People are picky. They are used to buying perfect produce at the supermarket. Even the certified organic produce is pretty without very many flaws.
Honestly, I used to be one of those picky people. That was until I started growing my own food. Holes happen. Since growing my own food I have to wonder how even organic food is so flawless. Then I realize that just because it’s organic it can still be drenched in chemicals. It just happens to be chemicals that are from “natural” sources.
We don’t spray anything. The only thing we do use is some Sluggo (iron phospate) around new seedlings to give them a fighting chance against our onslaught of slugs and snails. Now that we have ducks roaming our garden we have to be especially careful about what we spray.
I’ve opened up enough heads of cabbage filled with slugs and worms (earthworms, which perplexes me – a whole other post) and found enough dead earwigs in cooked artichokes to get over my pickiness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not racing to eat a slug even by accident and I do cut out the damaged parts, but some holes in a couple of leaves doesn’t make the entire thing garbage. When you put a lot of effort into growing food you realize that holes aren’t scary.
I think it was Lynda Hopkins that said in her book The Wisdom of the Radish “If the bugs won’t eat it you probably don’t want to either.”
As a kid growing up gardening in England (a place rife with slugs) I picked up a tip from my Grandmother to prevent finding an accidental garden slug slithering across my salad plate. All the leaves are separated from the lettuce/spinach/kale whatever, and soaked in sink-full of cold water with about a tablespoon of salt. Just soak for a few minutes. Slugs and soft-bodied insects like aphids don't like the saline environment, and fall to the bottom of the sink. After a soak and a swish, scoop out the now slug-free leaves, and give them a good rinse in cold running water. Not sure if it will work on earwigs though, they're made of tougher stuff!
We have to learn to share our vegetable with some insect if we want a organic garden.
we've got a terrible case of leaf miners around here. whatevs. i know it's organic when it's got the holes 🙂 (loving lynda's book – hilarious commentary about corn with worms in it)
Just washed a bunch of earwigs down the drain cleaning some lettuce. Ate it with the holes – just tore off the brown bits.
Growing up my mom always talked about how you know produce is good if the bugs liked it, too! (Though while I don't mind the evidence they were there first, I do get a bit grossed out by slugs in the cauliflower… I'm always paranoid that I didn't get them all out..)
Imperfect food looks like real food. We get the occasional photo worthy harvest, but most often there are holes or something. Real food!
check out the story of an 14 acre organic urban farm here:
http://www.savethefarmmovie.com
http://www.facebook.com/savethefarmmovie
Love the reminder that real – not perfect is best…..generally the case in life I think!