Do you have your own fruit/vegetable garden?

[pdooma]

What sort of things do you grow? Why did you decide to grow your own fruit/vegetables? Do your kids help and does it help them want to try a variety of foods?

[daa]

I have plum, apricot, and apple trees, raspberry and blueberry bushes, and strawberries. I usually plant peas, green beans, lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, lemon cucumbers, and herbs. I stubbornly keep trying to grow cantaloupe, but our growing season is just too short. My spinach is starting to poke up (through the snow!), and we planted the peas last weekend.

Freshly-picked produce is just so much tastier than the tired stuff we get in the stores around here, and I've got the room for a small garden, so it makes sense to do it. My daughter does help, and she will munch on a few veggies straight out of the garden (mostly peas and cilantro). She's more of a fruit kid, though.

[COURAGE]

We're going to try again this year, and this year I think we'll be using mostly pots. The fireants and the soil here is just too hard to deal with. I plan on tomatoes, some pumpkins, sweet-peas, squash, some carrots. Because I grew up with a veggie garden and loved it as a child, and it's sort of a nudged thing in my religion in order to be more self-reliant. My kids will help, and in the past every time I've done this every child I've had help (from my own to nieces/nephews) ALWAYS ate more veggies because they helped grow them.

[Big Daddy R]

In the summer I grow tomatoes and and herbs. However we moved in the fall and there are a ton of deer around her so I am not sure if I am doing it this year. We did it because we like the taste of fresh stuff.

[Kiss my gLee]

No, but I really really want one. I watched Nightline years ago and someone in California turned their front and backyard into a garden with fruits and vegetables growing all over the place. If I had a house I would probably steal that idea and do the same.

[Lulu Lullaby]

Yes, we have a small garden in our terrace and a larger one on the backyard. On the terrace we have strawberries, squash, beets, radishes and carrots. On the garden we have tomatoes, several kinds of chili peppers, peas, beans, cucumbers, garlic, watermelon, zucchini and cantaloupe.

My husband and I grew up in homes with veggie gardens and fruit trees. It was a natural thing for us to have since we both had wonderful memories of working with our parents and siblings, harvesting, planting and cooking the fruits of our work.

The kids help, the are very knowledgeable on garden keeping and think/talk often about their garden. They are good veggie and fruit eaters, even foods from the market, but they get excited about preparing meals that include our own veggies and fruits, and either eating them or giving special meals to friends and neighbors with our produce.

[Deans]

Yes, this will be my 2nd year...and I have expanded the garden into my neighbors yard. I love it. I love being able to do something myself...and the kids seeing that food doesn't always have to come from the store. And, I like them to see how the earth is so wonderful and bounteous.

*broccoli, peas, corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, watermelon

[Diet C]

Yeah. We some sour cherry trees, some raspberry, blackberry, and mulberry bushes and a basic salad garden. Lettuces, spinach, collards, beets, tomatoes, carrots, onions, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, beans, probably a few things I forgot. We also have wild ramps and rhubarb that grow on the side of the hill.
Figured why not. We have the space, we have the time, and the stuff tastes so much better when it's that fresh. Plus it saves money, which is always a nice bonus.
She's still too small to really help. She helped last year mostly by picking things, eating some and depositing others in the basket. This year she helped dig the trenches and she'll probably be a better picker too.
I think the garden may help some, I think just us eating a variety helps the most. I'm pretty sure she'd still eat the same way if we stuck to just markets and didn't grow our own, but it's still nice to have.

[momma snell]

No, I tend to kill anything that lives in soil. I've tried.

[Zorro]

not yet but the wife is making me pull out some bushes + extend the fence so that she can have this massive garden with the kids. Im about 50/50 on it we will see how it turns out. Very good chance it gets trampled in the first 24 hours or forgotten in a week.