Growing Our Own Food I - "The Grave"

First Harvest

I can´t remember how long ago I decided to prefer organic food. Being vegetarian since childhood my bill of fare for a long time was limited on mashed potatoes, rice, bread, polenta and various kinds of deep frozen vegetables. I am still horrified thinking about the times when searching the menu in a restaurant without finding anything eatable aside from cut-up and sugared pancake with raisins and apricot dumplings. Time passed by until dumplings with egg and baked mushrooms showed up on menus, on which I wasn´t keen anymore after stuffing myself with it for years. Finally I have learned that I just had to accept my fate growing up in a culture being obsessed with meat.

Lemon´s Excursion 2008

The situation turned out to become even worse when I noticed that apples didn´t taste like apples anymore, that apricots tasted like water with a whiff of bitter citron. Not really a surprise after being picked unriped and travelling hundreds and thousands of miles cooped in refrigerators. Even simple bread wasn´t made from flour, salt, leaven and water anymore. More and more bakeries converted to convenience blends.

Windfall 2008

For whatever reason it was obvious to grow our own food when we came to Hungary. And this is how we started:

"The Grave"

Whenever I am talking about animals my husband´s thoughts are focusing on how they would taste being roasted. He is confident of driving me crazy about that. Now, even though drenched in sweat, he is digging over the black and fertile but compacted soil bit by bit. It´s hard work and at the end a tiny acreage occurs, looking quite ridiculous (and also a bit like a small grave - to be honest : - ) amidst the former large acre. But it was just a modest beginning. At this time we predominantly were busy with renovating the houses. After removing a lot of junk from the compost heap the former owners had left, we cover the patch with compost soil.

Compost Heap left behind

My husband grew up on a farm and has learned much about farming in early life. But I am just a rookie and never wouldn´t have dreamed of gardening or farming. Now I hold some small bags of vegetable seeds in my hand, waiting to plant the first carrots.