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by kaitai 4386 days ago
Not all vegetables must be produced in the way you describe. In my tiny, poorly-weeded backyard, we've got herbs, beans, peas, 6 kinds of weird lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, strawberries, gooseberries, and more onions than reasonable. Right, it doesn't feed us entirely most days, but we don't have to buy many veggies. I don't get paid to tend it. The time out there is probably good for my mind, given all the research showing green space as effective as pharmaceuticals in combating ADD/ADHD in children.

If we all had our little gardens the food landscape of America would change wildly. Japan's got tiny little gardens tucked into every corner. It's a different model of production.

1 comments

> Right, it doesn't feed us entirely most days, but we don't have to buy many veggies.

This is in the context where, as ZenPro stated above:

> industrial countries spend between 9-11% of their annual income on foodstuffs and less than 5% of their time gathering said foodstuffs - the lowest in time/money expenditure for food in the history of the world.[1]

Things would change radically if you had to feed off it entirely most days. Having a small garden is great, both as a hobby and through the healthy food you get from it, but glorifying the times when you spent "quality time" working your ass off in the field is a bit far fetched...