My Tiny Farm: Clean Eating and Contemplating Nature

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I do love to eat, and I do love nature. What could be better than combining the two? This year I’m delighted to have space and time to have a garden.  A bit of stress comes from my lack of experience growing vegetables, but I’m getting lots of advice from family and friends. Staying calm means staying within my resources, so it’s a small farm requiring little time. A Tiny Farm! Featuring herbs, vegetables and some flowers, my tiny farm fits alongside my shed. After dinner, I enjoy getting out the hose to water my tiny farm. No one disturbs me. I can breathe deeply. I can release the stress of the day. The most fun of all is to see what nature has created in 24 hours. A red tomato? A miniscule first string bean? Flowers on the cucumbers?  All seem miraculous, putting the challenges of the day into perspective.

One of the major benefits to growing my own produce is the ability to avoid all pesticides and herbicides. Sadly the vegetable garden season has come to an end in Massachusetts, making it a bit harder to continue clean eating.

Now that I need to purchase my produce, I rely on advice from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).  Annually EWG identifies the fruits and veggies most and least contaminated with pesticides. I can’t always afford or find organic, so I use this helpful info to be good guidance about how to spend my grocery money.

2019 Dirty DozenTM

Strawberries, spinach, kale, nectarines, apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, pears, tomatoes, celery, and potatoes. Hot peppers are a “bonus” dirty dozen item.

2019 Clean FifteenTM

Avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, frozen sweet peas, onions, papayas, eggplants, asparagus, kiwis, cabbages, cauliflower, cantaloupes, broccoli, mushrooms, and honeydew melons

For more information about how to eat clean, visit the Environmental Working Group at https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/. There you’ll also find information about clean food, clean water, clean personal care products, and of course clean cleaners!

Photos by Gale Lyman

4 Comments

  1. Your article is spot on! I love to water my gardens because it is a calming and peaceful time. The birds, dragonflies, and butterflies are like friends come to visit.
    Our neighbor has free range turkeys and two have become very tame. They come to visit and watch when I water!

    1. You have turkeys! that’s so cool. I’d love to have chickens but we don’t have enough land to meet the zoning requirements. I settled for two chicken garden statues handed down by my mother-in-law.

  2. I can just smell the freshness looking at your beautiful pics.Enjoy – I love playing in the dirt…Love,NancyNancy Elka Ruchel Segal-Diazcell:  603-867-5050″I wish you successful and happy and have nice day forever.”quote from Michael’s Lao students… www.SMILEproject.USSupporting Multitudes In Life & EducationP.O. Box 371, Swampscott, MA 01907, U.S.A. CallSend SMSCall from mobileAdd to SkypeYou’ll need Skype CreditFree via Skype

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