Why I Garden

I groused to Mike over the weekend about the amount of time that I spend in our vegetable garden.  All that weeding, watering, fertilizing, picking, planting and tending takes a huge chunk out of my week.  The truth is, though, that I consider my vegetable garden as my summer 'job'.  It's the reason that I'm able to be a SAHW and why I was able to be a SAHM for so many years.  We have producedmany thousands of dollars of vegetables and fruits over the years!  If you also factor in the savings provided by the canning and freezing of all that produce, the cost savings over buying all that food at retail is quite substantial.  That said, that's not really the bottom-line reason why I garden.  This is...

This is my lunch.  Or it will be after I make it into a frittata.  No matter how high-end the store, no matter how expensive the produce, no matter how well-known the grower, no produce tastes better than that fresh-picked moments before cooking/eating. 

I had an interesting on-line conversation with some former gardeners several weeks ago.  They declared that it was far cheaper for them to buy their produce at discounters like Winco than it was for them to try to grow it themselves.  While I don't agree to the cost savings they claim, my big disagreement with their argument was the lack of taste and freshness of their choice of vegetables.  Absolutely nothing compares to the taste of the first tomato of the season.  Nothing.