The Myth of Growing Your Own Food...

Now that the weather has become inhabitable over the past week, I was able to get back into my garden.  This entailed, harvesting, weeding, replanting, pulling dead plants, etc.  This then necessitates the food preservation process of pickling, fermenting, roasting, freezing, etc.  This is beyond a full time job.  Yesterday alone, I pickled 6 quarts of red beets.  This entails boiling each batch for over an hour, cooling them, removing skins, placing in jars, making a brine, and filling each quart with brine.  And that's just the beets. 

I roasted 2 trays of cherry tomatoes with cut up garlic and basil.  Made a double batch of the Santorini tomato fritters requiring cutting up 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes, chopping onions, scallions, basil, oregano, dill, parsley and basil...all after hand picking the said ingredients.  Refrigerate the batter for 2 hours, then deep fry them. 

I roasted 2 trays of peppers after de-seeding them, saving seeds on coffee filters and cutting them up with onions. 

I boiled a dozen turnips for a few hours, then mashed them with butter and salt.  

It is beyond a full day's work.  And this is after dealing with the groundhog attacks, chipmunk attacks, blight, cabbage moth caterpillars, watering issues, etc...and this is with over 15 years of experience.  Not as easy as it might seem.