Onions and more on convienance

I've gardened at this house before I lived at this house. For many years we added a new garden bed each year. We're holding at 7 garden beds (2 shy of my 9 years here) then again we started growing fruit and herbs in our front yard last year so when I use the side yard for lettuce this year I'm guessing my gardening expansion is right on track. One year we were able to grow and store all the onions we needed for that year, most years we get pretty close. This year I ordered way more onions than we would need intending to share but I think I ordered way more than I will be able to share as well. If I find places to plant them perhaps we'll have another year of onion independence.

Yesterday I finally planted our sweet onions and today started planting the storage onions. I'm actually proud I got back out today to plant. So many things call for my attention and honestly I'm just tired after a day running around after a one year old and keeping up with a 10 year old but I got out again and felt mostly nourished by the experience (except for my aching back but that's another story).

I guess a question comes to mind - How is it that someone who has gardened for the last 9 years some years pretty seriously be struggling so hard to have veggies as part of their daily fare? I was a vegetarian for several years and have reintroduced meat to my diet for the last several years taken wheat and gluten out of my diet for the last two years and am trying to move to more of a paleo diet for myself. I'm after good health, ease and fun. I find myself wanting to emulate vegetablatarians, folks who eat manly vegetables, rather than try and exclude so many specifics. And so as I recommit to increasing my daily vegetable intake, I intend to concentrate on all those glorious veggies I can include in my diet.

Today salad for dinner saved the day for my and my son's veggie intake, baby food squeezers worked for my grandson. We tried another convenience veggie food at lunch - a dinosaur and star shaped patty of spinach and potato - tastes like a tater tot with some green. My grandson took a bite - didn't seem to mind it but didn't go for any more and my son took a bite, said yum and then oh wait no yuck, I'm guessing he got the potato flavor first with the aftertaste of spinach. I hope I can come up with some homemade veggie convenience items that will work better than these as we continue along our journey. I guess just admitting I need convenience to incorporate more veggies throughout the day is a place to start.

Convienance Veggies

Yesterday as I contemplated this new blog I found it ironic that I really didn't have any vegetable dishes planned but I guess that is the point, I would really like to incorporate more vegetables into our diet on a daily basis.

So what did I do for veggies? I started out with... apple carrot baby food - yup for real. I have a 1 year old grandson that I watch 3 days a week and as he has transitioned to table foods I'm faced with the challenge of keeping fruits and veggies front and center in his diet. He loves the squeezable organic veggie mixes and so far he's enjoyed having them as snacks and part of his meals still. There are a couple of brands that advertise themselves as snacks for everyone... so I figured why not? And actually why not, except they are pretty expensive for a daily thing and in reality the packaging waste really isn't necessary but the whole situation illustrates where I am at this moment on this journey. My other convenience veggie...fermented vegetables - sauerkraut (red apple caraway) made by an amazing local producer, Fab Ferments. They offer so many varieties I'm heartened imagining utilizing cultured vegetables more on a daily basis and they definitely are convenient. I could use some more ideas, though, especially for keeping vegetables in my grandchildren's diets and also incorporating more vegetables in my 10 year old's diet.

Beginning

In some deep simple ways life is about how we grow, how we nourish ourselves, if we turn and face the sunshine. I as I'm sure many of us do strive and struggle to find balance, purpose and fun in life. Lately for me my health, my family's health and well-being, how I exercise, care for my self, nourish myself, how we approach and take care of our finances, how we learn, how we live, how we contribute to our family and our community, well in some way it can be related to vegetables and my daily efforts to make sure we interact and nourish ourselves with them. I'm not certain yet that everything in this blog will tie back but spring with several garden beds ready for planting seems like a good time and place to start with vegetables.