The Garden: The Ultimate in Local Food

When I was growing up my parents had an enormous garden that my siblings and I would be forced to help out with, pulling weeds, pruning trees, raking leaves, picking fruit and veggies, etc.  We rarely did this willingly, begrudging the fact that we were being forced to give up free time to perform manual labor.  But then something funny happened.  All three of us came to love gardening!  Both my siblings now have substantial gardens at their houses, and last year when I was house-sitting for my parents I got to take charge of the garden and plant whatever I wanted, and I’ve gotta say, I had a blast!  Gardening really ties you to the experience of growing food and lets you witness the incredible process of growing delicious fruits and vegetables from tiny seeds.  It’s also the ultimate in terms of local food.  So, naturally I wanted to continue my foray into gardening this year.

Renting a room in a house, however, makes gardening considerably more difficult, and Pam’s apartment was certainly no better.  We'll certainly steal some produce from my parents any chance we get, and I did start some things in my windowsill, including lettuce, spinach, green onions, and cilantro, and Pam was already way ahead of me with some green onion starts, but we really wanted something more.

Cilantro in the windowsill!

Spinach, scallions, and lettuce that started in my window and got moved to the back patio.

So, with Pam moving back into her parents’ house this summer, she was able to convince them to let us have a small portion of the yard to plant a garden!  Yay!  Three bags of Cedar Grove compost (Cedar Grove composts the yard waste and other compostables collected in the greater Seattle area), some rabbit-proof fencing, and a few hours of manual labor later we had a respectable little garden plot!

Some transplanted rhubarb roots, courtesy of my dad, and some pea pods started in my window got things underway, and we’re seeing the first sprouts of green onions, lettuce, spinach, beets, and carrots as well.

Beets!!! YUMMY!

The transplanted rhubarb is going to town!

Delicious pea pods that also started in my windowsill before being transplanted to the garden

As the summer goes on (in other words, soon!) that list of what we're growing will be expanded to include green beans, cucumber, squash, zucchini, maybe some corn, and a variety of herbs as well, plus some raspberry transplants from my parents.  Needless to say we’re both very excited to have a little garden to work with.  And even though it won’t provide us with lots of produce, there just really is nothing that compares with fresh produce off the vine/out of the ground, so we will savor every bit of it!