"First and foremost, Kitchen Gardeners love food, both product and process. They do not dream of eating a good tomato, but a true tomato, picked warm and juicy from the vine at the peak of its ripeness. Their enjoyment of the fruit is a complete one because it is inextricably entwined with the memory of the plant in its various stages of development. They taste not only the fruit, but the care and honest labor that went into making it."  R. Doiron

I always loved eating and I always loved the earth mothery feeling I got when I stepped outside my kitchen door to harvest the family dinner.  Even though I now have 3 acres to grow on I still maintain my kitchen garden.  This year I am reintroducing strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and rhubarb.  I'll also be planting lemon grass, a cranberry bush, a cherry tree, and two columnar apple trees.  They'll complement the grapes from the patio arbor and the herbs that are naturalizing around the house.

Kitchen gardens, often complete with berries and fruit trees, used to be a mainstay of the American family.  I remember the garden my grandfather grew on a city lot as well as the cherry and peach trees and the raspberry thicket.  My father's mother tended a 4 acre garden - and 11 children!  One of my husband's favorite memories is of the pears he picked from the tree in his grandfather's backyard.

Victory Gardens were a key component of the WWII war effort.  Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International notes that America's Victory Gardens provided nearly 40% of the nation's produce during the war.  The Victory Gardens not only produced fresh healthy produce but "encouraged millions of citizens to become physically active and helped conserve natural and financial resources at a time of crisis."

Sadly, the kitchen gardens and Victory Gardens were supplanted by chemically green lawns (follow the link to information on the health risks of the chemically maintained lawn http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-4-77-1698,00.html). 

But, in part due to recognition of the superior flavor and nutrition of home grown produce and in part to due the economy, the kitchen garden is making a comeback!  More and more of us are enjoying the thrill of growing and picking beans, peas, tomatoes, onions, basil, lettuce, and more right outside our backdoor.

This year's blog will focus on small scale growing - sometimes at the kitchen garden scale, sometimes at the 3 acre scale.  The last post discussed choosing seed.  A soon to appear blog will detail starting seed and growing seedlings without benefit of a greenhouse.  Later installments will discuss the benefits and how-to's of undersowing, mulching, and non-chemical pest control.  I'll be sharing what worked for me - and what didn't - and I have lots of experience with what doesn't work!

Join me and a growing number of your neighbors in the joy and wonder of growing your own!  Let me know what works for you - and what didn't work - share your favorite varieties and your favorite vegan recipes.  No matter if you're growing on a few acres or in a few pots on the patio or balcony - I'm looking forward to hearing from you.  I'll establish one or more webpages so we can all trade our tips and tricks for growing great produce. E-mail your input to reverencegardens@gmail.com or leave a comment.

And remember, whatever you don't grow can be found fresh and local at your community farmer's market or from a nearby CSA.  You can find local sources of great food at Local Harvest (http://www.localharvest.org/).