Awash With Squash

I came across a link to an article by Wendell Berry while perusing the Bless Our Hearts blog. The Wendell Berry article is about food and gardening and the relationship we have or should have with our food. Since I'm now awash with squash, seems like a timely article for me. If you don't garden, he gives you a couple of real good reasons to produce some of your own food. We'd all be a lot healthier if we had a better relationship with our food.

Now that the Square Foot Garden is producing, I need to remember to change a few things for next year. As you can see from the photo, the squash is crowding out the peppers. Since I value peppers much more than squash, that has to change. Also, the tomatoes are doing the same thing even though I left an empty row in front of them.

I made a really good brown rice dish the other day that included fresh peas from the garden and the Missus made me a gooseberry pie Tuesday. The red raspberries are coming in now and I'll soon have peaches that are ripe. The problem with the garden abundance is that everything comes in all at once, so either you preserve it some how or it goes to waste. The Missus knows how to can but when the air conditioner is running overtime in the July heat, do you really want to set a huge pot of water to boil in the kitchen? I was thinking about making some peach wine as a way of using some of the fruit, but having never made wine before, do I really need to get into all that? I do have the Whiz Bang apple grinder and cider press I made a couple of  years ago for when the apples come in. Some apple wine or hard cider might be pretty tasty this winter.

While all the rain we've been having has been keeping my arse planted on the mower seat much more than I'd like, it has been nurturing the garden, the fruit trees and the bramble fruits. I'll easily recoup my 200 dollar investment on the SFG this year alone. Next up on the gardening front is figuring out how to extend the growing season. Peppers from May to November would be nice. Read the article. Plant some food.