Growing food is a primal survival skill

I'm growing food in my back yard in Northern Canada. It looks like I will be eating potatoes this Fall! All 4 of the varieties I planted are doing well. Here are 3 of them:

I have a few empty spots in the garden at this point. I'm going to fill them with tomato seedlings I've started, but the weather is hot right now - not suitable for transplanting. The tomatoes will have to wait until cooler weather returns:

I see my basil finally came up! Let's see how it does heading into Summer...

Yesterday, I transplanted a little pumpkin plant from the very front of the garden to one of the little beds in the back. It looked fine at first, but then yesterday's long dry heat took its toll. You can see it in the middle, surrounded by sunflower seedlings:

I don't know if it will be able to be revived. I've given it plenty of water and removed a couple dead leaves. The next 24 hours will decide. I'm going to provide it some artificial shade during the afternoon today.

I have 3 varieties of green peas, and they're all beginning to flower:

Here are a couple update shots of the yard. They're similar, but contain a few differences, like those game puzzles in the newspaper where you have to compare 2 very similar images.

See if you can spot the major difference in today's photo, and I'm not talking about the soccer ball:

Answer: The closest potato patch (just behind the row of bright green lettuce) has been weeded. In the first photo, it's a big green mass. Now you can see the individual potato plants. There was a lot of clover in there, plugging things up! Now the potatoes can really fill out and start to produce a crop.

How much time has gone into this garden?

I can estimate the number of hours I've put into this project. I've been doing it for 10.5 weeks, about 6 days a week, for about 90 minutes each day. (Having major health issues and young children doesn't allow any more, unfortunately!)

So I've put in less than 100 "man hours" so far. That's actually not too bad, considering I've increased my family's food security AND significantly raised the value of this property. Digging up the lawn, carrying it to the back of the yard, and ploughing the earth burned a lot of calories, and I've been able to lose 10 pounds of extra winter weight. I have spent those 100 hours of quality time entirely with my 3 year old son, which makes everything just a little bit harder, but is incredibly rewarding because no matter what happens to me, I've sparked a passion for growing plants that will stay with him.

Until a few generations ago, there were no supermarkets. Just farmers, and local markets to trade and sell their produce. Our ancestors have produced food from the soil for at least tens of thousands of years, keeping our species alive.

I think it's important more of us remember this skill.

DRutter