Whatta-melon!

Yay! We have watermelons! Oh, and carrots and tomatoes and basil and chives! We had strawberries earlier this year, too. All this from our own garden and its all from organic seeds. I'm pretty proud of this because if you really knew me, you'd know that I have never been a gardener. I've always liked the concept of growing fresh food and whipping up homemade meals, but it seems there was always the lack of either time, space or genuine interest. Then came the kiddos. Like most any other mama, I'm concerned over what my kids consume. Like my dear friend Courtenay noted in her fantastic blog, "I do not want my children to grow up in this land of agriculture thinking that their meal comes in wrapped styrofoam, resplendent with antibiotics and growth hormones and mega-syllabled chemicals." This way of thinking comes fairly recently for me, and honestly, took me by surprise. I remember about 10 years ago, when my cousin Melody warned me about milk. Milk? How on earth could there be anything wrong with something so common to the table? She told me of the chemicals that go into growing the food that the cows eat. She told me about the antibiotics and steroids given to the animals so they would continue to give and give and give... and I thought she was totally nuts. Then, when my daughter was born lactose-intolerant, it took us almost 4 months to figure out what was causing her misery. (and mine!) I was nursing her, but she screamed for hours after eating, was gassy, fussy, rash-y and every other kind of -y. Then someone said, "Maybe she can't handle dairy." I never thought of that. So, I removed all dairy and dairy products from my diet. There would be no milk, no cheese, no milk chocolate, no ice cream, nothing containing whey or casein either. Wasn't easy, that's for sure! Within a week or so though, it was like she was a new baby. Unreal. I never had trouble digesting dairy, nor did my husband, so this was all new territory for us. I became the consumate lable reader, scanning every package for anything that might set off her tummy. Doing that made me more observant about what exactly was in our food. There were things I couldn't pronounce, much less know what they were or what they did. I learned about food and what passes as food nowdays, and I've decided that just because something takes away the empty feeling in your stomach, does not make it food. As I've gotten older, I've developed my own sensitivities to certain things and being more vigilant about what does what to our bodies, is why we decided to put in our own garden. We use no pesticides, no chemicals. We chase the bugs away with soapy water and use vinegar to whither the stubborn weeds. I want my kids to know where the food they eat really comes from, how it grows, and what it should taste like. I want them to have a hand in the harvest and to know that the good stuff doesn't come in a box from a fast-food drive-thru, it comes from the warm soil right here at home.