July 17, 2021
Tending the garden is one of my favorite summer activities. After all that digging, planting, watering, and mulching, I now get to enjoy the fruits (sometimes literally!) of my labor. I love the nurturing tasks of deadheading, weeding, watering (still!), and trimming.
Once upon a time, my husband Alan and I grew vegetables. Lots of them, in (mostly) tidy garden beds. One at a time, though, I transitioned the beds to rose beds, peony beds, zinnia beds, mixed flower beds . . . You know where this lands: After several years, I was growing only flowers and getting produce from generous gardener neighbors and the farmers’ market.
I have to say, though, that I when I see a handful of carrots pulled fresh from the earth or an heirloom tomato begging to be harvested, I kinda miss the produce garden. There’s something deeply satisfying in taking food from your garden and fashioning it into the evening’s supper. Talk about self care!
I’ve already started planning next year’s garden. As I do so, I’m making a little extra room for edibles again (not that kind — fresh fruits and veggies!). Maybe, like me, you’re squeezing a few vegetable plants in between flowers (or even into a window box on an apartment balcony!). Or perhaps you’re planning out a fully nutritious produce garden! Either way, some inspiration and how-to insight never hurts! So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share some blogs that are inspiring my garden plans right now!
Food gardening blogs for learning how to grow food:
- Creative Vegetable Gardener provides practical advice for growing our own food. From starting a garden to troubleshooting misbehaving plants, this blog is full of useful tips!
- Family Food Garden has an abundance of information about gardening, homesteading, herbs, and more!
- Skippys Vegetable Garden provides practical advice and resources to help us along our food growing journeys!
- When I’m looking for inspiration, I love reading the stories at Humans Who Grow Food and Coop Gardens.
- A Way to Garden is a blog (and podcast) that provides great how-tos and even recipes — including a skins-on tomato sauce that’s perfect for freezing!
- Eat Drink Garden is another great resource for fresh-from-the-garden (or farmers market) recipes! I’m also excited to check out the book Lush Life, Food & Drinks from the Garden by the same author, Valerie Rice!
- Also recently added to my reading list are the books The Beautiful Edible Garden by Leslie Bennett & Stefani Bittner and Eat What You Grow: How to Have an Undemanding Edible Garden That Is Both Beautiful and Productive by Alys Fowler.
| I’m an affiliate with Etsy and Bookshop, two sites I feel great about supporting. Being an affiliate means that I promote them and may receive a small commission — with no added cost to you — if you make a purchase through one of my links. Thanks for supporting them and C2K! (I’m not affiliated with any other source links; they’re just resources I think you might be interested in!) |
Do you grow your own food? What are your favorites (to grow and to eat)? I’ll be fleshing out my 2022 summer garden plans this fall and winter — I’ll be sure to share what I come up with! And I hope you’ll share your gardening plans. I’m eager to hear about your food and flower gardens alike!
Take good care,
P.S. You can access all of the C2K weekly letters in the Newsletter section of the blog! Maybe there’s a topic you want to revisit or a link you want to find. Or maybe you just recently joined us and would like to catch up and/or sign up!
For the latest posts, be sure to stop by the blog every Tuesday — next week we’ll be learning to tend Alocasia (Elephant ear) plants! In the meantime, here are some posts you might want to visit this week:
Tomatoes — How to choose and store tomatoes (new post!)
How to take care of your garden hoses so they last, unkinked!
Taking care of your paintbrushes — How to clean them without using toxic solvents
