Correction: Amy Dacyczyn is alive and well!!

In the recent Bay Area News Group article about me, I didn’t notice until yesterday that somehow the article reported Ms. D. as “the late.” Ooops. I talk fast, and I’m guessing that the poor Food Editor was jotting notes as fast as she could, so when I mentioned the Frugal Zealot, and that the Tightwad Gazette was no longer running, well....

My deepest apologies for the mix-up. May Amy outlive me!

Let’s Get this Garden Started
No more excuses! This is the year you’ll get some food growing. Why? Here are my top five reasons to start a veggie garden:

• Nutrition, nutrition, nutrition! More and more studies are reporting that multi-vitamins don’t come close to the benefits of real food, consumed fresh. If you get your produce from a grocery store, it’s been losing nutrients by the hour through time, light exposure and handling. If you live in the U.S., I don’t need to tell you how expensive all those diseases are that are largely preventable by diet and ...
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• Exercise! This is a full-body workout, but you won’t notice as you do numerous squats, tricep pulls, bicep lifting and the like. Just don’t forget the sunscreen.
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• An excellent education for the kids (and yourself). As you cultivate, you’re learning about all kinds of useful sciences from botany to entymology, as they apply to an important skill that will serve them well as adults. This is the road to self-sufficiency.
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• It’s a timesaver. Yes, really. Spend about an hour a week on the garden, and you’ll have food all through the growing season. This is food available just steps from your kitchen. No getting into the car, finding a parking space, struggling with the wayward wheel on the shopping cart, listening to muzak and waiting in line to check out.
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• It’s a REAL money saver! By my reckoning, one hundred square feet easily grows half of an adult’s fresh produce. Suppose said adult eats a pound (that’s half a kilo to my non-U.S. readers, and welcome, by the way!) of fruits and vegetables a day, which ordinarily cost $2/lb. (Which for my non-U.S. readers is a pittance, judging from the fall of the buck against other currencies, but nevermind) The savings, after the cost of seeds and water, is still over $300 a year, or $25/month. The savings from the delayed onset of various maladies associated with a poor American diet is even more.
  
  
  • But wait, there’s more to this money saving thing than just replacing what you’d buy to eat. You can make gifts of produce, too. Give it fresh, in a pie, canned, dried, as seeds, seedlings, potted plants...
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  • There’s also the not-insignificant savings from having ready food. How many times do you eat out because “there’s no food in the house?” During the growing season, that excuse won’t fly. Plus, the meals practically plan themselves, based on what’s ripe. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the true savings can be in excess of $50/month if you apply all the advantages of gardening.

• But wait, there’s more to this money saving thing than just replacing what you’d buy to eat. You can make gifts of produce, too. Give it fresh, in a pie, canned, dried, as seeds, seedlings, potted plants...