Starting from Scratch (Christel)

Like many people I do not really understand what I am really eating when I dine, what food really is and where it comes from. As long as I can remember food is something that is always available at the large chain grocery store, packaged and processed for quick transport, purchase and of course, consumption. I have never really had to wait for or cook a meal that was prepared from natural basic ingredients. My mashed potatoes come in a bag, pizza in a box, meat is shrink wrapped and everything else frozen.  As Courtney mentioned, we are all in the Historical Ecology class at UAB. It was in this class that I began to understand that the way we interact with the environment is important. The object of the project is for each of us to learn something more about gardening, interacting with the local environment and how rewarding and difficult that can be. I also would very much like to learn more about food, the consequences of a monocropping system of large scale production and the consequences of the separation between consumers and food production.
Back to the small picture...! I think that an important part of working and living with the environment is having knowledge of the environment that goes deeper than scientific classification. I hope that traditional ecological knowledge can be learned and that we can gain this knowledge from our project.
I know absolutely nothing about gardening! To begin, Courtney and I went to Home Depot, where I bought a strawberry plant, rosemery bush, and an aloe vera plant. I also purchased some seeds-which I have not planted yet and a tomato planting kit that included seeds. So far I have only planted (or replanted) my strawberries and planted my tomatoes. All of my plants with the exception of the strawberries, are located in my kitchen-where I thought there was enough sunlight but am beginning to have my doubts!
The strawberries are another story! I planted them in large round pot and had placed them on my backporch. They were then attacked by squirrels and were not recieving the right amount of sun. I tried a couple rooms in my house-but none of them are sunny enough! Finally I moved them to the front yard by my mailbox-and I plan to plant them there permanently once I have built a raised bed there.