In Seattle, waving the “Eat Local” banner feels like preaching. Try convincing someone that they should eat local, and they’ll put a hand in your face while they shoulder their reusable grocery bag and walk into an organic grocery store. They don’t have time to think about being a “locavore” when organic is effort enough.

The food that we buy could be trucked in from California or South America, especially in the cold winter months when nary a bell pepper grows in our state. After someone has driven their Subaru Forester from across town to the grocery store and back, that bell pepper may indeed be carrying a hefty petroleum price tag.

Like many of my friends and coworkers, I’m feeling that the food I buy comes from a great distance. It’s both a blessing and a curse. If I want, I can buy products out of season and region. I can get exotic tropical fruit, spinach in winter and red tomatoes whenever I want them. We enjoy the abundance of international trade, but we also incur a cost whenever these things are brought to us from afar. A semitruck full of produce takes a lot of energy to move.

Before you locavores take up my cause like a bunch of Detroit autoworkers to a picket line, know that I say this begrudgingly. I know that it takes a lot of fossil fuel to move my diet to me and to move my SUV to the store to buy these items. I want to have what I want when I want it. Our culture has been structured to meet our demands. That’s why I can have pineapple in January and not think twice about it.

But at the same time, there is more we could be doing. Because of this, I am gearing up to start my own garden. I’m scared, to be honest; I’m worried that I’ll need to buy overalls and a straw hat that aren’t just for costume parties. I am sticking with tomatoes and herbs for now, and maybe I’ll branch out as the summer goes on. But as many farmers and their urban brethren say, it is satisfying to grow your own.

I’m most likely going to fail. A huge colony of bugs will probably devour my plants like a fabled horde of locusts, or a shady neighbor might make off with my tomatoes, but my goal in this endeavor is to learn. Many green spaces in our city could be used to feed and educate us. How amazing would Ravenna’s tree-lined green spaces be as an organic gardening co-op? Imagine rows of corn, ripe tomatoes and spinach growing right outside your front door. They would never need to be bagged and shipped. They could be eaten at their peak nutrition, right off the plant.

The UW has acres upon acres that could be used to grow good food and offer students healthy meals. It’d offer us better choices than most of the greasy HUB fare and could help kick off an urban agriculture program.

I was encouraged the other day when I walked past a Wallingford house and saw them feeding two hens. They had converted part of their modest yard into a chicken run. Their hens produced two eggs a day, and someday would be ready to roast or rotisserie. Because the operation was small, it produced barely any odor and helped fertilize their lawn.

I am encouraged by all the activism I see. Seattle has a thriving farmer’s market scene, and this is a great way to find local produce and support the state’s economy. But the best activism for local food lies right outside your front door, or even on 10 square feet of patio space, where a good friend of mine is growing pounds of good vegetables. Don’t bow to a chain grocery store’s chosen diet for you. If everyone grew even one-tenth of their own vegetables, our food culture would change immensely. Eat things that grow straight from the sun, and you can feel better about your impact.

Reach columnist Jackson Rohrbaugh at opinion@dailyuw.com.