Wednesday, September 14, 2016

I Want My House To Be A Farm To Table Restaurant

I have been studying farm to table restaurants and have found only a few that are like this. I wondered why not many are looking for farm to table restaurants, but, part of the answer to my question came about while we were in Georgia, a couple of weeks ago.

It was a rather disappointing experience for me. There was a bright spot though. We found one farm to table restaurant called the Stovall House, located near Helen, Georgia. This place was great. It was indeed a farm to table restaurant, probably the only one within miles of where we were.

We found a farmer's market one day, as we were traveling to Dahlonega, a little gold mining town in Georgia. We visited this place the next day and learned some horrible news. The produce department was very small compared to the rest of the store. It was like a quaint, old-fashioned grocery store with many products that were homemade. But what happened to the produce? There were no signs saying if the vegetables and fruit were organic, nor were there any signs saying that the food was non-gmo. So, I asked about it, and the man told me that the don't have much produce coming in because it is now too expensive for the farmers to bring their food in. There was something like a tax on agriculture that was 50%! No wonder there wasn't much food. The man also blamed the Democrats for that.

A little while later, I saw some corn. I asked another man if he knew if it were GMO or not. He said that everything they had was GMO. I personally do not think he knew what I was asking, for then he said that the corn had to be GMO because they do not want any worms in their corn (not sure how genetically modifying food can keep worms out of the food!). It was like a guarantee that there would be no worms in their corn. Of course, I did not buy any. Even if it weren't genetically modified, there would definitely have been pesticides on it if they were that adamant about not having worms in their corn!

For a state with so many farms in it, it looks like the farmers are discouraged. In Florida, things are different. People can grow food and sell it at farmer's markets. Quite a few people are doing this now.

So, my next idea is to try to grow the types of food that people would use. First though, I have to grow the kind of food that my family will eat. I am growing popcorn and corn that will be used to make grits (and pretty fall decorations). I will grow squash, beans, and peas. All of these plants will be grown in the garden beds.

The salad making plants are going to grow in a Tower Garden. I will also put strawberries in and some herbs. The tomatoes and peppers can keep growing in the pots. And there are fruit trees growing in pots too.

Garden Beds with Sweet Potatoes and Corn


Prolific Sweet Potatoes 


Corn that is just sprouting
I want to serve people well who come to my house. It is important that food is safe to eat, not full of pesticides and not genetically modified. It should be safe if it comes from my back yard, that is, unless a plane comes over the house spraying Naled, a pesticide used to kill mosquitos.