Growing vegetables
A friend of mine (CEN) said that you need to be a cook to grow vegetables.
She's definitely right, I thought, as I was scrubbing yet more beets, onions, and leeks for part of dinner tonight. It takes time to prepare vegetables, whether they're from the supermarket or your own garden.
I'm being a good local eater and cook (and by extension, my gardening companion is, too). We've been diligently eating greens all spring (kale, collards, spinach, and chard) and recently have been eating beets, carrots, leeks, and onions, seasoned with home-grown garlic. Uh, I'd like to have a bit of broccoli, but with all of these other veggies, it's hard to justify buying any!
I do buy fresh mushrooms (shitake and button) and the occasional hot-house red pepper (I always feel a bit guilty, but hey, they're terribly healthy.
It's an interesting conundrum, in a time we can buy almost anything we want (vegetable or fruit), in the global marketplace. And it's also a 'get real' thought as many of us try to eat more 'local' food.
This was an interesting graphic from Roger Doiron at Kitchen Gardening International about the disconnect between what we grow to eat (modelled after the White House kitchen garden) and what we subsidize as tax-payers in the US.
She's definitely right, I thought, as I was scrubbing yet more beets, onions, and leeks for part of dinner tonight. It takes time to prepare vegetables, whether they're from the supermarket or your own garden.
I'm being a good local eater and cook (and by extension, my gardening companion is, too). We've been diligently eating greens all spring (kale, collards, spinach, and chard) and recently have been eating beets, carrots, leeks, and onions, seasoned with home-grown garlic. Uh, I'd like to have a bit of broccoli, but with all of these other veggies, it's hard to justify buying any!
I do buy fresh mushrooms (shitake and button) and the occasional hot-house red pepper (I always feel a bit guilty, but hey, they're terribly healthy.
It's an interesting conundrum, in a time we can buy almost anything we want (vegetable or fruit), in the global marketplace. And it's also a 'get real' thought as many of us try to eat more 'local' food.
This was an interesting graphic from Roger Doiron at Kitchen Gardening International about the disconnect between what we grow to eat (modelled after the White House kitchen garden) and what we subsidize as tax-payers in the US.
 |
| From Kitchen Gardening International (Roger Doiron) |
I enjoyed your post on growing vegetables (what joy to pick and cook!) and the graphic from Roger Doiron at Kitchen Gardening International. Our agricultural situation is sick with corn and soybeans. Hopefully, it seems that more of our fellow-eaters are becoming aware of the situation. Thanks for the post.
ReplyDelete