It’s been TOO LOOONG since I last posted, so for the next little while I’m going to flood your inboxes with illustrated info. (Apparently hipsters love alliterations!)
Garden Tribe is currently running a 21-day mini course on successful edible gardening. I’m taking it. And while I’ll be linking to the lessons, I’ll also editorialize here.
The first day (that was yesterday) focuses on What to grow–Taste, Variety, and Value. The bottom line is “What will you and your family eat?” No matter how successful your home-grown kale is, if your family won’t eat it, it was a waste of time and energy. I can’t tell you how much lettuce I’ve grown over the years, but I don’t really like lettuce much, so not only did I waste the space (repeatedly), but I’d neglect the patch and allow it to get too weedy, and subjected myself to the angst/guilt of feeling I should be doing/eating better. I’m not growing lettuce this year. And I’m SO over planting for nutrition. I figure whatever I eat from the garden is more nutritious than the same thing from the grocery story, so I’m already ahead of the game. I’m growing what I’ll eat, not what I should eat…
I also like to have things in the garden that make cooking easy. For example, having cilantro at hand means I can make a tasty dish with very few other ingredients. So I like to grow it, rather than having to go the the store to get it fresh (and expensive). And I like to have it located convenient to the kitchen so I don’t have to go far when it’s pouring rain. In fact, I’m trying to keep all my herbs close to the back door.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment.
Real Life Garden Solutions 
I look forward to updates. I try to plan available space with what we eat, what’s expensive to buy, what tastes way better home grown (e.g. we don’t grow potatoes much anymore because they’re cheap and don’t taste much different when purchased )
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