Q & A with a "Home Farming" Guru :)

We are all too aware that cancer and degenerative diseases have become an epidemic. Who among us can honestly say that they do not know someone who has suffered the wrath of some kind of cancer, if they haven't suffered themselves. Too many people have suffered unnecessarily; and it's just that, unnecessary, and guess what... PREVENTABLE.

I have seen too many lives ripped apart by disease, and I personally fear nothing more than losing a loved one to poor health. So HOW can I help? WHAT can I do to ensure that my family and friends, and myself, get to live to a ripe old age, in good health? The answer is easy... simple nutrition.

In the past 100 years or so, our civilization has advanced more rapidly than it has in all of it's history. This is amazing, it's inspiring even. But is it possible that sometimes advancement can go too far? While globalization is good in many respects, it has unfortunately robbed us of some simple pleasures. We have become so accustomed to blindly trusting what is presented to us in the grocery store; it looks great, so it must taste great and be healthy too, right? But as Socrates says "The Unexamined Life is not Worth Living". So I encourage you to examine what you consume a little bit closer. The above video is a brilliant example of a little girls unexpected lesson into what is going on beneath the surface of our grocery store veggies:

So if we know that mass food production has spiralled out of control, focusing more on making money, rather than supporting nutrition and human longevity... then what can we do to save our families and ourselves from the harmful effects these tainted veggies will inevitably have on our health? We can take the control of what we consume back.

A friend of mine recently posted some fantastic "mobile uploads" of her "Home Farm" on Facebook. I was immediately struck with inspiration and curiosity, and couldn't resist picking her brain on how I could follow in her footsteps to become a home farmer... here is our discussion.


Julia: Ericka! :) Why did you decide to grow your own veggies, where does the inspiration come from for you?

Ericka: My fiance's grandparents owned a huge working farm, they grew mostly corn and raised hogs;  His grandfather ran a roadside veggie stand until he died years back. My Fiance's Grandmom still owns the farm although it is no longer a working farm.We decided when we bought our house that we would try growing our own, because with a large family fresh produce get's expensive. Also, it's something we can do together as a family, and everything in the garden is organic and just taste's fresher!
We started out small with just tomatoes, a couple different varieties of peppers, zucchini, eggplant, cantaloupe and cucumbers. The 1st year the garden was a trial & error learning experience. The eggplant grew terribly slow and produced very few fruits the cucumbers and zucchini died and the tomatoes didn't do very well. The peppers however were insane but they tend to be very hardy to begin with. It was very, very hot here last summer and peppers thrive in hot temps.

Julia: So for someone like me, who has no idea where or how to begin growing my own food, what advice could you give me?

Ericka: Basics for starting a home farm are of course figuring out where you want your garden, and how much yard space you're willing to give up for it. Our garden this year is a whole lot bigger than last year's. We also split the yard and made a dog run so the dog run fence also serves as a trellis for our vine plants - honeydew melon, butternut squash and pumpkin. We tilled the area and added Miracle grow garden mix and blood-meal. At the end of the season last year we tilled all the dead vegetation into the soil; you want to do that as it helps make the soil richer. We've gone to both the Home Depot and the Farmer's co-op for our supplies. I grew the tomatoes, peppers and butternut squash from seed. I have a new crop of butter-crunch lettuce in the ground grown from seed as well since we've eaten all the romaine and red-leaf from the garden already, lol! The cabbage, cauliflower, honeydew, corn and eggplant I got from the local farmer's market and it is much healthier than what you get from Home Depot..and the plants were a lot cheaper too..$1.80 for a 4 pk versus $2.98 a 4 pk at Home Depot. Cauliflower is our experiment this year, it's more a cold weather grower so we'll have to wait and see if it flowers towards fall, the plants themselves have gotten huge.
Regular watering is essential, rain collection barrels are great but only if you get a lot of rain. We haven't had much unfortunately.

Julia: How did you learn how to do all of this?
Ericka: Home growing is really a hands-on-learn-as-you-go thing. Books and internet are helpful, but what works for one may not work for another because of differences in soil, etc.

Julia: How do your kids feel about growing their own food?

Ericka: Right now my 10 yr old is fascinated with the corn which is probably 6 ft tall now, He goes out and inspects the garden, and helps with weeding. My 12 yr old could care less she has more important drama to attend too..lol! My 3 yr old comes out and helps me harvest, and tries sampling. I've got a ton of ripe grape tomatoes on the vine so she eats them right off the plant; can't get any fresher & with no pesticides to worry about!

Julia: Speaking of pesticides, naturally there will be pests/bugs eating away at the goodies. How do you address that? Do you think commercial pesticides have contributed to the failing health of the general population?

Ericka: We haven't really needed to spray with anything. I was noticing an abundance of ladybugs the other day, they are your garden's friend and it is a good sign when you see a lot of them. I did have cabbage worms on my red cabbage a few weeks back, so I sprinkled flour on the plants which causes them to bloat and die. I now have some nice heads of cabbage forming out there.
You can make your own natural pesticides from just dish soap and water in a spray bottle. If you need something stronger you can add garlic, onion and cayenne pepper..bugs do not ever bother my hot pepper plants which explains why adding cayenne to your mix acts as a deterrent. Commercial pesticides are poisonous and the veggies and fruits probably do absorb quite a bit of it which defeats the purpose of organic. Yes I do believe pesticides have contributed to the fact that people are sicker nowadays.  There seems to be a lot of children who have assorted difficulties, just like fish have become poisoned by mercury, we've poisoned ourselves with commercial pesticides; not a good thing.

Julia: Why do you call it "Home Farming"?
Ericka: "Home Farming" is just what people here are calling it guess it sounds cooler than "I have a veggie garden"..lol..maybe because people are expanding it to being bigger than just growing a few tomato plants.

Julia: You mentioned "Rain Collection" earlier. Can you expand on what that is?
Ericka: Rain collection is easy. Just put your containers out and collect the rain! You can fashion an irrigation system I suppose, but we haven't done that yet. There's not been a whole lot of rain our way, so in areas with little rain it might take forever to catch a good amount of water. We tried the soaker hoses but they don't really work very well so we just water by hose every evening. Now that we have a real pool I don't have the kiddie pool water to recycle but the county has a garden allowance you have to apply for. The county figures out what your average usage is and the excess use is reduced by 50%, so that's pretty cool.

Julia: Home Farming actually sounds a lot less scary than I thought. The benefits are clear, healthier food, bigger pocket book at the end of the day, and not only physically rewarding, but mentally I'm sure too, no?
Ericka: Home farming can be back breaking depending on the size of your garden. We didn't use a tiller, everything was done with garden tools. It's very calming however, to go out and weed and spend time walking through to see how everything is growing. I was noticing the other day how HUGE my Roma tomatoes are this year..I started these from seed and they've just flourished; probably in another month we can start canning.
Julia: CANNING... I CAN't wait to learn more about canning (pun intended he he he). That is a topic for another day I suppose :) Thank you Ericka for your insights; looking forward to learning so much more from you.