10/06/2026
Hey friend,
Have you ever noticed that some foods seem to have a season? Cherries show up at the grocery store for a little while, and then suddenly they're gone. Then come the peaches. Then the plums. And before you know it, you're waiting another year to see them again.
Modern grocery stores are pretty amazing. We've gotten so good at growing, storing, transporting, and importing food that we can walk into a store in January and find strawberries, tomatoes, peaches, and just about anything else we want.
It's an incredible convenience. But have you ever eaten a tomato in the middle of winter and thought...
"This just isn't the same."
There's a reason for that.
Some foods simply grow better in certain seasons. And when we work against nature, we sometimes have to work pretty hard to make up the difference. For most of human history, people didn't have that choice.
They ate what was growing.
Spring brought the first tender greens, carrots, peas, and other young vegetables. Summer was filled with lighter foods—fresh vegetables, salads, berries, peaches, tomatoes. Then came fall, bringing pumpkins, squash, apples, and everything we could harvest and preserve.
And winter was different.
The foods that had been stored away became the staples: potatoes, sweet potatoes, root vegetables, grains, preserved foods, along with meat, broth, and a little more fat to get us through the cold months.
Then spring came around again.
And the cycle started over.
Now, I'm not suggesting we all need to start eating exactly like our ancestors did.
Thankfully, we don't.
But there might be something beautiful about letting our food change with the seasons.
We don't need to eat exactly the same diet 365 days a year.
A pumpkin in October and a carrot in April can both nourish us.
A tomato in August is a completely different experience than a tomato in January.
And honestly...
It's fun.
You probably don't want a big bowl of beef stew on a 95-degree summer afternoon.
But put that same bowl of stew in front of you on a cold winter evening?
Now we're talking.
Maybe seasonal eating isn't another rule we need to follow.
Maybe it's simply an invitation to pay attention.
Notice what's growing.
Notice what tastes amazing right now.
Sometimes eating well isn't about finding the perfect diet.
Sometimes it's about remembering that food was never meant to be exactly the same all year long.
Eat what's fresh. Eat what's available. And have a little fun with it
The Gardener Bob Crew 🌿
