How Does My Garden Grow?

This summer, I’ve been especially amazed by the size of the veggies from my garden. A 5.5 pound zucchini named Mammoth takes the cake, but I’ve also picked several other zucchini nearly the same size and huge tomatoes as well.

Normally when I see very large food items – think extra large chicken breasts, apples the size of melons – I’m turned off. That commercial chicken was probably injected with steroids and antibiotics, and the apples may have been grown in fertilizer-enhanced soil and sprayed with pesticides. All these things are very unhealthy and completely unnatural.

But I credit the large items growing in my garden to composting. I’ve talked about composting before, but I must reference the importance and simplicity of composting again, as I’ve seen its benefits of late. Composting is the most natural way to get important minerals and vitamins back into the soil. It’s especially important if you use the same patch of land for your garden year after year.

Composting it’s also nature’s way of recycling. Before I learned any better, I figured that food scraps tossed into my regular kitchen trash bag would just disintegrate at the landfill. But because the food is locked into a trash bag and crammed into a heaping pile with other trash, it pretty much just sits there…for a long time. (And to be honest, thinking about everything in a trash bag disintegrating back into the ground really freaks me out.)

I’ve had people ask me – is it better to throw produce scraps away or put them down the garbage disposal? My answer: Neither. Start a compost pile and send those nutrients back into the earth. Spread the compost in garden and around your flower beds in the fall. Give the earth a little something back for all its given you!