Time for the fall garden

Beth Dodson Brown enjoys getting outside and being active in the garden. The back and front yard Lancaster garden

provides Beth and her husband Jim with plenty of fresh organic food, and prevents transportation pollution.

    August is the time to start putting out a garden for the fall. Turnips, peas, Swiss chard and spinach are some of the vegetables you can try. Sugar snap and snow peas are good to grow in the garden, and are expensive at the store!
   Your home vegetable garden helps preserve the environment by cutting down on the burning of fuel used to transport food long distances. Transportation is the second leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Another environmental benefit to growing your own food is that you can use your composted kitchen scraps and yard waste to build up your soil, and avoid unnatural fertilizers and pesticides. Because large agribusinesses have many acres of one plant, they are more vulnerable to pest infestation and soil depletion, leading to more use of pesticides and fertilizers.
   Beth Dotson Brown and her husband, Jim, raise vegetables in their back yard in Lancaster. “I wanted organically raised vegetables and realized it wasn’t difficult to do myself. I also learned that since much of my work is at a desk, gardening provides great relief from being sedentary.” Now that tomatoes are abundant, Beth and Jim are canning sauces and salsas for the winter. Besides their organic vegetables, Beth and Jim enjoy home grown strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in season. Growing a garden and eating local food is one of the ways Beth acts on her concern for the environment. “I would say grocery trips have been cut in half, and we have fresher, healthier food.”