People are looking for roots

Tag : Vegetable Garden Gardening Organic Vegetables

History has observed romantic back-to-the-earth movements before,particularly in eras of tumultuous change, such as the IndustrialRevolution (which wrought Utopian arts and crafts communitiesfounded along the principles of Ruskin and Morris) or more recentlyin the 1970s, with the Whole Earth, hippie movement.
 
With the combined forces of globalization and urbanization at anall-time high, however, we have arguably never in human historybeen so detached from the local and the rural. Our everyday livesare dominated by the digital, the wireless, the commerciallypackaged and the virtual. And yet, perhaps as a result, we havenever been so needful of that sense of connection with the earththat farming represents.
 
This nostalgia for what we feel we've lost is currently beingexpressed in every aspect of our lifestyles, from the green,organic slow food and locavore movements to the way we aredecorating our homes (rustic and handmade), the clothes we arewearing (hemp, linen, granny and prospector looks), the music we'relistening to (acoustic folk, as documented by Annie Leibowitz'sphoto spread on the new guitar heroes in Vanity Fair) and the bookswe are reading (farm memoirs and gardening how-tos).
 
Over rough-hewn dinner tables laden with fresh market fare, wedebate the merits of "heritage" breeds of livestock and brag ofbuying shares in luxury pork. Spurred on by TV chefs such as JamieOliver, who champion "source" eating, we're growing heirloomlettuces on our roof decks and heritage tomatoes on ourwindowsills, driving this year's sales of old-time vegetable seedsto record levels.