What I’m Eating

Today, for the first time this year, I’ll be eating homegrown, organic lettuce from my garden. Yum.

I’ll probably be eating lettuce every day for about two weeks, until it’s gone.

Next up: strawberries.

I think my strawberries, also organic, will start ripening by mid-June, which is early for Seattle. Looks like my 100-square-foot plot will produce a bumper crop again this year. Last June, I picked a quart of berries a day for weeks.

Fresh berries for breakfast, with lots left over to make jam. Nothing compares to homemade strawberry jam, to hear my sons tell it. They eat it by the tablespoon when they think I’m not looking.

Onions and chives are ready to add to my first salad of the year. Ready soon: peas, carrots, beets and their greens … tomatoes are just blooming, so it will be weeks before I pick the first tomato—always something of an event. And potatoes will be ready by late summer.

I also have a "volunteer" in among the lettuce and onions. I think it's a pumpkin, from a seed that got dumped into my compost pile. This is great: I love surprises in the garden.

I spend at least an hour in my garden most mornings. There’s always work to do.

The benefits of gardening: exercise, stress reduction.

The benefits of eating homegrown produce: better nutrition in fresh-picked food, living more lightly on the Earth. Shipping food hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miles to market uses up a lot of resources.

More on gardening:

Grow Your Stress Away

The Cancer Garden

Bamboo: Eat It, Grow It, Wear It

Paradise in a Pot

My Mother's Garden

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[Doreen]

I also have a garden that is my passion and the focus of my eating well program. Shopping for great food is just a few steps away! I have learned how to grow food nearly all year, thanks to our climate. I am envious of your strawberries though!
I am also a big foodie and am passionate about marrying delicious food and healthy eating--please check out my other blog...
http://web.mac.com/dcsdesign1/iWeb/Site/Blog/Blog.html

[Jeanne]

Doreen--where do you live that you can grow food most of the year? I'd like to have a green house or sun room so that I could have tomatoes for a longer season. And lots of other things, of course.

Maybe next year. So many summer projects already on my list ...

Jeanne