Fresh Food: Backyard Fresh

Fresh make my food fresh, even if it is frozen it will taste better if it was fresh when it was frozen. Now while I appreciate the need and value of frozen food, I use frozen spinach, for example, in soups and stews and now and then in stir fries, I still like my food fresh and not from a box or can.

The freshest food is backyard fresh, by that I mean the only distance this food travels is from my table to my kitchen. Steeping out to door, back, front or side, and picking the food right off that vine means the food is indeed fresh.

The further that food or I have to travel to obtain it the less fresh that food is. Now there are certainly are degrees, perfectly acceptable degrees of freshness, a tomato picked at a community garden plot located within a few minutes of home are still fresh. A tomato purchased at a farmer’s market is also fresh. A tomato shipped across country in a truck or box car is not, legally it may be labeled fresh and indeed it may have been designed and grown to withstand the journey but it is not fresh.

It is not difficult to grow some of your own food. It is not necessary to have a large plot or a plot at all to grow some herbs, tomatoes and maybe cucumbers, for example.

Two containers, each a minimum of 24 inches across and 36 inches deep will provide you with a small supply of fresh cherry tomatoes, basil and cucumbers. Use a good organic soil mix, place in a spot where the containers get 6six to eight hours of sun per day and water when needed and you got yourself a nice snack or salad.

Inside, a bright windowsill can contain an herb box that will grow chives, thyme, oregano or whatever culinary herbs you want. If you have an outdoor space, a container that is 36 inches across and 12 inches deep will make a great kitchen herb garden where you can have access to fresh herbs for your cooking as you require them.

Window boxes can become salad green gardens where you grow your favourite salad greens and cut the leaves as you need them. The window box salad green garden does not take up much space, and provides you will healthy and fresh food all through the growing season.

You food or at least some of it, can be backyard fresh, all it takes is a little time and a little imagination.