Dollars and Cents

The garden had gotten a little grassy lately. The sun has been hot, but then we've gotten rain every few days. Weeds love that.
This morning before the sun rose above the tree line, I fired up our ancient Troybilt tiller and knocked out the middles. I then went in for the close work and pulled a bale of weeds by hand from around the okra and a row of flowers. I could almost hear the plants sigh, and stretch their roots.
I picked about a half basket of tomatoes that we've been watching for the last few days. A few of them were as big as softballs. I held the stems close to my nose, closed my eyes, and took a deep whiff. I wish I had words to describe the aroma of freshly picked produce.
Tonight Jilda made pasta salad and we made use of tomatoes, scallions, jalapeno peppers,  and basil from the garden. I'm not sure food gets much better.
When I had a day job, my coworkers used to chide me about having a garden. Why would you invest the time and money when you can stop by Walmart and get it much cheaper, they'd say.
I'd always smile and say, that "getting produce at Walmart is not the same." I can't explain it, but it's not. When we grow food, we know that it doesn't contain anything harmful. We know how it was grown, picked, stored, and that it was on the vine/plant, moments before it was used in our meal.
We have the added bonus of getting outside and digging in the soil. We get exercise from digging, hoeing, tilling, and harvesting our food.
We not only take from our soil, but we give back with grass clippings, autumn leaves, and food scraps from our table.
So call me crazy, but I think growing part of our food is smart. Sometimes true value is not measured in dollars and cents.