Nature's Bounty

A recent post in late August discussed the beauty of our natural world and the awesome wonders which nature, or the handiwork of God, presents.  The wonders of nature are but one aspect of God's bounty.  There is also another aspect, and for which we all need to give thanks.  That is food.  Even in the increasingly secularized nation of today 44% of the United States continues to say grace, a prayer if you will, before a meal.  Our life as inhabitants of the earth depends upon water, food and shelter. Three key aspects to every animal on earth, but most important to humans.

Some of the tomato crop ready for processing

We have changed our cultural pattern to such a degree that not living with heat or indoor plumbing is roughing it, conditions which would constitute blight and make, at least in many parts of the United States, a building uninhabitable. People, at least many that we consider civilized, have evolved from hunter-gatherers to a people many of which today do not know from where their food comes.  The nation lost its path, and its connection with agriculture.  Enter the grow local movement which is now increasingly popular, if not near hip.  It is rather funny that growing food has once again become a thing to do.  Mediocre restaurants use the term to drum up more business on the idea that locally grown is better and healthier.  I was at a Madison Fire Station today, and they prided themselves on their own site produced vegetables.  It is not uncommon to hear of foods contaminated by some source or another being recalled. Spinach and lettuce are often culprits. Hence, the idea of local food is to know where your food is grown. Nothing can be more local than the food one grows with their own hands.

Cutting up to make tomato sauce

I guess you could say that my wife and I have been part of the grow-local movement long before there was a grow-local movement.  We have had a vegetable garden for the 24 summers of which we have been married.  Our garden does not receive the sufficiency of sunlight that it should as neighbor trees shade it about halfway through the day, but yet we find some success.  However, planting of a second garden a half hour drive away gets much more sun and productivity.  For example, an eggplant in our garden may produce perhaps two or three, while the more distant one with its higher level of sun, and what appears to be better soil, produces ten or more.  The distant garden is relegated to plants which can wait a week to be picked.

Tomato sauce being cooked

Some crops need picking every day.  A good example, is tomatoes.  Tomatoes need to be picked in our home garden every day.  One reason is that we have some varmint which takes a bite out of the ripe tomatoes, so we need to pick the tomatoes just before prime.  Lucky for us, tomatoes ripen off the vine.  Pests and varmints are a bane to more than Mr. MacGregor. Of course it is difficult to refer to a cotton tailed bunny a varmint.  I planted my first garden here at my home on a Monday 24 years ago.  You are probably wondering how I know it was a Monday, but it was not a journal, but my work life.  I woke up on Tuesday morning to find that about half my plants were just plain missing.  Because of a Tuesday night meeting, I could not go out and get fencing; that would have to wait until Wednesday.  By Wednesday, there were no garden plants remaining.  Darn, those Tuesday night meetings.  The fence would go up to help project the seed rising from seed.  It was a double whammy since many of plants I had started and nursed from seed in my basement.  I had to go out and buy the tomatoes, broccoli and other seedlings.

The results of Saturday canning

But, plants mature and they need to be harvested and eaten or preserved.  I try to space out broccoli, but it does not matter--they all come at once.  Sometimes you want a good amount of produce at once, like when you want to preserve food--such as tomatoes.  But, some things we would prefer, such as broccoli, to come over the course of a few weeks.  Peppers seem to behave better than broccoli, while they arrive later in the season, they seem to spread themselves out; plus they can last longer on the vine before having to be picked.

Pears being cooked down in both the dutch oven and the stainless steel pot

Perhaps a more difficult part is the work entailed in preserving the food. There are two ways we preserve food, freezing and canning.  Since we do not use a pressure cooker, we are limited in what we are able to can.  We have frozen over 15 quarts of green beans this year.  We took this on with team work cleaning, cutting, blanching, bagging and freezing the beans.  My wife has the more difficult task, as she does most of the canning.  Cutting, cooking and canning has been much of her task this early part of September.  She has made salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, as well as canning tomatoes.  Giving the term labor to Labor Day weekend, she toiled over ten hours combined between Saturday and Monday canning.  It is one thing to can in front of a hot stove when it is 70 degrees outside, but temperatures pushing 90, and high humidity make it something else.  AIr conditioning could not keep up with her level of activity.  Besides canning the above this weekend, we also picked, cooked and canned several jars of pear sauce--think of a sauce made with pears instead of apples.  But what we mainly can is tomatoes, or the varied aspects which use a tomato base (salsa, for example).  I used to plant about 40 to 45 tomato plants, but we are now grow about half that number.  Yet, we still get plenty of tomatoes, and so her canning will continue, regardless of the number we are able to give away to friends or coworkers.

Canned tomatoes and pear sauce

It certainly is easier picking, cleaning and storing squash or potatoes.  Yes, some may go bad over time, but we have found a method to clean squash that allows us to have butternut squash from last year saved into October the following year.  We may lose a few, but at least some crops are easier to preserve than others.  Our freezer would not be sufficiently sized to freeze all the tomatoes, or pear sauce.  My wife and I make quite the team in our gardening and preserving.  Yes, some things are in her own purview when it comes to canning.  Not only does she prefer it that way, but I think she wants to keep me away from a knife so as to avoid a trip to the ER.  She did, however, let me cut up a good share of the pears.  I, on the other hand, have the work at the front end planting and tending the seedlings as they arise in our basement, and in planting, mulching, thinning and weeding the garden.

Of course, you may not want to pop a fresh cayenne pepper in your mouth

Tomorrow we will be picking more tomatoes, and that of course means more canning for my wife.  When that ends it will be grapes.  Fresh produce is a wonder to behold, and when you grow it yourself you can eat a fresh carrot just washed out of the garden, a handful of just picked (I mean just picked) raspberries, or a sugar snap pea right off the vine.  All, plus other fresh crops--onions, radishes, lettuce, produce a great tasty sensation.  When eating these fresh fruits and vegetables you can not help but think of what toil and sweat can produce when you nurture to bring about nature's bounty.