Four seasons harvest - how to do it

Below are some photos of cauliflowers which over wintered in our greenhouse and now are giving us some food in springtime - the hardest time of the year to have fresh food.

Srila Prabhupada has told us repeatedly to grow our own food and thereby we will become independent or at least somewhat self sufficient of the karmi rat race civilization. Who doesn't want to be free or have as much freedom in his life as possible and not be under someone's economic thumb all the time?? I would guess almost everyone.

As devotees we know nobody can ever be totally independent, but as devotees, we should be as independent as possible of the materialistic civilization at least in the food for eating department. Our dependence should be directly upon Krishna and His material energy for our sustenance - and that one does when one grows food for himself and family. 

In the pictures below this particular variety of cauliflower has a ripening time of about 210 days which is a very long time to wait for some food. Like seven months!  And being somewhat impatient I really don’t like waiting that long. But in this case I had to wait. So Krishna has kindly arranged other varieties of this same type plant that can yield its  fruit (or vegetable in this case) in differing times of a growing season.

For example just in the cauliflower species alone, one can plant seven different kinds of cauliflower and harvest them from September through May of the next spring. That is for nine months you can have fresh vegetable subjis to offer to Krishna! And then we have the other three months in the actual summer here where we grow all kinds of other things. So just with cauliflower alone, one can have it fresh all year. This assumes of course, that you like cauliflower, which I do.

The types available here are Amazing, Cassius Cheddar, Needles (the one below), Purple Cape, Galleon, and Maystar. Each variety has a different germination time or staggered so that if one plants them at the correct times, and is a little bit lucky as well, he or she can have fresh cauliflower all year long.

So what I have given here is a brief look at just one vegetable and how through four seasons, you can have it.

And there are also many others which will give you fresh food all year long. For example - beets, kohlrabi, spinach, brussel sprouts, cabbage, all kinds of lettuce, radishes, etc, etc.

One adds these fresh vegetables to one's already harvested and stored foodstuffs like potatoes, squash and beans, and you can make what seems like unlimited varieties of delicious meals to offer to the Lord and then honor that meal, savoring every morsel of that fresh food that Krishna has nicely provided for you.

And furthermore, when you are done picking your cauliflower, you can use the leaves from that same plant to make a delicious and highly nutritious Cole slaw salad.

Anyone who eats almost every day like this has a very small chance of ever getting cancer because there are so many nutrients just within this family of vegetables that prevents this disease from growing in your body.

Comments welcome on this article.....

► Conversations, May 27, 1974, Rome

Prabhupada: No, no. These varieties... Suppose you grow half a dozen different types of vegetables. So from this half a dozen you can make three dozen varieties. If you are a good cooker. So the varieties of enjoyment will be fulfilled. We have got some desire of different quality of varieties. That you can make. From milk, vegetable, grains, the three things, you can make three hundred varieties.

►Conversations, April 3, 1975, Mayapur  
             
Prabhupada: Yes. Why don't you solve? There are so many land. Come here and grow food. Grow fruit. That is... That is the desire of Krishna. Annad bhavanti bhutani. Produce food and eat in sufficiently, be strong, and chant Hare Krishna. That is our philosophy. Why you are producing bolts and nuts, tire and tubes? Eat.

► Conversations, November 2, 1976, Vrindavana       
         
They are not even civilized. We have come to make them civilized. They should understand. They are not civilized. They do not (know) how to eat even. The first principle of life is eating. They do not know how to eat. We are teaching them how to eat. They simply challenge, that's... When men are uncivilized, they do not know how to grow food, they kill animals in the jungle and eat. When they are civilized, they know how to grow food now and the nice food grains, fruit, flowers....

► Conversations, April 1, 1975, Mayapur              

Prabhupada: You don't distribute. You live only, till the ground and take your food. Where is the question of distribution? Whatever you can till, you take so much land. God has enough land. Why do you possess more? One acre of land is sufficient for producing your food. Why do you take more?

► Conversations, May 27, 1977, Vrindavana
                                          
Vrindavana with Krishna and living and cows. That I want to introduce. At any cost do it and... Don't bother about big, big buildings. It is not required. Useless waste of time. Produce. Make the whole field green. See that. Then whole economic question solved. Then you eat sumptuous.

Eat sumptuously. The animal is happy. The animal even does not give milk; let them eat and pass stool and urine. That is welcome. After all, eating, they will pass stool. So that is beneficial, not that simple milk is beneficial. Even the stool is beneficial. Therefore I am asking so much here and..., "Farm, farm, farm, farm..." That is not my program--Krishna’s program. Annad bhavanti bhutani. Produce greenness everywhere, everywhere. Vrindavana.

► Conversations, November 2, 1976, Vrindavana
               
 Guru-krsna-krpaya paya bhakti-lata-bija. We want two favours. One from guru, one from Krishna. That's all. We don't want anyone's favour…