My Cantaloupe Garden

If you visit my garden this summer, you might see cantaloupes growing everywhere. It's not that I plan on growing fruit, it's that over the past three weeks, I've thrown into my compost not one, not two, but three whole cantaloupes. I figure with the number of seeds in there now, we're sure to have at least one plant spring up somewhere in our flower bed.

I know what you're thinking, "What kind of a wasteful person buys three cantaloupes in a row when it is completely clear that she was unable to cut and serve the first... and the second?" The kind of person who does such a thing is the same person who bought two cantaloupes on sale for the price of one earlier this week. (For the record, I cut up and served both of those immediately.)

It's not that I wanted to be wasteful, it's that those three weeks were incredibly busy with a deadline looming for a first pass at my novel revisions. There was no time to cook, never mind do laundry or clean. So we had scrambled eggs and mac n' cheese for dinner, and we pretty much ran out of underwear and socks.

I wanted to shake things up. Add some variety to our diet, but I just couldn't find time to cut the melons.

My kids are tired of the now soft apples I've been buying at the grocery store every week since our farmer's market ended. Apple slices come home from school every day — barely eaten, and yes, get tossed into the compost. I can't say I blame the kids because there's nothing worse than a mealy apple — even if it is organic and US-grown. As it turns out, my girls don't care much for oranges, tangerines or clementines either. (Citrus is the only other US-grown fruit we can find in the winter.) I threw half a dozen of those in our compost and gave the rest away to our piano teacher. (He also received a full head of greens, three green peppers, and a handful of onions.)

Mid-way through this crazy period, I relented and purchased pre-cut melon and pineapple hoping I could make sure I wasn't totally neglecting nutrition.

When I went to the basement to dump those plastic containers into our recycling bin, I was wracked with guilt. My husband had forgotten to take the recycling out the week earlier and there was a small mountain in my basement. I was horrified at how much stuff we had accumulated in just two busy weeks — cereal boxes, jars from tomato sauce, macaroni and cheese boxes, milk cartons, old art projects, and homework we did not need. We'd been so busy that we'd regressed to our old wasteful ways: tossing, tossing and tossing away. Instead of cooking bulk dried beans, I bought cans (BPA-free, of course). I bought packaged chicken nuggets, waffles, and popsicles perhaps in an effort to somehow make up for feeling neglectful during such a busy time. It was easy to slip backwards.

Being good to the planet is so more than just recycling. Imagine how much energy it's going to take to repurpose all that stuff. It doesn't matter that soda bottles turn into carpets and milk jugs into cutting board. Just because it doesn't end up in land fill, doesn't mean there won't be an eco-cost.

The biggest challenge I need to work on is reducing my waste altogether — and that's hard when I'm burning the candle at both ends. That's hard for any fast-paced family. The bad news is, there are more busy times ahead, and reducing requires a great deal of planning, careful shopping and cooking. Until my novel is sold, I'm daunted by that prospect.

So I'll just appease my guilt with the knowledge that tossing a cantaloupe ... or three ... into the compost, along with some rotten root vegetables and uneaten lettuce, will not be my worst offense this winter. At least I will have rich soil, and if we're really lucky (like, magically lucky), that soil could be home to some melon plants.