Even with a large garden, I still have to buy some produce in summer

About now, my family begins to tire of kale, Swiss chard, lettuce and snow peas. We live in a maritime climate where many produce items simply don't ripen until late August, and some can't even grow here (such as avocados and melons).

So, I have to supplement what we can harvest with some purchased produce. Supermarket prices on produce are outrageous on most items. One local store is advertising peaches for $1.99/lb this week! (I'm sure that supermarkets are counting on most shoppers to not notice prices.)

I only want to spend a small amount of our grocery money on fruits and vegetables during the summer. So I need to be very mindful of prices as I plan what to buy. I have 3 locations where I shop for produce, and fortunately they're all along the same highway -- Trader Joe's, Country Farms (the produce stand), and Cash and Carry. I shop Trader Joe's for bananas, Cash and Carry for dried fruit, like raisins (not fresh, but we consider raisins as part of our fruits and vegetables), and Country Farms for overall low prices, yes, but I'm most impressed by their mark-down bin.

Yesterday, I made my mid-July produce shopping trip. I spent $21.95 for fruits and vegetables that will last for about 2 weeks, supplementing what I can harvest from our garden. For my $21.95, I bought 20 bananas, 2 lbs raisins, 2  12-pound watermelons, 1 head garlic, 2 large cucumbers, 3 small avocados for salads (will be ripe in about 4 or 5 days), a bag of 1 1/4 lbs of broccoli florets (marked down for 99 cents), a bag of 1 1/2 lbs of Rainier cherries (marked down for 99 cents), 3 large green peppers (marked down for 99 cents), a bag of 7 small and 1 large very ripe avocados for guacamole (marked down for 99 cents).

The cherries, broccoli and very ripe avocados will be gone within 2 days. The green peppers will be chopped and frozen. One whole watermelon to be consumed in the first week. The second whole watermelon is in the garage fridge to hold until next week. The bananas are in varying stages of ripeness and will be used within a week. The 3 unripe avocados will be added to salads over the weekend. The cucumbers should last 10-12 days. The garlic will last until I harvest our garden garlic next month. And, of course, the raisins would keep much longer than they will last here.

What didn't I buy that I saw yesterday? In the mark-down bin -- 3 ears of corn for $1, heads of leaf lettuce for 99 cents each, a bag of 1 pound of cauliflower for 99 cents, aloe leaves at 99 cents each (don't know what I'd do with aloe), bags of corn husks for 99 cents (these would be great for tamales, but that sounds like too much work right now), a 5-lb box of small oranges  for $3 that looked past their prime (would probably have been good for juicing), a 5-lb box of daikon radishes for $3 (might be good pickled, but that would be a whole lotta pickled daikon, 5-lb boxes of overripe bananas for $3 (that's 60 cents/lb, I can do better at Trader Joe's at about 40 cents/lb). At Cash and Carry, they had fresh strawberries, cherries, blueberries and raspberries for more per pound than the supermarkets. I find I have to be careful buying summer produce at the Cash and Carry, as their prices can often be beat by supermarkets.

By the end of July, more will be ready in the garden for harvest, and we'll have the variety that we crave.

When I have to buy produce in summer, I do have a few guidelines that I go by:

• fruit needs to be very low-priced -- for fruit, under 40 cents/lb for most fruit. I make an exception for berries, cherries, peaches and grapes, but still look for those items at 79 cents/lb or less. For the most part, I buy watermelons, cantaloupe, bananas in mid-summer. Plus, I often find marked down fruit at the produce stand. This week it was cherries for 66 cents/lb. Even though we have some cherries on our trees, extras are always nice to have. I'll be checking road-side stands for peaches later in the summer.
• dried fruit at $2.50/lb or less for raisins, $3.00/lb or less for dried apricots and prunes, and about $4.50/lb or less, for dried cherries. One drugstore has had containers of dried fruit on sale meeting these prices, every summer for the past several years, and I'm hoping for the same this year.
• fresh vegetables at 79 cents/lb or less, and they need to be veggies that I'm not growing, or won't be able to harvest for another month or more.

If you grow some of your produce, are there items that you simply can't grow, but like to buy? A lot of supermarkets no longer offer marked down produce. I'm hoping that they offer this to local food banks and soup kitchens. Do any of your local stores have marked down produce? Do you have a price limit in your mind for how much you are willing to spend for produce?

You are sooo lucky!

I've heard that a lot this past year. "You are sooo lucky that your house is paid for and no matter what, you won't lose it!" "You are soooo lucky to have fruit trees in your yard!" "You are soooo lucky that your kids all got scholarships to college!"

I don't like to use the word "luck". Our culture has a completely different meaning for that word than I do. Our culture seems to think that "luck" has a large component of randomness. Luck just happens to some folks and not to others, or so it is implied in western culture.

The definition of luck, that I appreciate, is this. "Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity".

You can't have a house paid for if you don't put in the effort to make payments. We knew we wanted to have our house free and clear as soon as possible. We saved a little longer than many people thought we should (8 years), and put down almost half of the purchase price to get a lower mortgage. We began making extra principle payments with the very first scheduled payment, and were able to pay off our home in 14 years. It was hard work and discipline, not luck, that got that house ours, free and clear.

You can't have a yard full of fruit tress if you don't plant those trees, or at least buy or rent a house with existing fruit trees. Our very first rented house had an apricot tree and spot for a garden. I'd never planted a garden before in my life, but did so that summer. I was hooked. Our next apartment didn't have room for trees, but we grew tomato plants in pots on the deck. When we moved to Washington, we looked for a rental with space for a garden and existing fruit trees. We hit the mother lode, 2 apple trees, 1 crab apple tree, 2 plum trees, 1 pear tree and 1 cherry tree. My husband was unemployed when we moved into that rental. That fruit accounted for a good chunk of our diet that first summer. And when we bought our current house, we set out to plant it with all kinds of fruit trees, plants and bushes. It's not luck that we have enough fruit to last us over 6 months of each year.

Universities just don't hand out merit scholarships to anyone who applies. My kids worked very hard all through high school to earn those scholarships. I'm a mom, I'm supposed to say that I have the most brilliant kids around. But the truth is, as their mom, I can see their academic weaknesses. These kids have worked their tails off in school. Two of them did a summer of tutoring, to bring their math skills up. When one of my daughters was having a hard time in her History class this past year, she upped her efforts in a hurry. She didn't finish at the top of her class, but got her grade up high enough to maintain her academic scholarship for the next year. If you ask her, she'll be quick to point out that that was not luck. That was a boatload of hard work.


So I'm not lucky, but I am fortunate beyond measure. I've been provided for providentially, and someone, somewhere along the line has put in the work for me to have my fortunes. Sometimes, we put in that hard work ourselves, but sometimes someone else has laid the foundation for us, as when a parent or grandparent leaves a generous gift to their heirs. Some of us are simply more blessed in this area than others. But all of us have been given gifts by our Creator, to use to make our way in this world (that's the providence part). Some of us recognize our gifts early on in life, while others of us don't "discover" our gifts until later. But those gifts are present, nonetheless.

What about the lottery? "Oh, I wish I could be so lucky as to win the lottery." There is some randomness in the actual winning of the lottery. But even someone who wins the lottery had to buy that lottery ticket.  I am guaranteed to never win the lottery, as I won't buy lottery tickets.

Some preparedness has to be expended, if one is to be available to seize that golden opportunity.

You can study hard and you may not receive a scholarship. Or you can plant fruit trees and you still may not harvest much fruit. But if you never work hard in high school, you likely will not receive any scholarships. And if you don't plant fruit trees, then it's certain that you won't harvest any fruit. If we had skipped payments and defaulted on our mortgage, then it is certain that our house would not be ours free and clear, today.

So, with the next giveaway that I host here, I may say, "good luck" to you all. But really, you have zero chance of winning the drawing if you don't enter. You know, I think I prefer to say, "best wishes to you." That doesn't sound at all like randomness to me.