Fresh from the Garden

This year, I wanted to grow some vegetables. Nearly every square inch of our yard has some sort of plant, bush, or ground cover, so it was time to be creative – and container gardening was the answer. A friend got me started off with some greens and tomatoes, and that was just the beginning….. I haven’t had a “real” garden for about 10 years, and once I started again, I realized how much I’ve missed it.

The greens and tomatoes quickly expanded into greens, tomatoes, peppers of all kinds, herbs, squash, and more to come.  Here is one half of the garden, with some of the pots on the plant stand, and others on the garden wall….

and more on the other side. It’s amazing how much a few plants can grow, and what they can produce.

Like this…. for lunch today, we had millet and baked tofu surrounded by a lightly sauteed bed of veggies that were fresh from the garden – just minutes after picking them.

Every vegetable in the saute (except the corn and onion) came from the garden. Making up our main dish were onion, corn, yellow squash, tomatoes, rainbow chard, basil, and jalapeno. It was amazing… just the fresh taste of the veggies lightly accented with a little salt & pepper. Drizzled on top was a fresh lemon-basil sauce.

Here are some of the current stars of the garden ~

a little baby yellow squash on its way to maturity….

Lots of little red tomatoes, and other regular-sized ones on their way…

Lots of green peppers (there are at least 4 in this picture!) on their way to red….

Two kinds of hot peppers – jalapenos at top, and yellow Santa Fe Grandes at the bottom (there are 4 kinds of hot peppers in the garden)

And some rainbow chard. And if you look on the left side of the pot, a vagabond tomato seed somehow migrated over and a little green tomato is mingling with the chard.

We also have basil, oregano, rosemary, lemon thyme, parsley, cilantro, an artichoke, mint, and lavender. Whether you have a yard or any spare ground, or a patio that can hold some pots, a garden is such an easy way to connect with nature and have fresh delicious food for your table.