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The growing price of vegetables

The growing price of vegetables: cauliflowers for roses, apples that won't brown

Jim McGregorBlack Press

 

I overheard two gentleman talking and one stated that he always gave his wife expensive flowers for Valentine’s Day so this year he was giving her cauliflower. Every time we turn on the news lately, we see someone standing in a grocery store shaking their head at the cost of lettuce.

Now, two heads are not better than one.

The ‘experts’ try to get us to believe that the cost of veggies is rising because of the falling dollar and transportation costs but we’ll never know if that is true or not. So much goes on in board rooms across the continent that we will never know about, and prices of commodities are raised at a whim.

People talk about the old days when they paid 25 cents a gallon for gas but they were only making a buck and a half an hour.

If you prepared a chart for cost of food and fuel against wages over the years you would see we are not really any worse or better off than we were back then.

The big difference is that very few people have a vegetable garden plot in their backyard or a root cellar where they can store their produce over the winter.

The big conglomerates are very aware of this and so they have us at their mercy.

Many nights one of us kids was sent out to the root house to get carrots or potatoes or preserves of some sort. Nobody jumped in the car and drove down to the corner grocery store to get food for dinner.

There is always controversy about the conditions the vegetables are grown in today.  Pesticides, hormones and what else might be applied, but if nothing is applied and they are grown ‘organically’ they are more expensive.

Figure that out.

Recently, it was announced that an Okanagan farmer has developed an apple that won’t turn brown after it is cut open.

Why is this important to anyone? The critics shout that this is genetic altering and should not be allowed.

Did we not cause a huge problem in the beginning by playing with an apple when we had been told to leave it alone?

Obviously we are slow learners. Can we soon expect bananas that stay yellow forever or multi colored eggs that come straight from the chickens at Easter?

I was raised on vegetables grown in rich brown dirt mixed with chicken or steer manure and I have no idea if that is considered organic or not. I just remember there being plenty for our family and anyone else who came around in the fall. If you stopped at our house to ask directions, you left with a bag full of zucchinis, tomatoes and Swiss chard.

If you calculate what you spend on your lawn each year you may be surprised how much it costs to make your yard look nice for the neighbours.

Consider digging it all up and planting vegetables this year and encourage your neighbours to do the same.

I recall many a fine cup of coffee shared over the fence comparing the height of my corn with my neighbour’s crop.

We old timers have seen the dollar go up and down, the prices of food and gas go up and down, over and over again.

You can complain in vain or go with the flow.

The good times will come back, they always do.

At least that’s what McGregor says.