Growing Food and Kids

It’s been almost five years since we bought a house. But now, my family may be moving, so we’ve been looking — and because we started gardening five years ago, our housing criteria have changed.

Of course, in the past five years, gardening isn’t the only thing about our family that has changed. We’ve also gone from one baby boy to two big boys. But when it comes to finding a house that works for our family, gardening is now an important part of the equation.

Three things that are on our house-hunting wish list that weren’t there five years ago:

1. Plenty of dirt. A given for gardening, we have lots of dirt at our current house – but when we moved here five years ago, I don’t think we knew how important that dirt would become for us. So this time, it’s higher on the list.

2. Storage capabilities. For all those canned tomatoes, green beans, and pickles, I’m looking for lots of shelf space. And for the frozen squash, okra, peas, and corn, we want a space to keep the deep freezer. When I recently wrote an article about root cellaring, I learned about how onions, potatoes, carrots, apples and tons of other produce will keep, amazingly, for months in dark, cool places. So I’m keeping my eye out for hidden closets under stairways or other nooks and crannies that might make good root cellars. (That article will appear in Hobby Farms’ Popular Kitchen Series magabook, “Canning and Preserving.,” due out later this year.)

3. Extra counter space. In most areas of life, I definitely believe that less is more. But when it’s the middle of summer and we have buckets of tomatoes, squash, okra and cucumbers that all need to be washed and processed, a little more kitchen counter space could be a little bit wonderful. I admit to getting a little overwhelmed when I just need to make the kids a peanut butter sandwich and every surface in the kitchen is covered with fresh produce. Thankful, but overwhelmed. We looked at one house that not only had an extra wall of counter space in the kitchen, but also a separate vegetable sink, seemingly created just for those bountiful-harvest days. Ah, but the house was out of our price range.

So the search continues.

Does your gardening habit influence your choice of abode? What would be on your wish list for the perfect house for gardening?