Grow Your Own

There is nothing so satisfying as walking out your back door and picking your own homegrown food to prepare the day’s meals. All that hard work, trial and error, sweat, tears, and perhaps some blood can be quite rewarding in the end. Once a sun-ripened sun gold cherry tomato bursts in your mouth filling it with sugary sweet juice and delighting your taste-buds you know it was well worth it.

Planting an herb garden is a great way to start growing your own food. Herbs are relatively hardy plants and easy to grow. Some are perennials like thyme, lavender, sage and rosemary and return year after year.

We started most of our plants from seeds. Heirloom varieties are best because they often have better flavor than hybrids. I purchased most of our seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, High Mowing Seeds and Johnny’s Seeds, all of which offer organic, non-GMO varieties.

Plant flowers to attract bees and other insect pollinators. I chose edible flowers like nasturtium and bachelor’s buttons as well as flowering herbs like calendula and echinacea to stock my medicinal herb cabinet.