Mother Earth News has recently reprinted an article from 1971, where editors from Home Garden's grew a 10 x 20 foot garden with seeds that cost less than $10.00. They figure that a person or family can eat fresh produce for six months with this. It's fun to read, but their vegetable list shows how far we've come. They grew two types of tomatoes: Burpee's VF and cherry tomato-Basket Pak. They also had zucchini, cucumbers, beets, radishes, endive, onions, lettuce and for seasoning cress and parsley. These vegetables seem so modest and earnest compared to what people are doing now.

In contrast, a week or so ago the Los Angeles Times ran an article, Yellow Strawberries and Pink Pumpkins about produce grown in small or urban spaces. The Los Angeles area urban farmers they mentioned were growing large-leaf mâché, Italian wild arugula, yellow alpine strawberry, not to mention the herb mentuccia, and the Italian vegetable agretti; and it's not longer just cucumbers, but rather Green Fingers Persian baby cucumber.

I imagine the seeds cost more than $10.00, but it's a great trajectory that we're on...