Farmer Lisa....sort of

When John was in elementary school, his class planted a vegetable garden one year. He came home all excited about growing carrots and other vegetables, so we decided it would be fun to plant our own. Over the years, we have grown bell peppers, jalapenos, carrots, green beans, okra and tomatoes. My Italian heritage mandates that I grow peppers and tomatoes at least. We also grow our own herbs and we even had a small corn field in the front yard one year.

We are so ready to get this year's garden growing. This winter has been grey and gloomy and we are ready for Spring. We did our part to encourage it along by buying our seeds a week or so ago. Yesterday it was in the 40's and we had a cold rain all day, so I guess that didn't work out so well.

We'll have all the basics -- chives,

oregano, basil, rosemary and parsley (some parsley actually survived the winter in one of our beds). Fresh herbs add so much to home-cooked meals and they are really easy to grow. We have a bunch of pots on the back porch and we started a raised bed last year too. Having them so accessible helps us use them more often. In the garden, we will also have red bell peppers, Roma tomatoes (we don't have luck with larger tomatoes), carrots and green onions. We're also going to try fennel, which I just started cooking with about a year ago. It has a strong licorice flavor that really mellows out nicely when it's roasted.

I don't really eat a lot of jalapenos, but that is the plant we always have the most success with. I am still fascinated by seeing things we can eat flourishing in our yard, so we always have jalapeno plants. And this year we will try planting on a staggered schedule so that we'll have vegetables and herbs maturing more often. That's the theory anyway.

Hopefully it will be time for sowing seeds soon -- what will you be planting?