Backyard Harvest

One of my favorite flavours is just-picked tomatoes, still warm from the sun. It's a childhood memory that's been reawakened now that we're growing our own once again. (Previous attempts at my old house were less than fruitful due to insufficient sun, but my present back yard is sunny and well drained.)


Homegrown food has become a luxury but I'm remembering how easy it is to add a few plants. The hard part is remembering to water them! Being able to wander outside, snacking on fresh warm miracles is one of life's treats that beats anything a restaurant has to offer. If you plant from seed, a whole backyard's worth of plants would probably cost less than one fancy restaurant meal. And you can eat in your pyjamas!

This year we had almost no rain for two months. The lavender, tomatoes, rosemary and sunflowers love it. They're abundantly productive, and the tomatoes are deliciously sweet. The alpine strawberries are even sweeter—little flavour bombs so strong you'd swear they were artificially flavour-boosted.

My carrots also came up in bunches, probably because I planted them too close (: Let's call it an experiment in plant sculpturing... yea, that's it. I'll invoke my creative license.

So here's to local food and my one-yard diet. I'll be outside snacking if anyone needs me.