An Inventory

This year we have planted the following in our garden: six beefsteak tomatoes, eight Amish paste tomatoes, one sungold, two cherry 100, six bell peppers, two banana peppers, two jalapeñ peppers, one habañero pepper, lettuce, bunching onions, radishes, six basil plants, two cilantro plants, two dill plants, one rosemary, one thyme, one lemon thyme, one sweet woodruff, chives, chard, three zucchinis, three yellow squash, one eggplant, three red cabbage, six green beans, six scarlet runner beans, two canteloup, two watermelon, and two pumpkins. And in the back of the house, not planted by us, is a huge thicket of blueberries and blackberries.

I consider this is fairly impressive by current suburban standards of vegetable gardening. Sure, there are things I would have loved to have planted - like okra and ground cherries - but never got to, giving me something to look forward to in coming years. By and large, though, I'm pleased with the state of the garden so far.

Despite what is, to me, a fairly ambitious planting, the truth is that even if every single one of these plants, seeds and starts survives and performs beautifully, my garden will not produce enough to feed my family exclusively from its beds. And already the chard isn't doing so well, so that ship seems to have sailed. Sure, no doubt we'll enjoy its offerings at any number of meals and most likely will give zucchini away until our neighbors no longer acknowledge us walking up their drives. And with luck I'll be able to can some tomatoes, too, perhaps this year even enough to take us through much of the winter. But really, truly feed us? No.

It's obvious that even the most ambitious home gardener needs farms and farmers. And unless we make it clear to our food vendors that we want and expect to have the option of purchasing locally grown and processed foods - or buying directly from local producers - their numbers will only decrease in the face of incredible social, economic and political pressures. So although this weekend I will pick lettuce and radishes and just a little chard, I'll still head out to the farmer's market for perhaps even more of the same. There's too much at stake not to, both for my family and my community.