I realize there are a bunch of chuckle heads out there that like to plant a garden and think that they are all "green", whatever the hell that means. Many of these simpletons forget to harvest the food... perhaps the tumbleweed that is rattling around in their head still makes the sound "I am a gardener". Who knows, everybody is busy... too busy to get their food... only enough time to slog through traffic to go buy food from a food serving establishment.
If you are a chuckle head i implore you to find the power within to change your ways, you can do it. Or get in touch with myself and i will come and harvest your food... we are in that time of year where the weird line between stealing and salvaging start to blur. Walking around the neighbourhood there are a few roadside gardens with produce starting to rot in them... like they say you can always tell a human but you can't tell them anything. I'd even be happy to harvest the food for these people and get it to them like it would be in a store, but you know, start messing with somebodies garden, you are messing with their space, and taking their freedom... a real no no. There needs to be more emphasis on food harvesting... because the stores sell vegetable starts they are promoted and there is a buzz among consumers to buy them and get with the program, but yet there is no consumer triggered response to harvest the food. We need more harvest festivals... more harvest alerts... community "things we can make with tomatoes" contests. Yes Yes, frame it in the idea of a contest... we like contests, everybody wants to be a winner!
Don't get me wrong, if planting a garden gets you outdoors in the spring touching the soil, then that's a good thing, i just hate to see waste. Apparently North Americans throw away 40% of the food they buy... not to mention the idea that we shit in drinking water... but hey we share facebook links promoting environmental stewardship. Sure sure, it's easy to be a critic of a politician who is a puppet for polluting industry, because their line of crap just doesn't jive with reality. What is reality? Slippery slope for a gardening blog. Reality is, if the food you grew is ready to eat you should harvest it. Cut your broccoli before it is a mess of pretty yellow flowers, grab your tomatoes before they ooze back into the earth... and if your cilantro went to seed, then harvest the seeds... it's coriander, a fine spice.
Heirloom Tomatoes-
I planted a few this year... i will never go back. Silver fir is a neat one. They are a bit more susceptible to earwig infestations, but if i were an earwig, that's where i would want to be... inside of a delicious tomato. The flavour and structure of the fruit is unparalleled and you can cut away the bits that have earwig infestation. Some people get real squirrley when it comes to bugs in the food, but the alternative is chemicals on the food, or a tasteless tomato bred to look good on a shelf in a store. I'll put it to you this way... a slug or a bug has probably been on your food if it's worth eating.. that's why god created running clean water for the chosen folks like us... maybe it was science and technology that created running clean water... it's so hard to tell in these election years what the facts are.
Roma Tomatoes-
These are the tomatoes you cook with, they reduce down to a fine sauce.
Cherry Tomatoes-
Are for snacking on, or throw them into a salad. Or you can get fancy and cut in half add basil, feta cheese, balsamic vinegar and a touch of spice to make a king hell salad.
We have been eating beans and Swiss chard at will, and a second round of hood strawberries is coming to fruit. i have eaten a few carrots that my daughters washed up for me, and the beets are looking large. I did waste the Vancouver Canucks victory salad... i put it back into the earth to fertilize for next season, if you know what i mean. Will there be a next season? Or will some bizarre global weather phenomenon that nobody could have predicted shut things down. Ahh the unfortunate side effects of of the human love of money... if i can have more money then screw the masses.
Living with less money should be the foundation of gardening, but it often doesn't work that way. A poor man with a rich life grows his own vegetables and poaches his own meat, which reminds me to buy a fly fishing rig. I need trout like i need omega oil.
It's true... a vegetarian diet will cure what ails the man and the society he lives in, but for tomorrow i might have a BLT, to really use those heirloom slicing tomatoes.
If you are a chuckle head i implore you to find the power within to change your ways, you can do it. Or get in touch with myself and i will come and harvest your food... we are in that time of year where the weird line between stealing and salvaging start to blur. Walking around the neighbourhood there are a few roadside gardens with produce starting to rot in them... like they say you can always tell a human but you can't tell them anything. I'd even be happy to harvest the food for these people and get it to them like it would be in a store, but you know, start messing with somebodies garden, you are messing with their space, and taking their freedom... a real no no. There needs to be more emphasis on food harvesting... because the stores sell vegetable starts they are promoted and there is a buzz among consumers to buy them and get with the program, but yet there is no consumer triggered response to harvest the food. We need more harvest festivals... more harvest alerts... community "things we can make with tomatoes" contests. Yes Yes, frame it in the idea of a contest... we like contests, everybody wants to be a winner!
Don't get me wrong, if planting a garden gets you outdoors in the spring touching the soil, then that's a good thing, i just hate to see waste. Apparently North Americans throw away 40% of the food they buy... not to mention the idea that we shit in drinking water... but hey we share facebook links promoting environmental stewardship. Sure sure, it's easy to be a critic of a politician who is a puppet for polluting industry, because their line of crap just doesn't jive with reality. What is reality? Slippery slope for a gardening blog. Reality is, if the food you grew is ready to eat you should harvest it. Cut your broccoli before it is a mess of pretty yellow flowers, grab your tomatoes before they ooze back into the earth... and if your cilantro went to seed, then harvest the seeds... it's coriander, a fine spice.
Heirloom Tomatoes-
I planted a few this year... i will never go back. Silver fir is a neat one. They are a bit more susceptible to earwig infestations, but if i were an earwig, that's where i would want to be... inside of a delicious tomato. The flavour and structure of the fruit is unparalleled and you can cut away the bits that have earwig infestation. Some people get real squirrley when it comes to bugs in the food, but the alternative is chemicals on the food, or a tasteless tomato bred to look good on a shelf in a store. I'll put it to you this way... a slug or a bug has probably been on your food if it's worth eating.. that's why god created running clean water for the chosen folks like us... maybe it was science and technology that created running clean water... it's so hard to tell in these election years what the facts are.
Roma Tomatoes-
These are the tomatoes you cook with, they reduce down to a fine sauce.
Cherry Tomatoes-
Are for snacking on, or throw them into a salad. Or you can get fancy and cut in half add basil, feta cheese, balsamic vinegar and a touch of spice to make a king hell salad.
We have been eating beans and Swiss chard at will, and a second round of hood strawberries is coming to fruit. i have eaten a few carrots that my daughters washed up for me, and the beets are looking large. I did waste the Vancouver Canucks victory salad... i put it back into the earth to fertilize for next season, if you know what i mean. Will there be a next season? Or will some bizarre global weather phenomenon that nobody could have predicted shut things down. Ahh the unfortunate side effects of of the human love of money... if i can have more money then screw the masses.
Living with less money should be the foundation of gardening, but it often doesn't work that way. A poor man with a rich life grows his own vegetables and poaches his own meat, which reminds me to buy a fly fishing rig. I need trout like i need omega oil.
It's true... a vegetarian diet will cure what ails the man and the society he lives in, but for tomorrow i might have a BLT, to really use those heirloom slicing tomatoes.
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