Seeds Changing Lives

How Gardening Can Change Your Life

By Barbara Fix, Lipscomb Enterprises Inc. Researcher & Writer

Many are growing concerned over the devaluing dollar and the increasing cost and scarcity of our food supply. Should you join the ranks of the seven million new gardeners, reported by The National Garden Association, you can become self-sufficient and reduce you monthly grocery bill; many times in half!

But the benefit of growing your garden doesn’t stop with financial concerns. By growing your vegetables from Heirloom garden seeds, you will also be growing food from our heritage, for some heirloom seed planted today came over on the Mayflower!

Another important factor tied to growing vegetables with heirloom seed is you control what goes on your table. Consider the fact that 90% of the corn found in the produce section and on grocers shelves used in processed, packaged foods are made from GMO (genetically modified organisms). GMO seed is crop seed that has been altered by inserting a gene from an unrelated species. The impetus for this alteration began, for the most part, to produce pesticide, insecticide, herbicides and drought tolerant produce. On the surface, this may appear to be a reasonable goal—until you consider this alteration allows the grower to spray the food we eat as heavily as they want, killing only the weeds and keeping the genetically modified vegetable intact. The jury is still out with regards to the impact GMO seed may have on our health, but judging by controlled scientific studies of lab rats that have been leaked, it appears there will be a backlash to the nation’s health on down the road.