Thursday, September 11, 2008

Waste Not Want Not

Thank you fellow "Farm Girls" for accepting the challenge of supporting your local farmer. We have enjoyed your posts and are looking forward to hearing more from you.


I have had a very blessed week. I harvested about 25lbs of tomatoes from my neighbors garden that were going to waste, 6 more zucchini, 4 cucumbers and a hand full of strawberries. Another neighbor saw us picking and brought us over a big brown bag full of pears and 5 persimmons!

Just this morning a different neighbor let me and my 3 little ones pick 2 full brown bags of pears and a brown bag full of the most delicious apples I have ever had. Shortly after picking, he came back out with a bag of grapes and said, "Come back for more whenever"!...........What?

I asked these folks why they don’t use this free food. These were the responses that I heard:

  • ‘It's only the 2 of us and we don’t can or freeze anything’
  • ‘The fruit has bugs and I don’t like to eat bugs’
  • and my personal favorite; ‘I don’t like fruit’! …….WHAT?!!?

So farm girls, in 3 days I have gotten all this for free! I’m very excited about this free blessing and THANK THE CREATOR for his bounty. I also can’t help but wonder why these folks would let all this wonderful food go to waste.

*ENTER SOAPBOX*..... The reality is that obesity is at an all time high, diabetes, mental illness, depression, ADHD (aka crock of crap) yadda, yadda; so I ask you, what is common in all of these illnesses? Minerals... YES, proper nutrition; you can weigh 350lbs and still be malnourished.
We load up on boxed food and pass up the "apple with bugs"…

Hunger is America is on a constant rise yet there is tons of rotting produce because ‘We don’t like fruit or veggies'. So I’m frustrated with fact that many of us in America would rather eat out of a box then off the trees that were created to nourish us mind, body and soul.

With this blessing I am going to make grape juice and the hub is going to make wine (shocking, I know), L and I will be canning pears on Friday and tonight I will be making apple butter (my kiddos fav), as well as applesauce for baby Eve to enjoy this week!

The large amount of tomatoes I froze whole for stew, soup and what ever else I choose. I also made a HUGE bowl of salsa. I will of course have more tomatoes out of my garden and again from my neighbors, which I intend to use to make pasta sauce, slow roasted tomatoes and stewed to can( with L).

With the zucchini, Olivia (my 2nd born) has requested zucchini/pumpkin bread, yummers! I'll shred the rest and freeze it. The persimmons didn't even last a day and was such a HUGE treat for our family.

Our cows, goats and chickens are enjoying the harvest also as they grub on all the rotting fruit that we pick off the ground on farmer road at night when we take our walk.

Enjoy the harvest girls and Let no zucchini go to waste!

J

4 comments:

Lateda said...

Hey wonder woman!
Hmm hmm.. I am all about supporting the cocoa bean farmers.. I mean seriously, someone has to feed the children in Africa.
Ta Ta!
la~Te~Da

Lateda said...

PS. Could you get going on the "farm kid know how".
Thats more my LEVEL of experience and knowledge with farming.
This picking, harvesting, cooking, over achiever, grape stomping, farm girl* stuff is killing me!
Lets make a scarecrow:)

Amber Strehle said...

Preach it sister! Right now I'm all about supporting the grape farmer..from Napa Valley.

Timi said...

I have been on a roll ever since I read your last post. Now I'm going to really have to kick it up a notch!
Have you seen the magazine Hobby Farm Home? This months issue is about the harvest. It's great. Makes me want to make my own ketcup! Last year I took all the cherry tomatoes at my folks house that were going to waste and dried them. They were FANTASTIC!!! We ate them in pasta, salads, and pizzas.
I can't wait to get more this year.
Happy Harvest!
Timi