Backyard fruits and vegetables

Last summer I decided to grow some fruits and vegetables at home as a teaching experience for my two little girls.  I think it’s very important for children to know where their food comes from.  It all started with a trip to Lowe’s.  They had a raised bed on display at their garden center entrance.  As soon as I got back to the market, I couldn’t wait to tell Jim about my “summer project”.

photo courtesy of popular mechanics

These “raised beds” are fairly inexpensive if you are handy.  There are lots of raised bed tutorials online.  I wish I had pictures of Dad and Jim putting together our raised bed.  I have asked them to build me another one, so maybe I can do another post on how to build one.

I filled our raised bed with the potting soil we sell at the market and picked some fruit and vegetable plants right from our market: blueberries, raspberries, and tomatoes.   We also planted sunflower seeds.

Late last year, we tried broccoli, cauliflower, strawberries, swiss chard, strawberry onions and peppers from starting plants.  We also planted carrot and lettuce from seeds.  I take a very relax approach to my garden.  I mostly leave it alone.  I let the sprinklers water the plants unless it was a real scorcher of a day.  I can say we had good success with the broccoli, cauliflower, and the swiss chards.  The pepper plants died in the first freeze we had, but at least they were fun to pick.

We’ve eaten a few “baby” carrots and some “mini” strawberry onions (nothing like you see at our market).  A few weeks back I saw this and could hardly contain my excitement.

Those are raspberry flowers!  I couldn’t believe the “wait” was over.  You see, we planted blueberries too and had enjoyed a few of them already.  But it has taken the raspberry a year to bloom and produce these beautiful berries.

But the best part of it all, was having the girls come rushing in last night to tell me we had raspberries growing in our backyard.  To hear their little voices filled with excitement and accomplishment is priceless.  Have you tried growing veggies or fruits in your backyard?  Were you successful?