conuly | Well, this is interesting....

I buy into a CSA each summer!! Do it, it's wonderful!! I mean, you go to a local organic farm once a week and pick up a big box of a large mix of veggies (that's what I get, some offer fruits, eggs, ect as well), they often partner with other farms and you'll get some oddities thrown in here or there. I save all year so I will have the money I need each summer, though some offer sliding scale, putting in some work for them or payment options. This summer is my 4th, they are giving me a discount and in return I'll be providing them with some of my eggs.

I just hope my friend buys into it, with her food stamps. She's really big into organic this, and natural that, and only healthy foods (to a degree that actually can irritate, but she's consistent, and I like that about her), but you can't always get that through food stamps or the food bank, like she uses.

Last summer, we went to a concert that was donating to the food bank, and she brought all the stuff she'd gotten from them that she didn't want to donate right back into the box.

I'm big into organic as well, slightly neurotic actually. The big appeal to me is that I actually do save money which is a must being a single-mom (well, I don't 'save' money, I could buy cheap food and really save, but for the quality, the taste!!, the fact that it's local and organic, or even just local and healthier. Plus, when I get a large box of veggies I'm forced to eat them).
That is funny, about the food bank. ;)

Yes. Bit sad too - she was the only one of us who'd remembered to bring stuff, I felt so guilty.

Throughout the course of my life I have found the less someone has the more giving they are, typically. ;)

Maybe. She told us it was just because it was all junk from the Pantry that she couldn't use anyway, so she might as well cycle it back in.

I've heard you can grow potatoes in a bucket. You start with the soil fairly shallow, and add some as the potato plant grows.

As container kits, I've seen herbs, tomatoes, and strawberries.

http://www.burpee.com/ might give you some ideas if you feel like poking around there. I've been joking for a couple of years that I'm going to do a radioactivity garden, and I think this year I might actually get up and do it.

You can, but you would probably need to increase the height as you go. I use old tires and stack as they grow. But, if you have never grown potatoes and have room I recommend them, it is so fun digging through dirt and coming up with potatoes (but I'm the one who still gets excited each time my chickens give me eggs- everyday). ;)

Higgledy, piggledy, my black hen
She lays eggs for gentlemen
Sometimes nine, and sometimes ten
Gentlemen come every day
To see what my black hen doth lay!

Ah, I love it! Time for me to memorize to teach to my daughter!

*grins*

I *do* love nursery rhymes!

How about:

"THE CLEVER HEN

I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen,
She washed me the dishes and kept the house clean;
She went to the mill to fetch me some flour,
She brought it home in less than an hour;
She baked me my bread, she brewed me my ale,
She sat by the fire and told many a fine tale."

(I had to look that one up, I didn't remember it exactly. My Annotated Mother Goose informs me that "hen" here means "wife", and that variations of the rhyme actually say wife, or sometimes doll.)

I've never had room for a garden, and anticipate that I'll be raising a lot of weeds ;) On the other hand, if it works my next experiments will be canning and making pickles, and in the meantime I'll have a stress relief technique that'll be useful.

Mmmm...I look forward to my grandma's canned pickels each year. I have never canned, but I'm thinking one of these days I should try.
Raising weeds-lol- if you think you'll be bad you should see my lawn *cough cough* okay, I mean huge weed patch. But- in the summer I don't have to mow because it's all dandilions and as long as I only look at it in the evening after they close, it looks great!! (I swear my neightbor is waiting for me to go on vacation so he can put pesticides on my lawn to kill my weeds, I just know he hates me because of it).

Dandelions are really very healthy to eat, and they're so pretty in bloom!

Do you have any edible dandelion resources? I was just going to get myself a bunny and let him chomp away. But we've got plenty for everyone and if they are healthy...I'm totally for dandelion salad!

Well, I know you can grind the root to stretch your coffee, though I imagine you have to dry it or something first, I don't know - don't like coffee, so wouldn't want to stretch it! And the leaves should be eaten when new, bright, and small; before they're bitter and earwax-y.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/williamsc44.html