It was a pretty happening Thursday evening around my place. An attempt at honey-sweetened Dulce de Leche, a seed catalogue, and a steaming cup of Pero filled the night.
I am so looking forward to planting my garden! It won’t be long now, starting next month it’s on! I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to be able to pick collards, kale, mustard, and lettuce all winter and it’s just deepened my love of gardening.
Growing my own food appeals to me on so many levels.
I’ve always loved creating things; as a child I drew pictures and wrote poems, a little later on I started making dances, and as an adult I’ve added cooking, blogging, and gardening to my list of creations. Watching a seed germinate and grow is like magic every time and is so satisfying!
I am super thrifty and gardening is a low-cost way to get high quality food. Yes, it takes an investment of time but honestly I’m a pretty lazy gardener. The seeds go in, maybe I remember to water them, they grow, maybe I weed a few minutes a few times a week, I pick them in less time then it takes me to decide what kind of toilet paper to buy at the grocery store. Take those winter greens I’m still picking as an example; I spent about $5 on seeds back in September, it took 5 minutes to plant them, and now we eat the equivalent of $5 of organic greens every week.
Food from a home garden is inevitably fresher than you will find at any store and the fresher the produce is the more nutritious it is. Many studies suggest that produce loses up to 45% of it’s nutritional value in the time it takes for harvest, processing, transportation, and storage. Occasionally I’ll pick enough greens for a few days but I usually try to pick them right before eating, optimizing the nutrients (now if only I could keeps my paws out of the reduced veggie bins at Cville Market!).
I still have almost a month before I can put seeds in the ground so for now I’ll have to be content to daydream over seed catalogues…
Hey! What seed catalogues do you use? I plan to plant my first garden this summer. Also-I was thinking about trying to put together a virtual baby shower for Kath. What do you think? Peace and Love to you! 🙂
I was perusing Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which is an awesome local company that is mostly organic and GMO free. They sell their seeds in many stores in Cville for about $2 a packet but you can order thru the website as well.
I’m totally curious about what you have in mind for a “virtual baby shower”, let’s talk! Feel free to e-mail me about it.
I am very jealous. While I love our new home, the backyard is 90% concrete and pool, leaving no real room for a garden. I definitely want to try a herb one, though, in Mason Jars, though.
Build raised beds! I also love container gardening and you can grow all the standard veg in them, just maybe no corn or potatoes. Or fill in the pool with soil! 😉 In all seriousness, a pool is perhaps an even trade for a garden.
I can’t wait for garden season to begin! Kale and salad greens are on my radar for this year, although the cucumbers do the best in our soil. Hopefully basil will too, as I want to stock up with LOTS this year, so that I can freeze it to have throughout the winter.
There’s something so uniquely special about growing your own food. 😀
My kale and salad greens are currently under a few inches of snow! 🙁
You’re lucky that cucs do well! I would love to put up a bunch of pickles! I planted way too much basil and am still working thru the freezer full of pesto (not such a bad thing).
Happy growing!
Totally relate to every part of this post, especially the creativity of gardening, which never occurred to me as a reason I may love it so much! Do you start any seeds inside? I’m off to start my peppers!
My house is not big enough, light enough, nor warm enough to start seeds inside! Luckily, everything did fine last year without starting it inside.
I love gardening and have an allotment plot (in the UK), which is basically a plot of land, which is officially owned by the local council, away from the house. I love it as I don’t have to keep it extra tidy and we have just put up a polytunnel on the plot, so I am hoping to also have enough lettuces, kale and cabbage greens to last all winter. Knowing you did it makes me feel more confident I should be able to have it done too :). (Just found your blog, Faith , and love it!)