Beginnings

Like most people during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, I started looking for other things to keep me busy at home. At the beginning in March, the fear of going to the grocery store and getting exposed was a major consideration - since we had someone who was immunocompromised (transplant patient) in the household. Ordering groceries online for delivery was EXPENSIVE and things often had a surcharge. I still had to be careful and sanitize everything at home.

Given the uncertainty of the economy, and since we weren't going out as much, we thought it would also be a good time to re-evaluate our monthly spending and try to cut down. Grandma, who had a stroke back in November 2019, had always been very active and grown vegetables in the parent's garden. I was constantly finding that keeping fresh vegetables at home was a challenge - a lot of them go bad really quickly!

I had also seen several of those catchy social media videos about how to regrow food from kitchen scraps...so that was the start of this "farmer girl."

I decided to start trying to grow vegetables at home.

Reasons:

- More sustainable lifestyle, less waste (plastic bags, gas to the grocery store, etc.)

- More economical (hopefully...)

- Safety of growing at home vs. exposure at grocery store

- Vitamin D?? (well it'

s better than sitting at home watching TV all day)

I've learned a lot, and hoping that this isn't just a side project but will be something sustainable long term. Going to jot down some thoughts and learnings here so hopefully I'll be more successful next growing season. Hopefully there will be less Googling of everything.

-CEC