Thursday, June 5, 2008

Gardening - why bother?

With so many posts dedicated to gardening, you may wonder, "what's the point?"


I used to feel the same way. After all it seemed like a lot of work, especially when going to the grocery store was so much easier and provided immediate gratification. My philosophy on gardening used to be "if I have to water it, weed it and feed it then I don't need it." How things change!


So why spend the time, energy and money in gardening, especially organic gardening? Here are a few reasons:
  • According to a report released by the UN this week, world food production must increase by 50% by the year 2030...without doing so the rate of world starvation will increase.

  • Food prices are rising for a variety of reasons - increasing cost of gas, increased demand in food in general as the middle-class worldwide is growing, competition with alternative, "sustainable" energy sources

  • Sketchy regulations of how our food is grown to how it gets to our table (the more I read, the less confident I become of knowing exactly what it is I am eating - the organic food industry itself has loopholes and a sliding scale of what it means to be "organic")

  • The best reason of all...it has given me a deeper appreciation for God's creation - the delicate systems and balances He put into place, how things are interdependent on one another and we can't always know how to counterbalance our actions in a way that doesn't cause more harm than good. Organic gardening is, to me, interfering as little as possible with the resources God has laid at our feet. It's a struggle and doesn't always generate the results that I want, but it does increase my trust in my Creator. And that makes it worth every penny, hour and ounce of energy I spend.

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