English garden robin via canong2fan.

The first time I ever read The Secret Garden, I was hooked. The little robin drew me in and then Dickon sealed the deal.

There have been any number of books and gardening seasons since then.  But I find myself always returning to contrary Mary’s plea for a "bit of earth to call my own."

Something about the renewal of that promise of life and growing things that calls to me.

So when I stumbled on an article in the July 2009 issue of Family Circle on backyardharvest.org, I was intrigued:

…With recent requests from Portland, Oregon, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for information on starting local chapters of Backyard Harvest, Amy hopes that communities from coast to coast will follow suit. The group has also partnered with the city of Moscow to allow families to use food stamps at the area farmers’ market to purchase fresh produce. "When times are tough — and they certainly are right now — there’s no easier way to give people nutritious meals and let them know someone cares," she says. "There’s a special look in people’s eyes when they receive food from others who’ve planted and harvested it with their own hands…."

I’ve been planning all along to donate any surplus we get from our little garden plot to the local soup kitchen. But I’m seriously going to have to plan to make a surplus happen for next year after reading this. What a great idea!

Veggies galore via LollyKnit.

The veggies are beginning to appear with abundance in our little 8×4 kitchen garden. 

I’m especially pleased with the herbs.  They are growing up healthy and bushy, since I’ve been pinching them back frequently for cooking lately.

The Peanut is thrilled because we have two little tomatoes on one of our cherry tomato plants and a teeny tiny pepper starting as well.

Between that and the blossoms on the pea plants which have been attracting bees, she’s been in heaven.

We made a couple of quiches the other day with some broccoli that was about to head to seed, some swiss chard, spring onions and assorted fresh herbs. It was deeeee-lish.

But I thought folks might have some favorite garden, farmstand, CSA or other veggies recipes to share. Let’s talk produce!

Veggies via JcOlivera.

We need to eat more veggies. For health, but also for the environment.

One of the reasons I started our family garden this year was to get The Peanut to eat more of them, too. I can sneak them into the mix for her, but I have trouble getting her to eat many of them outright — she’s going through a "veggies are yucky" phase at the moment.

When I was a kid, growing them made them magical somehow.  I’m hoping this will do the same for her. Otherwise, we’ll just have to keep up the "you eat what we are having" edicts and hope it sinks in somewhere.

I’m trying to incorporate more vegetarian meals into our diet these days for a variety of reasons, and it occurred to me that folks might have some yummy faves to share.

So, let’s talk veggies today. Side dishes. Main meals. Salads. Stir-fry. Crockpot. Roasted. Steamed. Kid-friendly? That would be awesome.

There is a whole world of veggie meals out there waiting to be sampled. Would love to know some of your favorites if you have the time to share.

A glorious splash of tulips via Ennor.

Yesterday afternoon, The Peanut and I put together trellises for our garden, with a little help from Mr. ReddHedd. All of our sugar snap peas and snow peas have sprouted, and a trellis was desperately needed before they started crawling all over the garden with their clingy little tendrils.

This could be sweet if it leads to a real breakthrough.

Some news on the honeybees and colony collapse disorder

Michelle Obama helped with spring planting in the White House garden yesterday, along with some of the WH kitchen and grounds staff and students from Bancroft Elementary School in DC. This is a great teaching moment on nutrition and activity in a nation where childhood obesity has become rampant.  More and more children are taking diabetes and blood pressure medications, and that costs us all.