Gastronomy in your back yard

It’s almost November and we’re still harvesting tomatoes, basil, thyme, rosemary, peppers and red cabbage. Come to think of it, every plant in our experimental raised-bed garden in our urban yard is still producing! I learned a lot this summer:

1. Don’t plant more than four tomato plants for two people.
2. Put lime around the perimeter of the garden to keep the woodchuck from eating up all the lettuce three times.
3. Forget cabbage for such a small garden. It’s cheap and plentiful in the Regional Market. Instead, plant things you want super-fresh, like lettuce, specialty carrots, all those herbs, maybe some heirloom tomatoes this time, poblano peppers and sugar snap peas.

I figure the more we eat out of the garden, the less distance our food has to travel (fewer food miles) and the less it contributes to our carbon footprint. Now if I could only learn to love winter squashes, I’d build a second garden, grow them and then store them for winter enjoyment.

A fun video: The History of Gastronomy (turn on your speakers!)

The Real Cost of Globe-Trotting Food, from National Geographic’s The GreenGuide (added on Oct. 31).