Ever since the first summer after we were married, which is now 25 years, we’ve had a garden of some sort. Our first gardens were small and located in reclaimed flower beds along the south fence. Each year, they got a little bigger in size and variety. When we moved away to Toronto, we had congenial landlords who let us plant small vegetable gardens so we were able to keep our hands in the dirt. When we came back to Michigan and had our own place, we devoted a larger area to our garden. Our “annex” in the neighbor’s yard this summer has given us a generous addition of space for even more growing. In short, in our married life, we’ve never gone without a garden.

So when we decided to participate in the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge, we decided that eating from our garden was going to be acceptable. As Jim wrote, “We consider our ‘kitchen garden’ to be a political-spiritual practice that reminds us that food is not essentially merchandise.” The food from our garden is not “free” of course, but it’s something we’ve consistently budgeted for and planned around, always. Our gardening is not ‘just for fun.’ We grow what we eat and we eat what we grow. We garden purposefully and without any chemicals of any sort. Our garden is very much a part of our lives.

That said, I don’t know how we could have done the Food Stamp Challenge as successfully without having a garden of our own. We’ve eaten our own produce for every lunch and dinner. Our shopping budget was used to buy the things we don’t grow, which is really a lot of things: milk, eggs, bread, bacon, and on. Our fresh produce this week has essentially been what we’ve grown: kale, yellow squash, tomatoes, butternut squash, eggplant. We would have been hardpressed to buy those on the Food Stamp budget. We would have had to go without something.

Many lessons have come my way this week. I’ve been reminded how easy it is to take food for granted when you can. We planned our meals for the whole week ahead of time, a practice that we have used from time to time; under the constraints of the budget, planning was completely necessary. This has reminded me that spontaneity is costly in the food department. I’ve been surprised too at how much food has been on my mind. We haven’t gone hungry certainly, but I’ve spent a lot time thinking about the planning and preparation of inexpensive meals and the small shelves which hold our groceries. I’ve looked at our garden in a new light. For many reasons, it’s a place and practice I could not do without.

See more progress on: participate in the Michigan Food Stamp Challenge

It was a good year for peas. We planted snow peas with the intention of eating them with stir-fries and other Asian dishes. That didn’t happen very often. Instead we devoured most of the snow peas raw, in salads and snacking them on their own. They were that good.

All good things come to an end, though. Peas are one of the first seeds we planted, one of the first plants to germinate, one of the first ready to harvest. Their spring cycle is relatively short. By mid-summer, the pea plants wilted and scorched under the hot summer sun.

This was our last meal of snow peas.

It’s not the end of the garden however. We’ve got miles to go. Thank heaven.

As a sign of goodwill, the last of the peas coincided with the first of the green beans. We have two favorite ways to prepare green beans. One is stir-fried green beans with garlic. It’s simple to make and zestier with a splash of soy sauce added to the pan in the last minute.

The second method is new to me. On a dvd of Julia Child‘s long-running pbs television series The French Chef, she prepares green beans in the French method: clean the beans and leave them whole; plunge them into a large pot of boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes; rinse them in cold water immediately; then just before serving, saute them in butter for a minute or two. This method makes a fabulous dish.

Gardeners should know better. When you turn your back, things grow out of control, so you should know better than to dare to go out of town.

We answered the siren call of friends and went to Toronto for 2 separate couple day visits in a two week period. We enjoyed seeing our friends and catching up on the years that have passed since we all lived in the big city. We had some great times. We shopped, we ate in restaurants, we saw the sights.

And we came home to a garden that had gone wild in just a couple days.  We have to relearn this every year: plants always grow faster when you aren’t looking.  If you should dare to go on a vacation, you better be prepared for the consequences.

The sunflowers are out in full force now. We probably have three dozen good-sized blooms. I love their happy, smiling faces. They are lovely and unique! Because I cannot resist taking pictures of sunflowers, here’s today’s stars:

Hey, how’d that last one get in there?