Harvest Time in the Organic Family Garden

One of these days I want one of those old-fashioned kitchen scales so I can keep track of how many pounds of vegetables we've harvested.  The squash alone have to make it worthwhile!  In addition to our endless supply of salad greens, we're getting a respectable amount of summer squash in our little, organic family garden.

It was rewarding to her my oldest daughter exclaim, as we returned home to the garden one day, "I love harvesting!"  She's a farmer to make her grandpa proud!  Difference is, we're growing and harvesting without the synthetic fertilizers that large growers use and even without the convenient but toxic pesticides many gardeners still use today.

That's not to say it's always easy.  We've had to use natural treatments to repel pests and even lost some squash plants to a very wet week when we didn't start pruning in time.  But overall, we're happy to have enough squash to eat.  They seem to grow so fast that even a couple of days of neglect can lead to a surprise like the two giant zucchini I could barely fit in the basket.

Remember that even if you think your family won't eat squash, you can add it to vegetable soups, breads and cookies, and they'll never even know they're getting those extra nutrients.

Did I tell you we have some other type of squash growing in the garden? We'll show you those another time.

East Tennesseans can join me during the 6 am hour Monday morning on Local 8 News, when we'll talk about the benefits of growing and eating organic food.