Dear Kitchen Gardener,

July is a both a festive and explosive month in my household.  As a multicultural, multinational family, we celebrate Independence Day three times: July 4th, July 14th (with our French friends for Bastille Day) and today (the national holiday of Belgium - my wife's native country).

As gardeners, of course, we celebrate our food independence every day these days in the form of a yard exploding with healthy, organic produce of different colors, shapes, and flavors. 

We're trying to keep accurate records of all the food we're growing this year.  It's not even peak harvest time yet, but already the numbers are pretty amazing, for example: 20 pounds (9kg) of salad greens, 9 pounds (4kg) of asparagus, and 33 pounds (15 kg) of strawberries which isn't counting all the ripe berries eaten on the spot by my family and our very happy resident chipmunk. 

The challenge at this time of the year is not getting a harvest, but keeping up with it and the work involved.  It's good work, though, and manageable when a group of people - big and small - pitch in.

I want to thank those of you who pitched in last month by responding to our appeal for funds for our friends at the Organic Agriculture Center of Kenya.  Together, we raised $800 which they'll use to help families and schools plant new organic kitchen gardens.  We also sent them a simple video camera that will allow them to record and share the results of their project, thereby increasing the impact of their work.

I also want to thank those of you who have lent your support to our "Eat the View" campaign in some way (signing our petition, signing yourself or your group up to our campaign website, joining our Facebook group, including a mention or widget on your website or blog, etc).  We're really starting to attract a lot of positive attention for this effort, including an article by syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman which appeared in hundreds of newspapers and TV coverage across New England.  We've got a fun "Eat the View" group project up our sleeve which I'm going to share with you in a special message in the days ahead.  Please be watching for it and join in if you can.  If we have enough people pitching in, August could get very interesting.  Have I piqued your curiosity?  Good, stay tuned.

In the meantime, I hope you're starting to think about how you're going to recognize Kitchen Garden Day on August 24th.  If you're lacking inspiration, here's a surefire recipe for success:

Ingredients:

-friends, family and neighbors (young, not-so-young, green thumbs, greenhorns, etc)

-delicious local and home-grown foods

-laughter

-learning

-music

Procedure:

Combine all ingredients in a garden or on a local farm and allow them to mix, mingle and steep.  Serve with joy and gratitude.

More soon!