Buy Local Plants for Garden and Home

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.  ~Hanna Rion

MindfulEats loves and envies home gardeners. Given our druthers, we would till a plot of land and raise our own chickens, but it's hard to do in Manhattan (and underappreciated by both neighbors and chickens). 

Home gardening fits nicely into the trends of being thrifty and healthy. You know exactly what goes into your food, and you get to see the cycle of life. Cool. While your labor in your garden affects you directly, it can also affect large commercial farmers. Who knew?

Since we don't have a garden, we spend quality time at the farmers' market. This summer we waited for the tomatoes to show up, but they never really did. We were shocked when Dan Barber, celebrated organic restauranteur (Blue Hill), explained the mystery. A wicked case of tomato blight jumped from home gardens to commercial farmers and decimated the Northeast tomato crop!

If you're not growing your plants from seed, where you buy your plants makes a difference. Popular plant retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's and Wal-Mart, buy their stock from industrial breeding operations thousands of miles away. These plants can be bad since they:

1. can be infected with disease (like blight)
2. are not local varieties that are bred to resist local challenges

It may seem cheaper to buy your plants from Home Depot, but if the plant dies and spreads disease to other plants, it's not really cheaper. The best thing to do with plants (for your garden or home) is to buy local, since the grower can supply a wealth of advice, and is ultimately responsible for the quality of his plants. Dan says it much more eloquently than I do, so read his op-ed on home gardens.

What to do - Buying Plants

1. Yay for buying plants! You are either a savvy gardener, or beautifying your environment.  
2. Ask around and find a respected local plant retailer. You can pick their brains for advice. Ask them what you should do if the plant has a disease or fares poorly (they should give you your money back and help if the plant spreads disease to the other plants. If they don't, go elsewhere). Avoid the Wal-Marts and Home Depots that stock industrial plants since they won't do anything for you, and they won't have the advice.
3. Develop a relationship. Go back to the grower for more plants, advice, or both.

What I ate: 12 oz. vegetable juice, 2 peaches, strawberries, spaghetti + tomatoes + garlic + basil + ollive oil, 1 banana, 2 cups coffee, nuts, cheddar cheese, dinner from Whole Foods salad bar: basmati rice, chicken tikka masala, seaweed salad, seitan red curry, bok choy, 24 oz. Gatorade, 12 oz. chocolate milk, 16 oz. coconut water, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 4 mile warmup/cool down, 4.2 miles hills