Brina’s “Rainbow of Vegetables”

There are so many reasons why I love to garden!  This is the last haul from our garden last year.  I went out and picked everything I could in mid-November (yes November, we live in South Carolina and had a late freeze this winter) before our first major freeze and these are the vegetables that were still in the garden or producing.  Brina helped me wash all the vegetables and as we were sorting I was pulled away by a phone call, she continued sorting and made a “Rainbow of Vegetables” (see picture above).    She was quite pleased with her handiwork and I was pretty impressed too!

Most of the items left that I picked that day were ripe and ready to eat.  A lot of the tomatoes were still pretty green but that isn’t a problem because we have containers that keep them fresh for quite awhile plus we have a couple of green tomato recipes.  I love that the girls will ask to eat a banana pepper or a whole tomato like it is an apple!  It was wonderful having fresh vegetables throughout the winter months too.

Another reason our family enjoys gardening is that it gives us a wonderful opportunity to share with others.  Whether it was taking baskets of goodies over to our neighbors or sharing it with family and friends we really had a blast sharing the produce.  It was a great way to teach our children the joy of giving to others.  When we planted the garden our family decided that we would try to use half of the produce to feed our family and give the remaining half away to family, friends, neighbors, and others within our community.  While I cannot say how many pounds or the exact number of each produce we gave away or the exact amount we ate this past year I do know that our garden (despite my black thumb) produced more then it ever has in the past!

To get us in the gardening mood, my sweet husband went out and bought a few seed packets.  He put the packets in various places throughout the house for us to find.  The girls have really been getting excited about starting the garden and trying out some of the new produce we have discovered over the last few months (like Bok Choy).  They love being outside, in the fresh air, playing, planting and picking the produce.  The only thing they don’t enjoy is the weeding, but I don’t know anyone that gets too excited about that piece.  As we gear up for another gardening season there is a lot to think about…..what to plant, where to plant each type, how many and so forth.  Do you have a family garden?  What are your favorite items to grow?