Growing vegetables

Several weeks ago Michael Pollan, author of books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma, had an article entitled Why Bother in the NY Times Magazine. The article starts by asking why we as individuals should bother to do anything about climate change. He outlines a number of reasons why it doesn't seem to make sense to bother ranging from the puniness of our efforts, to the negation of our efforts by others, to a lack of clarity on what exactly would help.

But then he proceeds to argue that given the seriousness of the consequences of not bothering, it is absolutely essential to do ones part to reverse climate change:

Going personally green is a bet, nothing more or less, though it’s one we probably all should make, even if the odds of it paying off aren’t great. Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will.

Okay, so you've decided to do something about it. But what? Pollan has a suggestion:

But the act I want to talk about is growing some — even just a little — of your own food.

An interesting thought. My kids have been wanting me to garden with them for quite some time now. But having grown up in a high-rise in a big city, I didn't get to learn anything about gardening, let alone developing a love for it...:-( So I don't have a green thumb, and I've generally viewed gardening as a chore, and so have not obliged my kids.

But over the weekend, when reading the Google blog post on growing ones food, I was reminded of EarthBox. The EarthBox is a

... maintenance-free, award-winning, high-tech growing system controls soil conditions, eliminates guesswork and more than doubles the yield of a conventional garden-with less fertilizer, less water and virtually no effort.

Note particularly the "virtually no effort" clause and, of course, I'm a sucker for "high-tech systems"...:-) So I'm going to get one of these to see if I can at least grow some tomatoes for a few salads and the occasional pasta sauce. I'm not sure that using an EarthBox is exactly what Michael Pollan had in mind. But it's the closest I'm going to get to growing my own food!