Saturday, February 5, 2011

Home Grown

I've been a busy girl around the garden lately.  A few months ago I planted quite a few seeds such as kale and capsicum and cherry tomatoes. 

Some of the things I planted are in containers in my yard and some I planted at my mother's house in her bigger veggie patch.  Here's the loot I picked up from Mum's place a few days ago:

Red Cabbage, Red Russian Kale, Curly Kale, Cherry Tomatoes, Big Beef Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Mixed Mesculin Salad
Growing your own vegetables is unreal.  They taste so much better than store bought produce and you can control how you grow them.  I try and grow mine as "organic" as possible. All I do is water them and on some plants use organic fertilizers; I don't spray them with pesticide or anything else untoward.  Most vegetables are so easy to grow and the only care they require is regular watering!  The only thing you really have to bear in mind is whether you are growing them in the right environment.  For example, there is no way basil will grow outside in winter.  It likes warm, sunny environments.  I particularly have enjoyed growing cherry tomatoes this season.  I'm telling you, they taste AMAZING compared to what you purchase in stores.  The flavour is so intense and sweet.  I grew all my cherry tomatoes from seed so for about 1-2 punnets product per week all it cost me was the time watering the plant and about $2 for the seeds!  What a bargain!  Mesculin is easy as pie to grow.  I scatter the seeds on soil and cover with a fine layer of soil; water regularly and then harvest several weeks later.  The plants last quite a long time if you cut the outer leaves.  They're known as a "cut and come again" vegetable.

My favourite herbs to grow are Thyme and Basil. Both are super simple to grow.  The Thyme plant I had I picked up from the garden centre as a seedling.  It has thrived and given me plenty of stems to harvest for recipes.  The basil I grew from seed.  It takes a little bit more care but still is very easy to grow and I use it a lot in salads and recipes.

Here are a few pictures of the other things I grow in containers:

Strawberries
Coriander

Basil

Purple Capsicum

Thyme

Oregano

Sage

Dill

Yellow Capsicum (to be)

Lettuce

Silverbeet/Swiss Chard

Mesculin Salad Mix
Hope you enjoyed the little tour of my garden!

4 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness. Yum! Beautiful veggies!

    We tried to garden once... nothing grew... at all! We later realized it was because our backyard doesn't get any direct sunlight! LOL! OOPS!

    Enjoy your veggies!

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  2. wow, great pics! one day i will have my own garden!

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  3. Genie - yeah that'll stunt their growth big time. Perhaps you can grow some herbs in a pot out front?

    Bree - if/when we get our own place, I will definitely be going away from containers for most vegetables and have a bigger garden!

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