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Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

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Blueberry Fields Forever

Posted May 17, 2010 by Gary Beemer

Updated May 17, 2010 at 02:49 PM

Feeding two college-age boys and two hungry dogs is costing my wife and me an arm and a leg nowadays. A basket full of groceries used to be less than our mortgage payment, but that’s rapidly changing.

During the beginning of the recession it seemed like there were some good deals to be had. But now, weary retailers who have demanding stockholders have decided that it’s time for them to make some healthy profits by raising prices on everything we buy, or offering smaller packages at the “old” price.

On a recent trip to a home improvement store I found myself in the garden department. They had a wide selection of fruit and vegetable plants so I decided that this would be the year to cultivate the back forty.

I loaded up on blueberry and raspberry plants. My wife added pots of assorted herbs along with three selections of tomato plants – Cherry, Roma and Beefsteak.

I could already feel the shopping basket getting lighter. No longer would we have to buy overpriced fruits and vegetables from parts unknown!

My wife showed me the latest above-ground gardening tips from Martha Stewart’s LIVING magazine, so it was off to the home center again to buy wood, stakes, top soil and fertilizer.

Our dreams of self sufficiency soon grew into a Green Acres episode. Apparently the blueberry plants offered at the home center don’t grow very well in Florida, and you need more than one variety for cross pollination – or guess what – no berries. You had to have acid soil to grow them in, and they need full sun and water. After a second trip to a nursery and more plant buying, we finally have enough of the right plants in the right soil in the right place to yield three or four berries a day. Oh how nicely those little treasures decorate the top of my shredded wheat…

All in all, I figure that I have had the pleasure of growing my own fruits and veggies at about twice the cost of buying them at the store.

Not to worry. Next year I’m going to double the size of my garden so my wife and I can both have berries on our cereal on the same day… Now that’s living.

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