Hold On To Your Hats!

When the garden produces, it really produces. One of the things I struggled with when I started to garden was “What do I do with all the food?!”. My garden began when I lived alone so I was trying to find a way for one person to use all this produce as it was coming in and it was nearly impossible. Yes, I gave a lot away to other; and yes, I had many people over so I could feed them from the garden (and for the pleasure of their company).

My garden began sometime back in 2014 so I’ve had many years to try to work through the season of abundance in the garden.

What have I learned:

Eat seasonally: I can buy a star fruit in a New York grocery store in November. Whoa. I want to take a moment to appreciate that because that has never been a reality for people up until very recently (and that is still not a reality for most people today). Now sometimes I will get that starfruit and marvel at what is possible.

It has taken a conscious effort to change how I cook and plan food. When you’re thinking seasonally you’re using what is abundant and shying away from things that are out of season.

Collect recipes for what you grow: I don’t want to reinvent the wheel each garden season, I know I grow summer squash every year so Ive collected half a dozen summer squash recipes that I know work. Find a few simple recipes that use up a lot of the ingredients that are maturing all at ones. I have a recipe book where I save these recipes and a board on Pinterest where I have those ideas pinned.

Figure out preservation options: I found the easiest option is the freezer, but there is limited space with that option. I can somethings. I try to experiment with a few new canning recipes each year so I can add that to the collection of recipes. Maybe someday I will get into more preservation methods but for right now this works for us!