Here in the Midwest, farmers markets are shuttering their stands as the growing season comes to a close—save for a few errant gourds. I’ll be sad to see the heaps of fresh produce go, but I’m also happy for the chance to step back and take stalk (har) of my own gardening successes and blunders from the past six months.
I planted my very first home garden in April; going in, it’s easy to be excited about gardening. Plant a seed, give it some water and boom: instant meals just outside your door. Well, not quite. I quickly realized that those pesky weeds don’t just give up after one round of pulling, that aphids really, really enjoy kale, and that one sungold tomato plant can produce approximately six jillion tiny fruits—I didn’t need to plant eight of them.
Scores of noncommercial operations across the country have set out on their own garden journeys this year, such as Fenway Park, with its new 5,000-square-foot rooftop garden. Thirty-one percent of public K–12 districts surveyed in the USDA’s Farm to School Census said they were growing edible gardens, and if the enthusiasm of operators I spoke with from Los Angeles Unified School District this summer is any indication, that number soon will be exploding.
Mastering an entire on-site garden is a huge leap, but a slightly smaller step—purchasing more local, sustainable products—might be more feasible for some operations. Our 2015 Foodservice Handbook reported 92 percent of colleges and 70 percent of hospitals are sourcing at least some of their products locally, and B&I operators called local products the No. 1 food trend to grow in the next two years.
I sourced my own produce through a CSA, another lesson unto itself. It was a cost-effective way to eat healthy, and opening the box every week was like vegetable Christmas in August. Too many of those Christmas gifts were eggplants, the reindeer sweater of vegetables, but that forced me to get creative. I followed the example of Peggy West, foodservice director of the Oshkosh Area School District in Oshkosh, Wis., who last year teamed up with two smaller districts to make enough ratatouille for all to share.
There’s another easy lesson here. Maybe instead of planting fewer tomatoes next year, I should get better at sharing the wealth.