More Than Enough

Standing barefooted in the warm freshly tilled soil, I look at the tomato plants I have grown from seed, watching as their leaves curl towards the sun. Thirty-one of them, not including the ones in pots on the deck—thirty-five cherries, plums, and beefsteak tomato plants. Oh, and twenty-two peppers, and I haven't even mentioned the squash (butternut and yellow), zucchini, pumpkins, cucumbers, asparagus, mustard, lettuce, spinach, peas (snow and snap), beets, radishes, carrots (long and baby), mesclun, endives, Swiss chard, and kale. But the tomatoes are my focus, because there are thirty-five plants that will hopefully produce more than a hundred tomatoes for my family.

    After taking a nutrition class online this spring from my local community college, I realized just how important vegetables were for my health. Hence my current predicament of having to fit thirty-one tomato plants within a five-by-five foot square. But as I smack my lips at the thought of salsa, tomatoes on pizza, tomatoes with cheese, and numerous other veggie delicacies, I think about how many of those tomatoes we will actually use. Half of my family doesn't even like tomatoes. Maybe I shouldn't have planted so many.

    But what else would I do with them? I don't want to throw them out, because I cannot bear the thought of wasting food. Already we waste forty percent of the food supply in the U.S. (FDA, n.d., para. 1), and with my Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing, food waste is almost as much of a crime as murder.

    I think about what else I could do as I crush eggshells around the plants to ward off snails. I could give it away—or sell it. I could get a decent price for organic tomatoes. But then, they won't look as nice as store-bought ones, and with the coronavirus right now, nobody is likely to buy any from a teenage girl who raised them in her backyard. Maybe I should give away some of them. In fact, that is what I should do. It would be like giving the first-fruits to God. Except I can't exactly just drop a tomato in the offering basket at church (whenever church opens up again). Well, I could donate them to a food pantry. I think of the forty million people in the United States that struggle with food insecurity (DoSomething, 2019, para. 3), most of which don't get proper nutrients from fruits and vegetables. I just learned about them in nutrition class, and even though I don't usually think about that sort of thing, my heart now goes out to them. Even if they might have made poor economic decisions that landed them in a spot where they aren't getting enough food, if I have plenty and they have none, I should give them some of my produce.

    Yes, I decide, turning on the sprinkler for my thirsty tomato plants to take in the water. Whatever I have left, whatever I don't need, instead of throwing it out or using it as compost, this year I'll see if I can donate it. After all, there's no point in wasting food, and if God wills it I'll have more than enough.

DoSomething. (2019). 11 Facts About Hunger in the U.S. DoSomething.org.

FDA. (n.d.). Food Loss and Waste. FDA.gov.