I recently spent time with a colleague from Florida who started a backyard garden because she realized that growing her own organic veggies was less expensive than buying them. I too am a big fan of backyard gardening. I affectionately call our 200-square-foot garden “Fort Knox” because my husband surrounded it with tall fencing and chicken wire to keep out the deer, chipmunks, hare, and other hungry friends. We use no pesticides and have been fortunate to be relatively bug-free. It’s still pretty cold here in New York but I already seeded one bed with mesclun lettuce and another with radishes. This weekend, I’ll be starting heirloom tomato seeds indoors so that they can be planted outside around Memorial Day. And my new favorite is the Chinese long bean, a very tall beanstalk with beautiful but fleeting purple flowers and very long beans. The plants take about three months to produce edible beans, so be patient.

[ Photo credit: Blu Phoenix via Flickr ]