I wanted to share with you the recent progress on our backyard garden! I cannot fully express how absolutely excited I am about all the yummy vegetables that are sprouting up. Green beans, carrots, yellow onions, zuchini, yellow squash, Japanese and Italian eggplant, Roma, beefsteak and cherry tomatoes. My 4yo is excited too, always asking to go out check on the progress of his garden.
I am all about shortening the distance from Farm to Table and love supporting our local Farmer's Market. It is like an event in our family to go there on the weekend and peruse all the lovely fruits and veggies and feel the sense of community. We love to hear the music play, smell the kettle corn popping, and the kids enjoy sampling all the fruit on display. There is even a children's art area where they can have fun creating projects for Mommy and Daddy. Beyond produce, there is a vendor selling amazing flavors of hummus and pita chips, a local honey producer, flowers, plants, jewelry and much more. It's a small market with a lot of variety.
However, now that I have my garden, we will probably hit up the Farmer's Market less. We will definitely still go from time to time, but my purpose in creating the backyard garden was multi-fold (hungrigyrlism): Convenience. How perfect will it be when I want to make something and I just go out and pick a vegetable from my backyard? Community. I will love to share our bounty with other family members and co-workers. Quality. I will be able to safely say our veggies were not sprayed with pesticides, picked too early, ripened on a truck, etc. Eco-friendly. My distance from farm to table is about 15 feet. No fuel will be wasted transporting my veggies, and the air/environment will not be compromised by said transportation. Have I mentioned cost yet? Our initial investment of redwood boards, dirt and seeds was about $85. That is roughly about 2 visits to the Farmer's Market for us. We will see quite the return and then some on our investment this summer. The redwood made the project a little pricier, probably 2x as much, but redwood is a heartier wood. For those of you interested in making a backyard garden, douglas fir would work just fine and cost less.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Organic Produce post, which you won't want to miss!
Do you grow any fruits or veggies at home? Any special tips you have for gardening success?
