Kitchen Gardens

Many people have heard the term 'kitchen garden' and don't really know what it means. Well simply put, it's a vegetable, herb/flower garden that's close to your home, usually in the back yard. It doesn't have to be a specific size, and many are quite small, but it's where you grow some of the vegetables that are eaten right in your own home.

Growing your own vegetables, even a few varieties can bring you pleasure, relaxation and delicious food you can't get anywhere else. Vine ripened tomatoes taste much more delicious from your garden than from the store and you can grow varieties for flavour instead of their shipping ability.

Why talk in January about planting a kitchen garden? Because planning is one of the most important aspects of a kitchen garden and we gardeners spend the winter planning for the coming year and poking our noses through the seed catalogues dreaming of the warm weather to come.

I belong to a group called Kitchen Gardeners Int'l and we promote the growing of home gardens, community gardens and even school gardens to teach kids how to grow peas. Would you like to know more about having your own garden? Click here or visit kgi.org

One of the community projects I'm working on is to get a church/community garden growing. We have the land, are working on the resources, and seeking volunteers for planting, weeding and those who would like some hands on lessons about growing your own food naturally. I'll let you know how it goes. With everything else we have planned for 2013 I am hoping that we will have enough interest that this will turn out to be a fun project for us, and not just a lot of extra work. The harvest will be shared between volunteers and those in need in our community.