Mike in Cleveland

After reading the article for this week I came away with mixed feelings. I agree with a lot of what the author is saying but can't get past a few of the points. The author explains how expensize and labor intensive organic farming is but does not provide any reasons for how to overcome this. If organic farming is going to boom in popularity this issue will have to be addressed. I think organic farming is important and delicious but I feel more passionate about local foods. Some organic farming operations still use a lot of fossil fuels because of farm equipment and long distance transportation costs. I would rather see a backyard or community garden that uses fertilizer than an industrial organic farm. The local food movement is more about people being connected to their food and taking part in its production. Backyard and community gardens are also more democratic because they take much less of a monetary investment than buying organic produce grown by someone else. No low income people in Cleveland are going to buy a dozen eggs for $14. The author still makes a valid point about farm subsidies.

This past week I built a fence to keep rabbits and deer out of one of the new beds we created. The squash I planted a few weeks ago are doing awesome!!! The stuff at newgarden is almost ready to harvest and we built a new planter for some tomato plants.