I laugh every time I see gardening recommended as a way to save money on food. Sometimes I feel that I might as well compost money and use that as the fertilizer for my garden, because it certainly consumes more than it produces. Rather than trying to justify the cost through the value of the food, I just call it a tradition and a hobby that is worth the expense.
That being said, I continue to garden, and each season my garden grows larger. Being in Texas, we can grow pretty much all year, but it is much different than gardening in Washington, so I still don't really know what I am doing. Last spring's garden failed miserably, but we were able to can 27 pints of green beans from our fall garden, along with giving away piles of Okra that we planted out of frustration in July when the heat killed everything else.
Yesterday was my first winter harvest ever. I have peas, beets, and carrots growing in the garden right now, and I finally decided to pull some of the beets up for dinner last night. I remember hating beets as a child, but the microwaved beets and buttered beet greens we ate last night were fabulous.
Hopefully this year will be better for my garden. I just ordered seed potatoes online, since they will be the first thing to be planted in February. By the time the gardens are being planted in Washington, we should know how the first harvest is going here.
Good Gardening!
That's funny! Eric and I always laugh at the $80 green pepper we grew a couple years ago. Luckily, it gets cheaper as you go. I'm jealous you can grow all year.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, we really liked the beats from our CSA (except when we got too many). I love the greens with a dressing recipe I have... and my kids will even eat beats raw!
ReplyDeleteI actually really like beets raw, but everyone else thinks I'm crazy, not to mention they are messy. We just sauteed the beet stalks with some sliced onions and butter until they were soft, then wilted the leaves over top. They turned out really good.
ReplyDeleteHey, will you blog about some of Emily's cakes?
ReplyDeleteI don't really want to blog about her cakes, but I'm trying to convince her to!
ReplyDeleteThe size of the beets makes a difference in how they taste, I think. Remember those huge beets from the neighbor's garden one year?
ReplyDeleteI was actually hoping to be able to can some beets, but they are all maturing at different rates so I don't think that we will ever have enough ready all at once. They are planted in a new section of the garden, so I think some just hit "sweet spots" where my fertilizer landed, and others got starved. Over time hopefully our garden will stabilize a bit.
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