I was born and raised in some sort of city or suburban town my entire life. Somewhere in my early twenties (I think), I realized that I was incredibly disconnected from the land from which my food came. I didn’t know how to grow fruits or veggies, and I didn’t know how to raise animals or insects. That made me highly dependent on the toxic food supply sold at my local grocery store. But that food made me sick and I began to dream about growing my own food so that I could be sure it was clean and safe.
Taking a Chance and Failing
That’s why in 2021, I took a chance and decided to create a vegetable garden on the deck of our rental townhouse. I ordered the supplies and my husband helped me set it up. We bought organic seeds, a timed irrigation system, and aerated containers to make sure everything would grow the best it could. But then, I made a grave mistake: I ordered soil and compost from a company that composts food scraps from races. (Think bananas, oranges, and apples at the finish line of a 5K.)
Instead of getting a thriving vegetable garden, we got a great disappointment! Almost all of our seeds were stunted in their growth (except for a red potato plant). They never grew past seedling level. At the end of the six month growing season, they died out, having never grown past 1-2 inches tall. I couldn’t figure out the reason for a long time but one day, I heard a YouTube video from a homesteader who mentioned how she got the same stunted plants when the supposedly-organic soil she purchased was found to have a chemical herbicide commonly sprayed on American agriculture. “THAT WAS ALSO YOUR PROBLEM,” said the Holy Spirit. Ah! Now it makes sense.
Taking a Second Chance and Learning
The following year, in 2022, I decided to try again but invest in only USDA-certified organic soil. I kept everything else the same; the same irrigation and pot set-up, and the same exact seeds, but with clean soil led to a real vegetable garden! Cucumbers, tomatoes (lots of them), sweet potatoes, Swiss chard, kale, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, yellow beans, and herbs sprung fourth with a vengeance from my tiny deck garden that only gets 3-6 hours of light per day! (I am told these plants usually need 8 hours of sunlight per day to grow, but with prayer, 3-6 hours seemed to be enough.)
Enjoying the “Fruits” of Our Labors
Harvesting our first cucumber for breakfast was very satisfying. Then, we began to eat all of the tomatoes. We have also been enjoying our yellow beans, kale and herbs for a while. But we just harvested our three grow-bags of sweet potatoes last weekend.
I grew these plants from an organic sweet potato I bought from my local organic grocer and was looking forward to having more. Unfortunately, the harvest started out feeling disappointing because the sweet potatoes that grew were small. It seemed that most of the energy went to making the abundant leaves of the three plants. Perhaps that was because they grew in mostly shade and created more leaves to get more photosynthesis? However, I decided I would still be thankful that they grew without disease and would enjoy what I could from this first harvest.
So, today, I got to make two side dishes from those three grow-bags of sweet potatoes. First, I got to feed my house church wild-caught fish and a side of homegrown sweet potato greens for lunch (seasoned with garlic powder and sautéed with coconut oil on medium heat for 3 minutes max). Then, I got to feed my family an organic ground beef hash with sweet onions and mushrooms over a bed of homegrown sweet potatoes for dinner. Both were delicious!
A Deeper Satisfaction
Words can’t describe how satisfying it was to eat something I grew! Growing my own food gave me the assurance of knowing that it was protected from all the chemicals that are slowly poisoning our world. Not only that, but I got to decide how the produce was prepared before cooking; for example, sweet potatoes in stores are “cured” for 1-2 weeks to make them sweeter, but my body prefers less sugary foods so we ate them straight out of the ground and they were delicious! But it was even more satisfying to cook something that—though edible—was not commonly sold in central Maryland grocery stores: the green leaves of the sweet potato vine. They were delicious and they marked my first step of independence from American grocery store marketing that has so negatively shaped our food culture.
A Call to Action
As a YouTuber said in his documentary about his successful business as a sustainable chicken farmer, “Just start somewhere, grow something! You won’t regret it.”
He is right. I haven’t regretted a single one of the thousands of dollars I spent on gardening equipment, or the dozens of hours learning, planting, pruning, and praying that this experience has required of me. I can’t wait until God gives us our own land so that we can expand our agri-classroom into the next level of sustainability: permaculture and agriforestry.
I hope my little experiment will also inspire you to also connect to the land God gave us to rule with the love of Christ. “For we know that all of creation grieves together and suffers together up until now.” Romans 8:22.
You and I can end the suffering of the land God created. Just go and grow something! You won’t regret it.