As I spent a good deal of my summer vacation creating a community green house garden outside the local middle school in my town, I was very struck by the P-Patches we visited in class. I enjoyed talking to Teresa about my experience and struggles with certain plants. Apparently, I should not feel about the carrot massacre I felt directly responsible for; they are extremely difficult to grow, regardless of the green house conditions. Since they need full sunlight, the green house wasn't exactly an ideal habitat, nor was the raised bed I had them planted in.
Anyway, I drew a lot from this experience, including this quote: "We have lost the connection with food and the grounds from which it grows."
Even organic supermarkets such as Whole Foods manufacture a new league of what I like to think of as hyper-organic or "industrialized organic", I feel it is so sad that their system focuses on the impracticality of supporting local farms while attempting to commercially support them to create a larger consumer basis. For me, this realization did little but confuse the struggle between organic vs. industrial farming, as Whole Foods has seemed to merge the two. Where I used to have a sort of confidence in the aisles at Whole Foods, I now find stark criticism.
It is so evident that our petroleum-based economy is in no way sustainable, and our environment is surely not hospitable to our constant abuse of outsourcing. I was surprised to hear that P-Patches actually started in the 1970's, as it seems like our environmental crisis is only just being recognized. I'm glad to be in a city that is as self-conscious as Seattle, though. It's great to feel like I'm part of a place trying to make a difference; self-food production through garden plots, flex-cars, and endless recycling options... just to name a few efforts I've noticed in the two weeks I've been living here.
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