Garden Update – Eating The Harvest

Our garden is going well despite the fact we’ve only had a few showers of rain in the last four months. I should have taken a photo the other day – before we had started harvesting!

There’s a bit more sun now it’s coming close to summer, but the silver beet and the lettuce were chosen because of the fact we don’t usually get sun in our yard – except for the wet season when growing conditions are less than ideal.

The other night for dinner we had homemade tuna rissoles made with garlic chives and flat leaf parsley straight from the garden, served with home grown silver beet. I admit that we’re not going to be surviving off our garden anytime soon, it’s more of a token garden, but it’s amazing how much you can grow despite small spaces and less than ideal growing conditions.

There is something very special about eating the food that you produce yourself. It goes beyond the sense of pride and accomplishment. You can’t get any fresher than eating silver beet, lightly sautéed, that has been picked only minutes beforehand. Eating home grown produce straight from the soil is the ultimate in organic dining.

My father has grown vegetables ‘organically’ for as long as I can remember. I remember the kids over the fence wouldn’t eat their vegetables at home but would hang out waiting to munch on some fresh baby peas or beans, cherry tomatoes or strawberries, raw and straight from the garden.

I have childhood summer memories of my mother asking us to “go and tell your father to cut some silver beet,” or “ go and tell your father to pull up some spuds for dinner.” We would carry them in and be eating them very shortly after.

Maybe it’s just psychological, but everything just tastes better when you grow it yourself.

I can’t wait until we have a big backyard and can grow lots more, hopefully going a long way towards being semi-self-sufficient. But in the meantime, I’m making the most of the yard that we have, and enjoying eating the harvest.