolate mint, strawberries and a second year sage plant in a plot outdoors. The sage has bloomed, dropped seed, dried up and regrown already once this year. I collected a bunch of seeds from the sage, but I’m not going to bother with the strawberries or mint plants since they spread readily from runners. Last year I buried cuttings of the chocolate mint that didn’t have roots on them or had been damaged and that space ended up being my most prolific producer of mint this year. I planted a stevia plant right next to the mint and my little girl absolutely loves picking the stevia and mint and eating it together. For her it’s like candy and I don’t mind it because it’s good for her digestion and not bad for her teeth :D.
Check out Freedom Gardens. There are many knowledgable, kind gardeners already in the network. Look for me on the network under the name “geckospyker”. I’m in zone 5, but would love to be freedom garden friends with anyone who’d like to share experiences, knowledge or seeds.
Firstly, I’m a mom and wife. Professionally, IT consulting is my job and blogging is the outlet for my passions. I write about things that affect the everyday life of a stay-at-home parent or any parent for that matter such as parenting, relationships, discipline, the media, product reviews, giveaways, social media, food, cooking, gardening and anything else that might come my way.
