I am participating in Food Waste Friday hosted by The Frugal Girl. Monitoring my food waste, and documenting it with a picture, keeps me accountable and motivates me to remain vigilant in my goal to minimize, if not eliminate, food waste in my household.
I haven’t participate in Food Waste Friday in a while because I really haven’t had much to report. I was reflecting on why we had so little waste and realized that it is in large part due to our garden. 
Even though I am harvesting quite a bit of produce, gardening helps me prevent waste in a couple of ways. First, I know that I am going to have an abundance so I start planning early for how I will use it. Second, many of the items I pick as I need them, so I am not buying extra that ends up going to waste. This is especially useful for greens and herbs; it is hard to buy a tablespoon of fresh parsley or 4 cups of spinach. Third, the produce is very fresh, if for some reason I don’t get to it right away, it still lasts longer than store bought. Additionally, many of the veggies keep well on the vine or in the ground. I have only pulled up the potatoes from 3 of my potato plants. The rest are being stored in the perfect environment until I need them (or until the first freeze when I will do a mass harvest). Finally, homegrown tastes so much better that I don’t have to work as hard to get my family to eat their veggies!
Do you garden? Have you noticed more or less waste because of your garden?
Susie says
I have less waste because of my garden because I compost:-)
Alea says
April, I am working on a post about why I also keep a container garden. I agree, it doesn't matter where you grow the veggies, you can taste the difference!
Laura, Your recipe sounds incredible. I hope you will be sharing it soon! Those are Hansel Eggplant which is a very proflific variety. I have been using them in stir-frys, sliced and baked with cheese, and now I am going to try my hand at making eggplant hummus. If it is successful I will share the recipe, if not, them I will have something to photograph for a food waste post. 😀
Sheila says
I'm jealous—I so wish we had planted a garden this year. There is nothing better than homegrown produce. Have a wonderful weekend.
Laura says
We have less produce waste with items from our garden. Like you, I'm able to plan better for using it all up, and I think we just enjoy it more than what we get from the store or even the farmer's market. Case in point: I had to throw out approximately 5# of store-bought potatoes that sprouted while we were out of town, ones I had bought just shortly before we left. Potatoes from our garden, in the same environment, did better (and tasted better, too).
What are you going to do with those beautiful Chinese (or Japanese) eggplants? We love them, and actually prefer them to regular eggplant. I usually make a dish called mabo nasu with them which combines steamed eggplant chunks with browned ground pork and a chili sauce, and is served over rice. They're also great grilled.
April@The 21st Century Housewife says
My garden has really reduced food waste in our house. Like you, I pick things as I need them, but if I have to pick them early they last so much longer in the fridge than things I buy at the store. I think gardening is wonderful – even if you don't have a big garden you can grow vegetables in pots. Things really do taste better!