Eating Local on a Budget Part 3 –An excellent resource for gardeners

By Janet Kroeker

This column is all about local... and it doesn't get more local than eating many of your own home-grown garden vegetables and fruits.

My partner Tim and I have attempted to grow more and more of our own produce since moving to the country twelve years ago. As we get older, we look to less labour-intensive ways to produce more food. When we do get a plentiful harvest, the challenge is to find the best ways to preserve and store it.

This is a review of a resource we give very high marks to. If you are serious about growing your own food, please read on.

The end of last winter we were intrigued to find an on-line class called Vegetable Academy... billing itself as the place to find tools, methods and resources you need to grow your own food. We had weekly live lessons for 5 months which took a detailed, scientific, well-researched practical and in-depth approach to producing garden food. The instructor, Jared Regier, lives in an urban prairie environment. He grows and stores about 70% of the fruits and vegetables his family of four eats year-round. On the Vegetable Academy website, you can take a quick quiz to identify what kind of gardener you are – Hobby (you like playing with novel varieties), Kitchen (grow for fresh eating), Pantry and Homestead (grow and store for year-round use): https://www.vegetableacademy.com/garden-type-quiz

There is also a free two-week online workshop to help you clarify your growing objectives and leave you with a collection of strategies you can use to make progress in your garden at any time of the year: https://www.vegetableacademy.com/growwithus

We are not being paid to promote this resource. My husband and I come away every time with a deeper appreciation for the helpful online ways the instructor makes new and older gardening techniques understandable and very practical with many helpful charts and how-to videos. Even after many years of gardening we have gained numerous/countless helpful techniques and tools to take the guesswork out of growing food and move us closer to homestead gardening for year-round eating.

Brought to you by the Stuartburn Emerson-Franklin Local Food Initiative.

Email: initiativelocalfood@gmail.com. Find us on Facebook.

This column is prepared by the South Eastman Transition Initiative. Go to setimanitoba.org