Ethical Eating: The UUA Study/Action Issue (SAI) for 2008-2012
December 8, 2008
Our guest columnist for this month is Ellen Smith. She and her husband Stu were way ahead of the curve in providing healthy, homegrown, unprocessed food for their family. I think they also can refute the common belief that it is more expensive to eat locally raised, organic food. Anyone else who would be willing to write about the principles underlying their own food choices should contact Carol Crowley (ccrowley8@cox.net). Also, the Ethical Eating Committee will have its first meeting in January. Anyone willing to help plan activities related to this issue should also contact Carol.
My husband Stu and I began gardening during the first year of our marriage in 1973. This was the beginning of a lifestyle in which gardening became fundamental to our goal of eating healthy, unprocessed foods in support of our definition of what the good life should embrace. We would continue to garden for the next 35 years – indeed, we still do!
Our first garden was planted with great enthusiasm. We were always alert to articles about gardening. One of us read an article that identified seaweed as an excellent fertilizer. Unfortunately, we missed the paragraph about the need to rinse the seaweed; thus our greens were burned by salt and useless by the next day. Live and learn!
In 1974, we moved to Barrington and turned a large portion of the yard into a vegetable garden. As our family grew and needed more food, we needed more garden space. We rented two plots in the community garden. I would pull two sons in a wagon to the plots daily and they would help plant, weed and harvest. We froze as many vegetables as we could and we also learned how to make strawberry jam and can tomatoes and V-8 juice. We also picked bushels of apples at farms to can applesauce for the year. I always searched for quicker, easier methods to preserve our harvest.
In 1982, we moved to Scituate with our four sons. Our greatest desire was to continue a lifestyle that, among other things, embraced homegrown food. We found the perfect home with a couple of acres and a barn. We added cows, goats, pigs, sheep, turkeys and chickens to our expanded vision of supplying the family with untainted, unprocessed food. The goat was a pet but also provided milk from which we made cheese. The garden was planted where horses had grazed, resulting in incredibly fertile soil for a wide variety of crops. We still experiment with new plants and methods of growing. We never tire of the miracle of seeds bursting from the soil every spring.
As Stu puts the garden to bed for the winter by adding chicken manure and lime to the soil, we realize that we have made great progress toward our goal of living off the land. We have a large freezer filled with our vegetables. Our newest chickens are laying eggs regularly. Our turkeys will soon be in the freezer.
Best of all, we realize that we have passed down our love of gardening to our sons. In fact, our youngest has a large garden in his back yard in Brooklyn, N.Y. He actually surpassed us in producing certain varieties of vegetables. We are thrilled the love of the land has been passed to another generation.
So what’s for dinner tonight? Garden pesto and green beans from the freezer, simmered with pork chops and rice. Now, there’s something we haven’t tried – growing rice! Always new ideas on the back burner….
~Ellen Lenox Smith
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