My Wellness Garden Plans

March 9, 2010 2 Comments

Lately I have been looking at ways to make the wellness business work as a full time gig. It is something I  have always wanted to do, yet fear and security issues have kept me stuck in the safety of the employment of an organization. I am beginning to see through those issues and realize that I have the talents, knowledge, skills, and abilities to make my own way in this world, and do it quite nicely.

Freedom is one of the qualities I am seeking through this process–the freedom to choose when I work and for how long, the freedom to take off and go visit some place awesome, or take a class without having to ask the permission of upper management, freedom to chase my kids without a pang of guilt, and the freedom of figuring out how my income will find me.

I am trusting that the freedom I seek will also result in finding time to feed my family nutritious, healthy meals. From time to time over the years, I have been able to do this, and yet, it seems busy-ness always gets the best of those good habits. I see this transition as an opportunity to reignite that homefire.

There’s no time like the present to kick start a new habit, so I have begun to again attempt a menu and shopping list to help with the budget and the implementation of cooking from scratch with REAL food. I intend to blog on that topic as a means of accountability. I am also beginning to look at what I can raise myself, so I am setting some goals for our spring/summer/fall garden and farm this year.

I have a fairly unlimited supply of fresh free-range eggs, since we have our own chickens, so that expense is for the most part negated. We seem to consume lots of tomatoes, which could have something to do with the Italian blood that runs through my husbands side of the family. What I am reading about commercially canned tomatoes is quite disturbing, due to the effect of metal cans leaching unwanted things into the tomatoes. I guess I will be adding those to my home processing list for summer. I have never canned (or in this case “jarred”) tomatoes, but I have put up some other things over the years and I think I can get it figured out.

Other options will include fresh spinach. I’ve never really tried to grow spinach, but I am loving it for salad fixin’s and as an omelet add-in. I’ve attempted carrots a few times with minimal success, but I’m going to go at it again this year, along with beets. Maybe I’ll invest in a fancy juicer/blender thing to mush it all up together and hopefully make it taste fabulous.

I have been freezing my greenbeans the last few years, but I may go back to the canning method. The fam seems to prefer the mushy version over the almost fresh freezer style. Maybe I’ll do some of both. Black eyed peas are another good one, but picking beans and peas happens to be my LEAST favorite thing to do in the garden. It rates right up there with weeding.

Some other possibilities include potatoes, cucumbers (great for making relish with no HFCS), and of course watermelon and cantalope. There is nothing sweeter than a beyond organically-grown, left-on-the-vine-to-fully-ripen melon. My mouth waters thinking about them. Home-grown potatoes are important because of the chemicals they absorb from the soil in commercial agriculture. I discovered a couple of years ago that they aren’t that difficult to raise, and they are absolutely delicious straight from the ground to the cooking pot.

We planted several fruit trees last year, and I expect to put a few more in the ground this year. It will be a while before those help us out, and yet, I am quite excited about that possibility.

With all these plans, I will need the time flexibility of setting my own schedule. I will also need an outlet such as the local farmer’s market that is being planned. What garden crops are you planning? Do you have an interest in bringing your excess to a local farmer’s market? Share your plans with us and let’s see if we can make a difference in the health of our community.

2 thoughts on “My Wellness Garden Plans”

  1. I want copies of your menus. =)

    Or. If you’re feeling really adventurous. A predominately veggie menu with a meat on their maybe once/twice a week.

    Keep the college kid healthy too. ;)

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