Beans!

I can completely relate to how much work it takes to grow your own food. 

Summer here in the Carolinas can be hot.  This year, it has been worse than that. 

In the spring, when the weather is pleasant and the seeds go in, it can be an exciting time.  Now it's August and this year, like the last two years, trudging out to the garden to harvest in the oppressive heat and humidity is a chore.  Don't get me wrong, I still love discovering what has ripened up under a patch of leaves, but I start to sweat, profusely, after about 45 seconds and the mosquitoes can see me coming as soon as I get out the door.

This year has been less than stellar for veggies.  Every hungry variety of insect and fungus has torn through the garden.  Everything seems to be eating our food but us.  We have friends who find random growing squashes and tomatoes in their yards that are bearing more than  our carefully cultivated plants. I suppose if we ignore everything, our yields might be better.

A few  crops are doing well despite the invertebrate and fungal assault.  Take green beans for example....  To date I have more beans blanched and frozen in the freezer than anything else.  It is impossible to keep up with them.  If you don't pick them young, they get tough and stringy.  I would have to set up a bed next them to stay on top of the harvest.  Last month it became apparent that I was losing the battle so I've opted for a different approach.  We let the pods mature and brown, then harvest them for the beans inside.  That way, I could just let them be.

Today I went out and cut hundreds of the dried pods and proceeded to open them for the seeds. The process took nearly an hour and yielded probably one good side dish for the family.  That's cool.  Its always nice to reap the benefits of work in the garden, but being realistic, I understand that I wouldn't feel the same if I had to do it every day and it was my only source of food.  For all too many, that's the reality.  Its easy to say "Oh, those came from our garden" with a smile when you know you can go to the supermarket up the street and buy the same quantity for about a dollar if you didn't feel like going to the effort to process your crops. The air conditioned supermarket is always an option for most of us.

So what am I getting at?  Part of having the garden is not only to work towards being self sufficient (which we obviously aren't this year) but to understand and appreciate the work that goes into growing and raising your food.  Especially if it is your only source of food.  For a lot of people on this planet, a cucumber beetle infestation can be devastating.  For me, its merely disappointing.  The little buggers found our cukes and tunnel into them, making them rot inside.  At least the chickens love them.  If I need cukes, I can get them down the street.

I guess a little part of the enjoyment that comes from gardening and raising food is knowing that you have the option to not do it and still survive.  If my meals came only from the yard, I'd be mighty hungry and irritable right now.  I would certainly be eating a lot of omelets.  So far, the chickens have provided the only sure thing this year.  It doesn't take much to keep them happy, plus they eat everything that failed in the garden.  As far as the food / effort quotient is concerned, the chickens win hands down this year.  I'm sure those ratios come into play even more for folks that rely solely on what they can raise for food.

A backyard garden is romantic, cool, green, in vogue, progressive and a host of other adjectives.  For those of you out there that have one, the next time you pick a tomato, yank an onion or collect a few eggs, give a brief moment of recognition to those who do those things to survive.  I appreciate the natural processes that provide my family with food and will continue to do so.  Those same processes can also be confounding.  C'est la vie.  Fresh squash is on sale down the street.