Cherry tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes from my garden! This is one of those foods that taste best when actually eaten in the garden. In our house, they rarely make it inside. If you want to eat them, you just go outside and pick yourself a snack.

I don't have a good setup to start things early from seed, so I get my tomato seedlings from Verrill Farm in Concord, MA. You can order them in March/Arpil each year for pick-up in May. This is my fourth year buying from them and I haven't had a bad tomato season yet. The first year, I lived in a semi-urban neighborhood and was concerned with the lack of bees for pollination.Since tomatoes are self-pollinating, and really only need a little vibration to get things rolling, I went out to my front yard, where all my potted tomatoes lived, electric toothbrush in hand. A little vibration to the back of each tiny yellow flower, and--magic! Baby tomatoes!

It might have been a bit crazy, and my former neighbors may have breathed a sigh of relief when I moved (with my full-grown tomato plants) late that summer, but I had a bumper crop that year!

Swiss chard

Swiss chard from my garden!  As a novice gardener, I have found these to be one of the easiest things to grow. It doesn't mind heat too much, and keeps producing until fall. This is my favorite variety, Bright Lights, because it is so colorful. I could eat a giant plate of any type of garden greens every day. Sauté them in a little olive oil with garlic, and sprinkle some lemon juice and sea salt over it just before eating. Delicious!

Oh, and they're good for you, too.

Radishes!

The first vegetable from my garden this year--radishes!

So far, so good. Next up should be the peas.

Spring planting

The crocuses are out in our yard! Aside from maple sugaring, of course, that's one of my favorite signs that spring is really here.

Today was the first day of planting seeds for our vegetable garden: sugar snap peas, carrots, and radishes.. Talia gets her own little garden patch, too.  She did a great job planting her peas all by herself.

I say this every year, but this year I mean it--our garden is going to be amazing!

We'll see how it goes. I don't have the greenest thumb, but if I get better every year, I consider that a victory. There is nothing more delicious--or more local--than vegetables from your backyard.

Road trip to Virginia

I was lucky enough recently to be able to visit my friend, Brijin, from college who is now living in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is an amazing gardener (this terrible picture doesn't do her gardens justice), so I'm glad I was able to visit during harvest season while things were growing like crazy. While I love CSAs, you just can't duplicate the experience of eating a cherry tomato or sugarsnap pea straight off the vine in your own (or a friend's) garden. Luckily, I grew both in my small, but reasonably successful backyard garden this year. Next year I'm going to try adding beets and kale, two of my absolute favorite vegetables.