Home-canned pickles. Photo credit: firefly64's Flickr photostream
I’ve been gardening for about 15 years now, but didn’t really have much of a kitchen garden until a couple of years ago. Last year, my family moved into a new house with a blank slate for a yard, which gave me the opportunity to imagine all the possibilities and just how big my kitchen garden could get.
As of this spring, I have about 400 square feet dedicated to food, which is my largest garden yet. I created all this space, as well as my surrounding flower beds myself, most of it last year after we moved in. Needless to say, I have invested hundreds of hours in creating this little botanical utopia. I’m not even going to stop and calculate how much money I’ve spent on seeds, plants, dirt, mulch, and more.
I love gardening. I believe in gardening and its positive impact on my health, my family’s health, and our environment. Nothing pleases me more than to walk outside on a July afternoon and pick veggies and herbs for our dinner. Once October rolls around and my garden stops producing, I miss having fresh tomatoes and basil and more.
My husband is on board with all this too — he benefits from all the great produce, but also from having less yard to mow, and he believes in gardening for the same reasons I do. Like me, he loves having a freezer and pantry full of last summer’s bounty. However, last week, he said something that stopped me in my tracks and which I have been thinking about ever since.
I was telling my husband about my plans for something in the garden — canning pickles this summer — and he commented, “Why bother? It’s less expensive to just buy them at the store.”
Why bother? That really stuck with me and I’ve been pondering it for days, wondering if what I’m doing is really worth the time and effort.
The answer is a resounding YES. Growing my own food and eating locally and seasonally IS worth the effort. Cooking from scratch and preserving the bounty of my garden means that my family eats better throughout the year. Our food doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup and other additives, plus home-cooked food using fresh ingredients just tastes better.
As for those pickles, it costs me almost nothing to plant the cucumbers, dill, and garlic I’ll need for dill pickles. Vinegar is cheap too. One day in July or August, I’ll find that I have too many cucumbers on hand, so I’ll pull out some jars, various ingredients, and my canner and I’ll whip up a batch of pickles, which should cover all the cook-outs and barbecue dinners my family will have in the next year.
When I can my own pickles — or make spaghetti sauce or chicken broth or bread crumbs — I control what ingredients are used. I know that my food doesn’t contain crap that I don’t want my family to eat. I know that my cucumbers, garlic, and dill will be organic, because that’s how I garden. I know that my pickles won’t contain any ingredients that I don’t want in them.
Yes, there is a cost to my time to make the pickles and preserve, but that doesn’t concern me because I’m making them because I want to — because I want to bite into one next winter and remember the bounty of Summer 2010.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I couldn’t agree with you more. Although I only have a kitchen/herb garden outside my backdoor and my tomatoes are grown in containers, I think your philosophy is sound.
Why bother? Because you can.
I agree with you. Also – to answer “why bother” you can buy many things but they usually are not as good as you can make yourself in your home. Nothing tastes the same as home grown. You carefully prepared soil imparts a flavor to your veggies that no commercial offering can duplicate – which is why tomatoes never taste the same when grown commercially compared to a tomato on the vine on a hot summer day. I was in No. Va. Sunday and ran across a big clearance sale at a store that is being remodeled. I got pickling salt, spice and lime for under 1/2 price. I purchased most of what was on the shelf. We will be eating more than just cucumber pickles. You should think about a jar or two other pickled treats – pickled carrots, green beans, onions, garlic, cauliflower as a mix, also pickled pears and even pickled shrimp – a Savannah favorite where I come from. Happy harvesting and happy pickling!
I just printed this and I am taping it to the back of my cupboard door. Since going back to work full time, I have neglected both my garden and my pantry. You have inspired me to jump back in!
There’s a satisfaction to growing and putting up your own food that can’t be translated into dollars and cents. There’s the security of knowing that you can provide for your family with your own hands. And no, you can’t buy pickles cheaper than you can make them yourself!
ah Jen. You have my heart, and my mind. What I don’t have is the space, the water, or the will. I love how you threw the random “crap” word in your inspiring post/message!
Because that so pleasingly describes what we (the public “we”) think is okay to do—eat and eat and eat, not paying attention to what exactly it IS we are putting into our bodies. . . I love food, I adore walking out into my yard and seeing what is growing that I lovingly planted with my own bare hands! This year, in particular, I have put a lot of work/effort into what I have planted, and yes, it is mostly in containers, but what I have done is going to put my mind into bliss, when it’s blooming, and producing. It is cheap, mostly free (the blooming/producing) doesn’t pollute anything or anyone, and the payback is priceless. I wish I could taste your pickles you put up! And I second the pickling of carrots. I can almost taste them in my mind!