Grow Your Own

Being on a budget makes you creative. You start looking for ways to supplement your food supply. This week we attended a seminar that had a table heaping with food, much of which was left over. We asked permission of the staff (it's good form), and when they heard that we have a gaggle of children, they were happy to send it home with us (it's also less for them to clean up and throw away).

Catered windfalls being rare occurrence, supplementing our food supply takes on other forms. We have tried for several years running to grow a family garden--with varying degrees of success. It's a matter of finding what grows well in your area, and then being more persistent than the bugs and the weeds (and the squirrels and the birds and the deer).

So far we've had no success with blueberries. Oh, we found the right acid soil and plenty of sunshine for our row of blueberry bushes, and treated them with the fertilizer they love. And they've reciprocated by sprouting some good-looking berries. Whether they taste good or not is something we couldn't tell you, because right before they are ripe, they squirrels and birds tag-team it and decimate the whole crop in a single day. Next year we're going to imprison the bushes in mesh and then sit back and laugh at the miserable would-be thieves.

Buried Treasure

Our friend Josef assures us that that he has grown a wealth of broccoli and blackberries. Other things that
we've grown with modest success include potatoes, tomatoes, and beans. The children especially love the potatoes. "Look Daddy, 'tatoes!" they gleefully shout when we're digging the shovel into the ground and turning over the harvest. They're so impressed to find all that food waiting for us under the soil. The adults take turns turning the earth, and the children paw through each pile looking for the buried treasure, screaming with delight with each discovery. We've rarely seen them get so excited about anything.

Once our meager gardening skills are exhausted, we head to the farmers' market. For fresh, locally grown produce at a decent price, it's hard to beat a farmers' market. We've gotten to know some of the farmers, so it has become something of a social event too. We try the latest crops in season, and swap recipes for how we're going to process whatever we don't eat raw. Hat tip to our friend Laura for the idea of scooping up the bruised $4/lb tomatoes for $1/lb at the end of the market to make into sauce for pizza, pasta, etc. This stretches the food budget almost as well as bringing home the catering.