Eat What You Grow - The Challenge

For our next pioneering challenge here at Pecan Bluff, we will eat what we grow.

Now, we already eat lots of stuff we grow, so to make this experiment more challenging we will keep track and see just how much home grown stuff our family of six can consume in the months of April and May. We'll also track how much money we save by eating homegrown foods from the garden, henhouse, herb beds, orchard, and deep freeze.

Right now the garden is growing like gangbusters, the hens are laying well, the freezer is full of our pecans and our own ground beef, and the tank and creek are full of fish. We have plenty to fill our table if we'll just work hard to harvest and use it wisely. We want to be thankful for the bounty He sends us every day. This is going to be a fun challenge!

We have several reasons that our family wants to try to learn to better use our resources while they are in season. For one, Mike and I developed a philosophy about using our homegrown goods ~ the fact is that at this stage in my life I don't really have time to can foods.  So, I only do a little canning every year. We do like to put up pear preserves in the fall, we pickle beets, and we make green tomato relish just before the first freeze in the fall to use up the tomatoes that won't have time to ripen. But canning throughout the year just requires a bigger chunk of my time than I can afford right now. So, if we use what we grow when it's in season,  I can let go of my guilt over not preserving foods throughout our long growing seasons.

In lieu of stocking up by canning, we prefer to just creatively use the things we grow when they are at their peak of freshness and nutrition, and while they are most abundant. In our climate it is possible to grow some sort of vegetables virtually year round. Our family tries to grow a variety of things, and try out new plants for the garden, so that we have lots of different ingredients to cook with to make homegrown meals more interesting. Even with our efforts to use it fresh, sometimes you eat it, and you share with all of your neighbors and church family, and there are still piles of veggies that have to be dealt with. It is then that I'm most thankful to have deep freezer space to freeze surplus veggies that really get ahead of us (like shredded zucchini and other squashes, peppers, onions, and tomato sauces.)

There is another reason we like to eat it when it's fresh. It teaches us a great lesson in gratitude. Learning to be grateful for our food, even when it feels like we are up to our eyeballs in okra all summer long, is a great way to remind ourselves that God provides every good thing we have, and we are to be thankful to Him. When we traveled in Ethiopia last year, we were vividly reminded of the many luxuries we take for granted in America. It becomes easy to crave all kinds of things in our daily lives ~ exciting entertainment, new toys, new activities. We expect lots and lots of choices, and we often feel like we are being shorted somehow if we don't get exactly what we want, when we want it. So, our trip was a great reminder to be thoroughly grateful for all the abundance we have at our fingertips. We never want our children to buy into the idea that what God has given us is not good enough, because we truly have so many reasons to be thankful to Him.

Our children are already being really good sports about the Eat What You Grow Challenge. They know that millions of people the world over eat rice, and only rice, day in and day out. And those hungry people are glad to have that rice once per day. We saw people in Ethiopia who would have loved to have anything to eat, and it was heartbreaking to see the desperate need up close. A simple thing like eating what we have, when God brings it forth from the land, is a good way for our family to remember to be thankful in everything, every day. That means having a truly thankful heart, even for spinach on our plate the tenth time in a week, because not only is it healthful and delicious, but it is a gift from our Heavenly Father. So, we pray that this challenge will strengthen our family's gratitude for the Lord's provision.

Stay tuned to see what what shows up on the table at Pecan Bluff!