I don't buy.... Vegetables in the Summer

 We certainly have been enjoying the produce from the garden! It made me think about how little food we have bought over the summer.

We don't usually manage to not buy any veggies at all over the summer but it does come pretty close. We start with eating lettuce, radishes and peas and then go into eating beans, kohlrabi, zucchini and cucumbers and then we get to the place like now where we are enjoying not only many of the ones listed about but also tomatoes, corn, broccoli, eggplant, tomatillas and more. We are still looking forward to enjoying carrots.

  To avoid buying we do sometimes eat whatever is in season quite a bit and have a little less variety than I might prefer but I think it is worth it.

What are some benefits of eating what you have straight from your garden?

• You save money. The amount of produce we get from our garden is worth far more than the seeds we put into it. Naturally there is a fair amount of work involved too but I consider that my exercise program and one I much prefer to working out on any machine.
• It is great quality. We use good natural seeds and avoid any herbicides or pesticides.
• It tastes wonderful! Nothing has to be picked far before it is ready and then shipped 1,000 miles to get to us. We pick it at its prime and enjoy it right away.

I do think it is fun to figure out how to use new vegetables (like eggplant is a new one for me this year) and new ways to use "old" vegetables like zucchini.

Not long ago I decided to treat us to some homemade onion rings and then decided to try dipping some thin slices of zucchini in the batter too and frying it. It was pretty yummy. Here is a recipe for batter for onion rings.

 Our garden has done fine this year. We have eaten quite a lot out of it and canned somethings as well but if we just had our garden we wouldn't be putting up a whole lot of stuff for winter - there just isn't that much extra of more things. My parents garden is a different story however! They have big gardens at their place and it is harvest time right now! They have put a bunch of stuff in the freezer themselves but this week Mom wondered if I wanted beans to can, corn to freeze and apples to make into applesauce (besides also sending over even more cucumbers and zucchini!) - I said yes- I pretty much never turn down good food like that.

   The last three days the kids and I have canned around 63 jars of beans, applesauce and salsa (part quarts and part pints) and we put away 30 large containers of corn away in the freezer. I still have another 5 gallon bucket of apples to process. We are very, very blessed! (and very, very tired!)

  Do you eat a lot from your garden? Is harvest time a busy time for you?

I am linking this to Frugal Friday at Life as MOM