How does a garden grow?

Green beans in my home garden

Green bean salad

     green beans

     potatoes

     onions

     chopped parsley and arugula

     tomatoes

     vinaigrette

     salt and pepper

Hi Winnie and Steve,

I've been thinking a lot about gardening lately -- in my case vegetable gardening.  My attempts have been pretty limited -- if a crop worked I repeated it; if it failed I crossed it off my list! This preoccupation with growing food has snuck up on me this last year.  I have had a garden for many years -- initially for the visual and aesthetic element.  But as I have developed over the years an interest in nutrition and health, I have attempted to grow more of our food and make that experience a part of my everyday life.  After I completed my nutrition education through Baumann College, I started shopping at markets that carried organic items.  I later started to do my primary food shopping at the farmer's markets.  Three years ago I joined the CSA program with our wonderful local farmers at Blue House Farm.  Now I find myself with an increasing desire to produce the food in my garden. There is a small sense of self-reliance to go to the garden and have two or three things that get picked and brought into the kitchen for preparation.  I emphasize "a small sense of self-reliance" -- we're talking baby steps here.

I seldom leave the ranch to take classes these days, but I did go recently to a class on Winter Vegetable Gardening given at Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond.  You would have enjoyed the site and teacher, Cynthia Sandberg, as it reminded me of the many small farming endeavors in Maine near your place.  It's funny how perceptions change over time, and I certainly have seen an evolution in my own thinking about the beauty of simple food.  I read a quote that perhaps gives some reason for how this evolution occurs.  "The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new places but in seeing with new eyes.  -- Marcel Proust"  That makes sense with my experience.  It is as if I am seeing with new eyes.  I feel grateful for this.

Thinking of you as always.  Donna