A Mother's Day

“Eat Your Vegetables!” – Mother

 By Good Earth Food Alliance grower, Amy Brucker

Mother’s Day began with the dog taking more than her share of the bed and, thus, my left arm hanging over the side.  But I didn’t mind because the clock said 7:00 and my husband and three kids were in the kitchen making breakfast for me.  Granted, I have taught my kids to cook so their homemade breakfasts are nothing to sneeze at:  French toast with raspberries, farm-fresh scrambled eggs, and coffee.  The best part actually came later, however, when I was “excused” to go out and garden while they cleaned up.

Gardening isn’t a chore to me.  Every morning I get to go outside and see the changes taking place in my garden beds as well as the landscape around me.  This morning, the purples, yellows, and greens of the lettuce leaves were showing.  The potatoes outgrew the thick layer of straw mulch and were striving to be noticed again.  Blossoms erupted on the blueberries.  The June-bearing strawberries were a lush carpet of green with white flowers.  Runners escaping from the pea plants caught hold of the fence and were determined not to let go.  Everywhere I looked, I saw signs of growth and change.

Yet, this garden is a representation of many types of change.  It represents a change in the way our family chooses to eat.  It represents a changing landscape from conventional corn and soybeans to spinach and rhubarb.  It represents new options for strengthening our local and national economies.  To me on this day, however, it represents eating more vegetables.

There’s a possibility that most of us could attribute our love of vegetables to our mothers. My mother was the first to suggest to me that growing zucchini could be fun.  We should have spent more hours together in the garden because, in doing so, she might have lived long enough to teach her grandchildren how to grow zucchini.  On this Mother’s Day, in memory of my vegetable-loving mother, I will make soup – and, hopefully, let someone else do the dishes.

On the Good Earth Food Alliance website:

Our CSA is nearly sold-out.  The Latecomer CSA program will still be available until May 22nd, 2009.  Find out more here.

This week, CSA members will receive an informational e-mail and passwords to access the "Place an order" webpage where they will complete their Weekly, Weekly Half, or Bi-Weekly shares and purchase add-ons.