Bolster Your Food Budget: Grow Vegetables and Fruits at Home
The greenest way to bolster your food budget is also the most enjoyable way: grow a home garden. The National Garden Association, a non-profit organization for gardening education, projects that the number of homes growing vegetables and fruits will increase 40% in 2009 from 2007. In total, over 23 million Americans will buy vegetable seeds for harvest this summer and fall!
We couldn’t wait to start a garden when we moved to Bainbridge in 1999. In Seattle, our small and shaded lot could support only a few potted tomatoes and a handful of herbs. Our first spring on Bainbridge, Tom and I designed and built a 30’x20’ foot raised bed garden, fenced 10’ high to keep out those pesky island deer. Our garden plan changes each year, but this year we will grow asparagus, shallots, leeks, onions, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, chard, lettuces, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, squashes and pumpkins, as well as basil, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, and rosemary.
And peas! Is there a vegetable sweeter than a fresh garden pea? Here in Washington we can start peas in March and enjoy our first garden peas in early June. I plan to plant my peas this week…hopefully last weekend’s snow was the last for the spring.
I always use my Dad’s pea planting technique: to ensure good germination, he soaks the pea seeds overnight in milk and 2 crushed up vitamin C tablets. Of course this could be a wacky Maine wives’ tale, but nobody can argue with my dad’s gardening results! I plant both snow peas and shelling peas, and my favorite varietals are Oregon Sugar Pod II (Snap) and Maestro (Shelling), both from Territorial Seeds.
Homegrown peas are so delicious my kids often eat them raw before I can get them in a pot. But if you are looking for a great snow pea recipe, try minted snap peas
Garden Pictures 1999 and 2008
We couldn’t wait to start a garden when we moved to Bainbridge in 1999. In Seattle, our small and shaded lot could support only a few potted tomatoes and a handful of herbs. Our first spring on Bainbridge, Tom and I designed and built a 30’x20’ foot raised bed garden, fenced 10’ high to keep out those pesky island deer. Our garden plan changes each year, but this year we will grow asparagus, shallots, leeks, onions, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, chard, lettuces, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, squashes and pumpkins, as well as basil, parsley, sage, thyme, lavender, and rosemary.
And peas! Is there a vegetable sweeter than a fresh garden pea? Here in Washington we can start peas in March and enjoy our first garden peas in early June. I plan to plant my peas this week…hopefully last weekend’s snow was the last for the spring.
I always use my Dad’s pea planting technique: to ensure good germination, he soaks the pea seeds overnight in milk and 2 crushed up vitamin C tablets. Of course this could be a wacky Maine wives’ tale, but nobody can argue with my dad’s gardening results! I plant both snow peas and shelling peas, and my favorite varietals are Oregon Sugar Pod II (Snap) and Maestro (Shelling), both from Territorial Seeds.
Homegrown peas are so delicious my kids often eat them raw before I can get them in a pot. But if you are looking for a great snow pea recipe, try minted snap peas
Garden Pictures 1999 and 2008
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2 Comments
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Comment by Alison Hatletveit on March 22, 2009 at 6:55pm - I bought seeds today and a little mini greenhouse that I saw this morning on Gardening with Ciscoe! So excited to see how it goes. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Comment by annette on March 22, 2009 at 3:19pm - We too look forward to getting the planning of the garden going. We've had a garden every year and we always try something new. Last season we planted some garlic in the fall and hoping it will be successful. We too use to plant peas and they would be half eaten before they made it to the house. So good and definately very sweet. Like you mentioned - a lot of people will be thinking of planting their own gardens - "why not right"!
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