Plant a garden and help put an end to the tiresome practice of traveling vegetables
Dan Brawner
May 01, 2007
When I was growing up in rural Mount Vernon, we always had a big garden. We had a huge garden. Okay, we had a small agricultural complex. We raised literally acres of vegetables. We had carrots and onions and corn and bell peppers and cabbages, string beans, lima beans, squash, peas, turnips and more tomatoes than the eye could see at one glance.
And every summer my brothers and my sister and I would toil in the blazing Iowa sun in our abundant garden, hoeing weeds, husking corn, snapping beans and canning the interminable tomatoes. We worked like slaves, I tell you. If the migrant worker activist Caesar Chavez had heard about us, there would have been protest marches on our front lawn. My siblings and I would have been heros of the farm worker movement.
My dad planted rows and rows of–to my young mind–inedible vegetables–onions that smelled horrible and tasted like fire. And it was my job to weed them. One summer when I was in third grade, I was weeding the onions in the sweltering sun as usual, carefully removing weeds from the tender shoots of new onions–when what I really wanted was to rip the onions up by their roots and toss them into the creek! As I slaved away in the midday sun, I got hotter and hotter and felt sicker and sicker. Finally, I stumbled into the house. My mother said, “My goodness! You have the measles!” And for years afterwards, I was convinced that onions were a leading cause of measles.
These days, it is trendy to raise your own garden. But I have resisted it because I knew how much work it is. However, this year, I have decided to raise a garden–not because I want to. And not because of my undying love for vegetables. But because it is my patriot duty.
A study by Iowa State University showed that vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles before they get to your table! In Iowa, with the richest soil on Earth, we’re buying cauliflower from California. We’re getting garlic from China! We’re buying blueberries from Chili! Vegetables are not meant to travel. Vegetables are sedentary creatures by nature. They don’t like to get around much. They like to stay where they are planted.
The Iowa State study also pointed out that only .05 percent of Iowa’s cropland is devoted to commercial vegetable production and that if Iowans got just ten percent more of their vegetables from local sources, because of transportation alone, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 8 million pounds a year!
So this year, I’m planting a garden. I’m raising beans and peas and lettuce. Maybe, I’ll plant some corn and a tomato plant or two. But, of course, I’m not raising any onions–because they give you the measles.
And every summer my brothers and my sister and I would toil in the blazing Iowa sun in our abundant garden, hoeing weeds, husking corn, snapping beans and canning the interminable tomatoes. We worked like slaves, I tell you. If the migrant worker activist Caesar Chavez had heard about us, there would have been protest marches on our front lawn. My siblings and I would have been heros of the farm worker movement.
My dad planted rows and rows of–to my young mind–inedible vegetables–onions that smelled horrible and tasted like fire. And it was my job to weed them. One summer when I was in third grade, I was weeding the onions in the sweltering sun as usual, carefully removing weeds from the tender shoots of new onions–when what I really wanted was to rip the onions up by their roots and toss them into the creek! As I slaved away in the midday sun, I got hotter and hotter and felt sicker and sicker. Finally, I stumbled into the house. My mother said, “My goodness! You have the measles!” And for years afterwards, I was convinced that onions were a leading cause of measles.
These days, it is trendy to raise your own garden. But I have resisted it because I knew how much work it is. However, this year, I have decided to raise a garden–not because I want to. And not because of my undying love for vegetables. But because it is my patriot duty.
A study by Iowa State University showed that vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles before they get to your table! In Iowa, with the richest soil on Earth, we’re buying cauliflower from California. We’re getting garlic from China! We’re buying blueberries from Chili! Vegetables are not meant to travel. Vegetables are sedentary creatures by nature. They don’t like to get around much. They like to stay where they are planted.
The Iowa State study also pointed out that only .05 percent of Iowa’s cropland is devoted to commercial vegetable production and that if Iowans got just ten percent more of their vegetables from local sources, because of transportation alone, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 8 million pounds a year!
So this year, I’m planting a garden. I’m raising beans and peas and lettuce. Maybe, I’ll plant some corn and a tomato plant or two. But, of course, I’m not raising any onions–because they give you the measles.
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