There is a point in life that encourages people to grow their own food. What did it for you? Was it the fruit pies that contain no fruit? The fruit juice that is only 5% juice? The beef pot pie that contains no beef? Was it the high prices for unhealthy food? What was the turning point for you?
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I raise some of my food because I don’t have the time nor the acreage to raise all my food like my parents and grandparents did. (Also I don’t like getting up before sunup to milk a bovine.)
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Quality, choice, and the connection of working the soil and tending the trees.
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The memories of collecting persimmons, serviceberries, butternuts, etc. in the mountains of West Virginia 50 years ago. Activated when I bought a recreational property a couple of years ago that has dozens of wild persimmons.
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It’s what I grew up doing. Now it’s mostly because what I grow is vastly better eating quality than what I can buy. And I enjoy it.
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I grew up on a cotton farm in west Tn. We had milk and beef cows, hogs, gardens, potato patches, fruit orchards and I studied Ag in high school. I then managed the orchard with knowledge gained from my studies. My father allotted the kids a small acreage of the farm on which we decided what to grow and keep or sell the products we grew. That was probably the incentive that got all my siblings into pitching in to feed the family! By the time I went off to school I had a healthy bank account! It’s in our blood!
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Because we can’t sell it all at farmers market? No, we started vending at farmers market because our gardening got out of hand.
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I just tried raising food that was very expensive or unobtainable.
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mostly food prices and quality. cheap loaf of bread here was $1.30, now $3.50. i figured out that it will cost me about $1 to make a loaf myself. fruit prices are 3xs what they were prior to 20’ and quality is marginal. i have a large freezer full of my fresh frozen fruit i can use as i go. no waste. got a blueberry buckle in the oven and just made a double batch of blueberry jam. if you 1st freeze your fruit on a sheet pan then pour in gal. Ziplock’s. you can measure out what you need without thawing the whole bag.
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Ditto! Couldn’t have said it any better!
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Increased security, taste, health, joy, pride.
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Geopolitics, economic stabilization, and symbolism.
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We grow most of our food for sale, but raised it only for ourselves for years. My answer would pretty much be all of the above, which are all great reasons.
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It’s fascinating. I probably started because my friend’s grandpa had a few blueberry bushes in his front yard and my friend and I ate them. They were delicious. At a farmer’s market a decade later when I owned a house, they were selling huge balled and burlap blueberry bushes and bought a couple.
Of course they didn’t do well, and I wanted to know why…
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Almost every cultivar that folks on here grow and enjoy cannot be bought in a store.
Growing these things myself allows me to pick and consume at peak or near peak ripeness… which cannot be bought in a store.
The more i grow the less likely i am to consume societal norms like potato chips, cookies and heat and serve meals or rice a roni and hamburger helper.
Its easy to be a hunter gatherer and pack your buggy at the grocery store…but much more rewarding and healthy to homestead and farm your land.
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I grow vegetables and more mundane fruit (strawberries) for a few reasons. Nostalgia is a big part, we had a decent sized vegetable & herb garden growing up. Now that I have kids of my own I want them to have that experience.
The kids in general are a big drive. Them and their friends roaming around to pick fresh fruit in the summer is a down to earth activity that I believe has a positive influence on them.
I grow fruit trees for the reasons above with the addition of the desire for more variety than is ever on offer in my area. That may be changing though. The other day my grocer had Arkansas Black apples available.
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Growing up my parents always had a garden/fruit trees and I had the opportunity to help. Those early years kept a fire inside me to continue later in life. I have included my five grands to help me grow vegetables and even help with my annual pruning of the muscadine vines. Add your kids/grands while they are young and they can/will enjoy the same lifelong enjoyment in the garden.
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I grew up in a family where all the men hunted and fished… i mean seriously hunted and fished … deer dove quail turkey squirrel bass crapie bluegill shellcrackers bumpy suckers catfish blackperch smallmouth, bullfrogs.
We ate all that all year and loved it … Still do. Occaaionally would have beef, pork chicken.
When i was in grade school and high school. I set and ran a trapline before and after school. Also big into preditor hunting… fox, bobcats, yotes. I helped put myself thru college and bought many of the guns i have now with fur and ginseng money.
Started gardening early in highschool… inspired by my mothers mom… who grew a big garden each year. Just another way to connect with the outdoors, produce good food, self sufficiency.
Retiring in December… going to bump all of that up a knotch or two since i will have a lot more time to focus on growing, catching, hunting, etc… my own food.
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Because simply to me it’s natural. While I cannot be 100% self sufficient, it makes all the sense in the world to set your yard (no matter the size) up to provide you and your family/friends/etc with some food and provide a positive example to your community that humans are here to help one another but you aren’t meant to rely anyone but yourself. Also hundreds of other reasons but mainly this, because we should.
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Because we buy a lot of fruit during the year to our daily fruit juices… it’s a great way to pay way less money, to diversify the varieties we eat and to know what we are eating.
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