I've been thinking a lot lately about sustainability and local food, mostly about the ultimate in local food – home grown.

Awhile back I read an article talking about a writer who decided to see if he could live only on food that he produced for one summer. It was part curiosity, part gimmick, and all deadline. All I could think when I was reading the interview was, what a great idea and what an incredibly stupid execution. Sadly, I cannot find the article, but from memory, this guy spent thousands of dollars having henhouses installed and laying, purchased, topsoil for the garden. He went from having the idea to trying it out in a very short period of the time and it cost him thousands of dollars and was an awful experience.

I was so angry about the stupidity of this guy's plan. I felt like it spattered stupid over all of us trying to life a more sustainable lifestyle and doing on the cheap.

When I bought this house I knew I wanted to have a garden, fruit trees and bushes and maybe, possibly, not likely but I really want them, chickens. It was late summer when I moved in, too late for a garden so I started a compost pile and began stealing my neighbor's grass clippings, no one on my street bags leaves or I'd be snagging those too.

If writer guy wanted to spend tons of money enriching his soil, he should have spent a year with the hen house sitting over the proposed garden spot, or bought a composting toilet. "Many people overlook the role of the lower intestine in nation building.*"

It isn’t as hard as some people make it seem. If you want to lower your food bill and eat local, scrape up the local dirt and plant a garden. Add compost and manure and work the soil with your hands. If your dirt is really sandy, rocky or clay you might have to buy some additives, but don’t buy topsoil! Buy mushroom mulch or peat moss or good old-fashioned poop!

No yard? Plant herbs in pots! Support your local farmer's markets! Plant window boxes! Move!

I spent four years living in New York City and for four years I hated spring. Being without a garden was terrible. I never want to live that way again. If you have a patch of dirt – cultivate it!

It is the nature of humans to name things. We tell the world what it is, we shape the world around us. See the land under your feet, name it Garden and watch it grow.