I always used to say that my dad never planted a tree unless it was the fruit bearing kind. In our Northern California yard we had apricots, pears, plums, lemons, guavas, kumquats, kiwis, and Chinese apple pears. During the summer months lemon cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and strawberries also flourished along with the experimental produce that my brother and I urged them to plant.
While it may sound like I grew up on a farm, I assure you I didn’t. My parents found a way to maximize our yard’s growing space by incorporating seasonal home grown fruits and vegetables wherever possible. We supplemented what we grew with local produce from weekly visits to the farmers’ market where fruits and vegetables of all kinds were hard to resist and my parents were always willing to purchase in order to let us have a taste.
My philosophy about food was shaped by my parents and while I don’t have my dad’s amazing fruit trees as part of our landscape in my DC Metro yard, I’m incredibly proud unplugging when the weather gets warm in favor of spending afternoons outside gardening with our kids to eat locally and organically as often as possible.
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| Red raspberries |
Last year during a visit, my dad gave our home garden a new fence and a real swinging gate (hooray!) to keep our energetic Labrador outside and away from tender seedlings. It was the first year that the deer didn’t crane their necks over the fence to nibble off the tops of our tomato plants.
Thanks to newly designed plots, we enjoyed a huge crop of snap peas, sugar peas (pictured below left), yellow and green patty pan squash, cucumbers, red bell peppers, cherry tomatoes of all colors, broccoli, string beans, butternut squash, lettuce, spinach, carrots, strawberries, and red and black raspberries. Captain Computer also chose leeks, popping corn, and asparagus to plant and we’ve heard asparagus can take up to three years to mature so we’re waiting to see what year 2 brings!
Even though the weather has fluctuated between winter and spring, we’re getting head start on this year’s garden. We’ve already talked about what we’ll be planting and are amassing yogurt containers to house seedlings. Our garden will be expanding thanks to a Raised Bed Garden Kit and Grow Pot Portable Vegetable Growing Containers that arrived this past week. And I’m pretty excited to have finally found the right type of rosemary that seems to have weathered our mid-Atlantic winter after years of trying.
Why is growing my own food and the trial and error gardening so important? It’s all about the lessons that I’m teaching my kids. Gardening is a bonding experience.
Together we prep our garden for the season, plant, and then reap the rewards of our hard work. There’s nothing like popping a ripe cherry tomato warmed by the sun into my mouth, watching my kids shell peas as they are picked from the vines, cooking with seasonally grown produce, and teaching my kids that not only it isn’t hard to grow the things that we love but they always taste better when they come our backyard or somewhere not so far away.
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| Captain Computer harvests his first spinach of the season |
Do we grow everything we eat? Not exactly but we’ve definitely reduced our exposure to harmful chemicals and genetically modified foods by growing our own fruits and vegetables, visiting organic pick-your-own farms, and through our CSA. I’ve also gotten good at knowing what to do with the excess and finding ways to hang on to it for a bit of deliciousness throughout the year.
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| Garden tomatoes and basil simmering away to become a frozen a pasta base |
I’ve learned to make jam out of berries we pick from local pick-your-own farms so we can have a taste of summer during the colder months, simmer a base for tomato sauce out of our home grown ones and freeze it to use whenever we want, and roast and freeze peppers from our CSA in freezer bags for my next vegetable tart.
And those wild and crazy basil plants that were growing through my new garden fence? Those were chopped down, leaves were stripped off, washed, and thrown in the food processor with oil and blended to death before being put in a mason jar where I spoon out a hint of summer regularly.
It’s not a perfect system but we’ve definitely come a long way since we started and I am so incredibly proud of us making growing our own produce such a priority!
Are you interested in gardening with your family but unsure of where to start?
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| Growums make it easy to start your own container garden |
Start with container gardening. All you need is a pot, soil, and some seeds. Start with something like Growums, easy kits that contain a variety of seeds that center around a particular theme. For example, there’s a pizza kit that contains basil, tomato, oregano, and bell pepper seeds, taco garden (jalapeno, iceberg lettuce, tomato, and cilantro seeds), stir fry kit (broccoli, bok choy, carrots, and sugar snap peas), and others! Happy gardening!
Could you live an entire year eating locally or the food from your garden? Barbara Kingsolver transplanted her family from the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Virginia for their endeavor. Join From Left to Write on February 21 as we discuss Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. Plow & Hearth sent me the Raised Garden Bed kit and Grow Pots for review purposes which I will be sharing more about in a future post. All opinions are my own.
Could you live an entire year eating locally or the food from your garden? Barbara Kingsolver transplanted her family from the deserts of Arizona to the mountains of Virginia for their endeavor. Join From Left to Write on February 21 as we discuss Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. Plow & Hearth sent me the Raised Garden Bed kit and Grow Pots for review purposes which I will be sharing more about in a future post. All opinions are my own.
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Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
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We’ll be joining you in the backyard and can share hints over the fence…. we’re planning to start a garden in the back corner.
I’m thinking of planting some lettuce and carrot seeds tomorrow. It’s probably too early, so I’ll keep some back for later. But maybe I’ll get an early salad out of the effort!
One day when we have a house I really look forward to gardening. We had a community plot but we had to bring our own water and it became more of a chore than fun.
Our condo is north-facing, so we can’t even do container gardening on our balcony. It’s so sad.