Hello to all friends and strangers

I decided to start this blog since a few friends have suggested it as a way to share my ideas about 1) small scale food production on a typical lot in North Florida. 2) self sufficiency and simple living in relative harmony with nature and 3) just general thoughts about life and how to live it more comfortably.

The title of my blog is selected with due respect to Marian Van Atta's Living Off The Land newsletter published from the 70s to the 80s (I still have many of the back issues in my library!). The newsletter espoused the idea we should plant much of what we eat, use the many free wild food provided for us by nature, and only decorate our yards with things we can eat (as in perennial food crops). Ms. Van Atta's books reflecting the information in those newsletters are still available through many on-line book stores. Just search on her name.

I have also been inspired in my gardening quests by my ever-gardening mother and through her my grandfather and great grandfather who also were gardeners. And by an unknown neighbor in Virginia who, in my teens in the 60s, showed me that growing tomatoes is really quite easy. And, of course, by everyone I come in contact with these days though the Edible Plant Project in Gainesville FL.