The last few weeks of shopping here in Germany have been interesting. You’ve likely heard by now that in Germany there has been an Escherichia coli (my favorite bacteria, BTW, because of the amusing name) outbreak and for about two weeks now, no one has had a single clue about where the source of the outbreak started. First cucumbers, salads and tomatoes from Spain were blamed — but no proof was found. Now, they are targeting bean sprouts which they are fairly certain are the culprit. But all of these food scares and uncertainties in the food chain really have me thinking hard about our growing situation. And then I go to a huge grocery store near us and see the grapes from India and the oranges from Chile and so on, and I kinda want to just puke.

Not only is it completely absurd to fly and truck the produce all over the world, which has destroyed the local independence of nations around the world while creating consumers that no clue when foods are actually in season anymore, but it is also just plain gross. People have no idea what fresh produce tastes like anymore, but we eat with our eyes and take the best looking items — which are ripened in route and grown simply for their visual appeal. None of these commercial grows cares what it actually tastes like — because there is no way to allow these fruits and vegetables to ripen on the vine and then ship them all over the world.

And don’t even get me started about meat. We have not bought meat in a chain store for about two years, thanks to our fabulous butcher around the corner. This weekend, we were doing some big shopping and decided to grab some filet for grilling from the meat counter, mostly because we weren’t sure our butcher would be open anymore when we got home. It was without a doubt the worst tasting meat we’ve ever had and just as expensive as the local stuff. It smelled fine but it tasted horrible — almost like it had gone bad. Perhaps it was just all the hormones and antibiotics we were tasting; something we’re not used to anymore thanks to locally grown meats and poultry.

I know this is a bit of a heavy rant for a Monday, but I really think this is another wake up call for the world. With there being fewer processing plants than ever before, I expect that it’s really only going to get worse in the long run. The food supply is extremely vulnerable. Watch Food Inc for starters if you really want to get more deeply into this subject.

At any rate, I know I’ve been saying how we want to plant some stuff for a while — and Stefan’s parents were here a couple weeks ago and finally gave our beds in the courtyard the jump start they needed. We decided to do beds in our courtyard last for a couple of reasons:

• We see them everyday (and a basic rule of permaculture is to keep the plants you eat on a regular basis right under your nose so you pay attention to them)
• We can water them easily (not so in the back garden at the moment)
• There are no slugs up here (which is a huge concern in the backyard)
• It gives us more space for green stuff in the courtyard which tends to look a bit gray and boring otherwise

Anyone who says they don’t have any space to garden isn’t looking hard enough. You can grow herbs and sprouts indoors with virtually no space at all. There are always vertical options for small patios and if we had a typical American house with a yard and all that, we would definitely have edible landscaping mixed in with our regular plants.

As it is, we really like the setup we have now, because we constantly see what is going on with the plants and they are easily accessible to use while we are cooking. Plus we have much more growing space than we could have imagined. The planters around the edge are so perfect for little pots of herbs and flowers, so we’re looking forward to really making the most of those. In the back with our tomatoes, we even have strawberries growing around the edge.

The larger plants you see were bought by Stefan’s parents and us from the local gardening store. I cannot believe that they charge €2.49 for a pumpkin plant — one tiny little seed that costs pennies. And there is nothing but hybrids all over the place in there. But we wanted to get something growing and it’s rather late for starting most seeds. But we did start plenty of lettuce seeds all over the place. I love growing lettuce in random areas that are too small for anything else to grow in…like under rose bushes or in pots with other plants.

We’re also growing onions for the first time this year, inside the little planters. So it will be interesting to see how we do with those. They’re supposed to be extremely easy to grow and really need very little watering or maintenance…and we do use quite a few onions around here.

Here’s a quick rundown of what we have planted now (and several more herb plants will be started later this week):

• Onions
• Lettuce (romano, lollo rossa, lollo blanco)
• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Eggplant
• Bell peppers
• Cucumbers
• Mini-pumpkins
• Decorative squash
• Decorative corn
• Chilies
• Tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Chives
• Rosemary
• Salad Burnett
• Thyme
• Sage
• Lemon Thyme
• Calendula
• Lots of sunflowers and other pretty flowers

How’s your garden coming along?