Farming or growing either way its local

I like to plan and play out the narrative of my food story: how far has my food traveled, where did it come from, who are the farmers. I have a strong desire to know my food story and I do try hard to instill this value in my teaching about food.

I have a garden at home and I do also have school gardens which my students would be working at this time of year. I work in the school garden once a week and share the workload with a team of volunteers. My home garden is not quite ready yet but I do have seed starts. In fact, most of my seed starts are in a cold frame or in the house near grow lights or windows.

I have a nice start I have green onions, leeks, and rhubarb, and the greens are coming along nicely but it is not enough produce for the week of meals so I did my Saturday morning routine shopping for groceries.

I find in one hour I can visit several farmers and purchase all Vancouver island food for cheaper than the grocery stores usually. Having said that, in our off-season out of country produce comes cheaper than we can often produce it for which seems crazy to me. At that point, I look at the environmental footprint of producing and transporting the item and consider if I really need a food item that is not in season locally.