Offing the grid

Michael Pollan was on the TV last weekend. I am glad he will not be Agriculture Tsar because he can't differentiate between lie and lay and I know Our Leader can't stomach too many grammatical idiots in his administration. Despite the intellectual inadequacies and unfortunate resemblence to Hank Paulsen that render him unfit to serve this great nation, however, the Pollanator is right about one thing, and that's Victory Gardens. We spent about.... mmmmm... $25 putting in a couple of little gardens. We now have more bok choy and so on than we can jam down. The neighbor at the community garden has more you-name-it than he can eat, so we trade around. We spend maybe... an hour a week? max? messing with these little gardens. In exchange we have food to throw away. We're not using any inputs, we're just pulling weeds and eating whatever manages to grow without fertilizer. We're not doing anything to prevent freeze damage, other than maybe throwing a sheet over the plants. Totally inefficient. No concept of economies of scale. And here we have more food than we can eat for next to no money and less labor than it takes to drive to Walmart, park, and schlep-ass around the store dodging the gargantuae on their little rascals. Life is sweet! (That's a good movie. You should watch that movie.)