Food miles and cheap food

It may be snowing at my house today, but I am thinking about Spring. Specifically the garden. For the past four or five years we've grown our own vegetables and fruit in our vegetable garden. This started when my wife was pregnant with our first kid. My plan then was to provide a lot of organic veggies on the cheap. It ended up working very well. In the ensuing years I've learned a number of tricks about what to grow and how to grow it. I've learned that we'll pretty much eat as much lettuce as we can produce, as long as there is some variety. And My wife and kids can not have too many strawberries. I'm proud that my kids help in the garden and will even eat raw broccoli straight from the plant, hands free.

The last year or two I've been becoming more concerned with our impact on the environment. The side benefit to this garden is the reduced food miles we enjoy all summer long. For four or five months a year we deal in food feet, which, on an annualized basis makes a difference. And for this our trade off is fresher, healthier food. Now if we could figure out how to lengthen the growing season when it snows in March.