One of the best things about growing your own vegetable garden is being able to make a green smoothie using leaves which you harvested only a few minutes before.
I like to walk out in the early morning and cut a few leaves from one of the kale plants, a few leaves of Swiss chard, and throw them right into the blender after a quick rinse-off.
Above is one of our garden's kale plants which, like the mythical hydra, seems to grow two more leaves whenever one of them is cut off. You may be able to notice from the photo that I like the "square foot gardening" method of Mel Bartholomew.
It is a matter of only a few seconds to throw the fresh leaves of kale and chard into the blender along with a banana, some coconut milk, and some pineapple and blueberries, and mix up a delicious smoothie.
Here's what it looks like before the pineapple and blueberries go in. You can see the big leaf of chard behind the kale leaf, both of which were picked just a few minutes before and never had to sit around in a refrigerator.
Charles Hugh Smith has declared that: "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." He has also said, "If you like eating, begin liking dirt."
Thomas Jefferson, who knew a thing or two about this subject of freedom, liberty, and revolutionary acts, seems to agree. In his landmark Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now" (266).
Kale and Swiss chard are excellent fall and winter crops for your garden (for readers in the northern hemisphere, that means now!).
In fact, we are now approaching a full moon (in less than 24 hours). According to those who know about such things, the time to plant vegetables which produce their harvest above the ground is during the waxing moon (so you've got less than twenty-four hours if you need to plant something in that category for this cycle!), and the time to plant vegetables and tubers which produce their harvest below the ground is during the waning moon.
Here is a previous blog post which gives a quotation from R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz on that subject, and here is a link to a video with Santos Bonacci in which he briefly discusses the same subject beginning at the 28:00 minute mark.
You too can rush your own leaves of kale, chard, and whatever else right from the garden to your table, with only a few seconds in between. All you need is a place to garden -- which can be in the most unlikely of places, as "guerrilla gardening" guru Richard Reynolds has repeatedly demonstrated. Notably, Richard seems to do much of his gardening at night (perhaps he has also read his Schwaller de Lubicz -- who knows?)
You may even decide to read aloud from Jefferson as you do so.