Growing your own food is like printing your own money
The Independent Gazette sits down with Marjory Wildcraft
Seeing “homegrown food on every table” is Marjory Wildcraft’s vision. Wildcraft has been called “the Martha Stewart of self-reliance,” as she teaches others how to simply and easily grow their own food, heal themselves with their own medicine, and find the perfect survival retreat. A regular guest on many national radio and television shows, and, most recently, featured as an expert on sustainable living on the National Geographic television channel, Wildcraft is not only an author of several books, but is also widely recognized for her popular video series “Grow Your Own Groceries.” The series shows ordinary people how to create an organic, food-producing paradise in their own backyard, and is widely used by homesteaders, survivalists, universities, and missionary organizations around the world.
The Independent Gazette recently had the rare opportunity to visit Wildcraft at her Bastrop, Texas, home, garden, and farm while on a trip to launch our sister publication, the San Antonio Spy. Bastrop, thirty miles southeast of Austin, Texas (the state capital), is a quaint town with a population of slightly over 7,000. It lies nestled on the banks of the Colorado River, and is home to the picturesque, 75-acre farm where Wildcraft lives with her husband and family.
Sitting at her kitchen table munching on fresh-picked garden vegetables, Wildcraft shared with the Gazette that after years of working in Austin as a professional money manager, putting together high-yield investment partnerships in the real estate market, she became increasingly concerned about the looming financial crisis facing America, and the implications it posed. “Pivotal in that process was my reading of G. Edward Griffin’s Creature From Jekyll Island—about the Federal Reserve—in 2001,” she said. “I realized that the printing of fiat money by the Reserve was just not sustainable, and that the issue is not if, but when, an inevitable collapse will take place. When the collapse occurs, the ability to obtain a reliable food source will become paramount. Most people don’t realize that a large portion of the food on grocery shelves today travels an average of 1,500 miles, with maybe a four-day supply [of food in the entire supply chain at any one time], according to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Interrupt that flow, and we have big problems. That is when I decided that the best source of reliable, nutritious food for myself and family was in our own backyard.”
Wildcraft went on to explain, “I am an electrical engineer and my husband is a mechanical engineer by trade, so we went about this plan to become totally self sufficient,” she smiled, “But as far as gardening, well, I had little experience. I tell people all the time: just start, learn by mistakes, educate yourself, and a more rewarding experience you will never have.”
Follow this column over the next few months as we discuss companion planting, free fertilizers, how to build a rainwater collection system, homemade insecticides that work, basic seed saving, catfish ponds, hydroponic gardening, and so much more. Our collective aim: to become food-independent.
Visit www.GrowYourOwnGroceries.com to purchase a copy of Wildcraft’s “Grow Your Own Groceries” DVDs.
