Our story
My name is Christie, and along with my husband Andrew we grow produce on our 40 acre farm in Iowa. We sold our produce commercially for several years, and we loved that adventure. However, now we are passionate about helping other people learn how to grow their own food. This site is a gardening resource. In addition, it will give you ideas and instructions on how to preserve your harvest, as well as recipes to use it in.
Gardening is a lot of work, and there can be physical challenges for some, myself included. I was in a car accident in 1991 that left me paralyzed from my waist down. I can’t do everything in the gardening process because of my disability. Container gardening is a great option for people with physical limitations. However, we grow such large volumes that our methods go well beyond containers. There are so many things I can still do that I stay very busy during the growing season.
Returning to our roots
I started this blog in March of 2021, one year after COVID 19 disrupted all of our lives. This pandemic has certainly exposed the weaknesses in our supply chains. Both Andrew and I grew up in rural areas, where our parents relied on gardens to sustain our large families. We learned about gardening as we helped harvest and process the food those gardens produced. After leaving home, we both lived in urban areas for most of the next two decades. We returned to the rural area in 2006 so our young sons, like Andrew and I both experienced, could attend a smaller school system. For Andrew it was truly returning to his roots. We bought our farm only a few miles from where he was raised, and in the same area where four generations that came before him planted their roots.
Returning to roots in a physical sense
As a society, in large part because of urbanization, we have lost the knowledge of growing and processing the food we eat. This blog was born out of a desire to help people regain that valuable skill. It isn’t necessary to have an acreage to grow food. A backyard garden is a great place to learn this.
My site is just one of many resources. I hope to ignite a spark in people so they can develop a love of gardening. My vision is to literally help people “return to roots” in the physical sense of growing plants for food production. So thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to help foster in you a life long love of gardening! Feel free to check out the video below from our YouTube channel about our gardening journey.
