Teresa and I just returned from visiting friends and family in Florida, the first time we ever went away for a couple of days without any business agenda.  We've done lots of fun stuff, but always piggybacked on a speaking engagement or business need; this is the first time in our marriage (40 years) that we just took off with no agenda, no business element, just for fun.  We can't even say the word "vacation."

             We were in the Sarasota area, spent a day in the ocean, lots of good fellowship with friends and family, but here's the thing that struck me throughout the time:  the amount of land growing grass and ornamentals that could grow food.

             The manicured landscape around housing developments, golf courses, churches is consistent from property to property.  I didn't see a tomato plant, a backyard garden, a strip of anything growing anything edible.  Trees and shrubs, tended with the utmost care, properly and tastefully mulched and pruned, do not bear anything that you can eat.

             Anyone who gardens knows how much food a little spot, well tended, can produce.  Container gardens, raised beds and other techniques concentrate growth in small spaces.  And in the southern Florida environment, you can grow year-round; it's the perfect place for local self-sufficiency.

             A landscape crew tending a Home Owners' Association or country club grounds could just as easily care for plants that produce something edible as those that just produce vari-colored leaves and blossoms once in awhile.  I'm not opposed to flowers; I like flowers.  But the drastic segregated design between where we live and what we eat is both unnecessary and fragile. 

             Why not grow things where we live?  Why is that such a reprehensible notion?  I don't know if it's because growing things smacks of farming which smacks of Michael Bloomberg condescension or if it's just profound thoughtlessness.  Perhaps it's profound pride that middle income people should not have to soil their hands with growing sustenance.

             But goodness, in an Edenic environment like Florida if anyplace could feed itself, or if any place wanted to step up to showcase local self-reliance and resiliency, that's the place.  People are moving there in droves for the environment, and then seemingly despising the environment in their living protocols.  People in harsher ecologies would give their eyeteeth for the long growing season, the abundant rain, the productive capacity, and yet the folks who are there seem to have no appreciation for it. 

             Instead, they buy hydroponic strawberries grown in the Mexican desert and shipped 3,000 miles.  Does that make sense? 

             What is beauty?  Is it manicured lawns and ornamental trees, or is it bountiful gardens and folks eating from their property? 

             What do you think is more beautiful?

Thank you Kate Simon Lifestyle Photography for use of the image!!