Growing your own veg

I went to a Upstate Locavore meeting this evening -- the topic was a spring event to encourage people to try growing some of their own vegetables. What's encouraging to me is that many of the folks interested in this are quite new to vegetable and herb gardening (and maybe gardening in general) and, in addition, there's a thread of food security running through the conversation.

I'm all for encouraging interest and supporting individual efforts. The RHS gardens in the UK have an expansive program called 'Growing your own veg' accompanied by all sorts of useful information for beginning gardeners.

A developing New Victory Garden movement includes Kitchen Garden International's Eat The View campaign and this garden planted as part of the Slow Food convention in San Francisco, CA this fall; these represent just a 'tip' of the explosion of interest in growing food, promoting local food, and supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture.

And whether we're able to grow some of our own food, can purchase locally, or donate some of the excess of what we grow, why not add more vegetables and fruits to our home landscapes, if we have the space?