The Kitchen Garden

A kitchen garden can be a rewarding and useful addition to your home.  Consider the benefits inherent to a kitchen garden. 

One benefit is fresh produce right out your door.  When cooking, wouldn't it be nice to step out the back door and pick a fresh, ripe tomato for your recipe.  Grab an onion and some fresh basil while you're out there.  Come inside and make homemade spaghetti sauce.  That's the real beauty of having a kitchen garden of your own.  That is the way that people used to cook, way before supermarkets and 20,000 acre farms that grew just one crop.

Another benefit of a kitchen garden is being able to cook around what you have on hand.  You don't need to stop by the grocery store  everyday to get something to cook for dinner.  Walk out into your kitchen garden and see what you have a lot of on hand.  If all your green beans are ready, make a green bean casserole.  When you grow the food, you are in control. 

Finally, another advantage found with a kitchen garden is the ability to include nutritious vegetables into every meal.  Produce from the store is expensive and it goes bad quick when you bring it home.  Those problems are eliminated with the kitchen garden, since the food is just waiting to be picked right out in your yard.  Get fresh produce at the peak of ripeness and eat it right then.  The difference in quality and taste is very apparent.

Now, you may be thinking that this kitchen garden sounds good, but what does starting one involve.  Well, the answer to that question really depends on a couple of factors.  One factor is how often will you be eating fresh food from your kitchen garden.  If you like to cook every night of the week, then you will want to have a big enough garden to give you both good quantity of fresh produce and a variety of fresh produce.  Another thing to think about is the size of your family.  The bigger your family is, the more space you will need for growing goodies.  Finally, look at the amount of space that you have.  if you have a 3/4 acre lot, then space for a kitchen garden may not be a real concern.  On the other hand, if you live in the city and only have a balcony, you may have to consider some form of container gardening for your kitchen garden.

Now that you have an understanding of the aspects of a kitchen garden, you can figure out how to grow your own fresh produce right outside your back door.