Gardening

Scott and I are starting to plan our garden. This will be the third year that we've rented a 20' x 20' garden plot down at the community gardens. Normally, we grow lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets, tomatoes, peas or beans, onions, and some type of squash--mostly zucchini, since it grows like crazy. After reading Barbara Kingsolver's newest book where she lives off of the land (only she had 40 acres to live off of and slightly more money than we do), I've become a little obsessed with growing--and canning--my own food. We grow beets because you can preserve them and eat them later in the year. Much later, it always turns out, because we always forget they are on our shelf, so it sort of defeats the point. But they're canned, by golly! I do buy fruit at the farmers' market in the summer and make all our jam for the year. The jam is really good, and I know exactly what is in it, so I like doing that. But I think that the need to make my own cheese is slightly ridiculous, even though I really like cheese. I did freeze most of the peas we grew last year and those were really good. But Scott draws the line at growing our own corn so we can freeze it, since it would be an incredible amount of work for just a little corn--and take up our entire plot

Oddly enough, I find that I eat worse once we start planning the garden. Somehow I can't bring myself to buy lettuce in the store, since I could have my own in just a few weeks (okay, more like a month). The worst was when we accidentally grew the type of broccoli that took all summer to produce. We didn't eat broccoli for three months, just because I couldn't bring myself to buy something that I was growing at home. The bad part is when it all comes in at once, and then you don't want it any more (like when we grew four tomato plants because I thought I wanted to make and can my own spaghetti sauce). But I love planning the garden and weeding it. In fact, I fully admit that I like weeding more than I like growing. Scott's always urging me to come look at the new life that's pushing through the dirt--"not now, Dear, I have to weed." It's a good thing he likes to plant or else we'd just have a weed-free patch of dirt.

Of course, it's supposed to snow AGAIN tomorrow, so we have to postpone our planting just a little while longer.