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I am back on my diet and exercise. Last night for dinner, I had olives and lettuce with herbs, a spritz of lemon, olive oil, and salt. That may sound pretty unappealing. It was delicious.

What made the difference was that my lettuce was fresh from my garden, less than five minutes from pot to mouth. It was not the first time this year that we have eaten from my garden. On our anniversary, I made Alan and me a side salad from the garden.

I glorify the difference between a ‘tomato’ and a ‘mater.’ Tomatoes are bought in stores. Many are wrapped in plastic. Most have been grown in greenhouses. Many have never even touched the soil, fed and water nutrients through tubes. And they taste about as yummy as the plastic they come in.

A ‘mater’ is picked fresh from the vine and eaten still warm. It has a slightly tangy, grassy taste from the vine itself. That is the perfect balance to the sweetness that bursts on your tongue. There is nothing like that taste in the world.

There is no comparing the two. It is hard to believe that they are even related, let alone the same thing. So too, it is with my lettuce. It tastes NOTHING like that soggy stuff that has spent days or even a week or more in a plastic bag.

Of course, I am not yet self-sufficient on veg or even lettuce. I am still eating more of that white cellulose they call iceberg than my lovelies. But that will change by the end of this month I will have enough lettuce to feed us, even if I am eating a salad once a day. Heck, if last year is any indication, I’ll have enough to feed the neighbors, too.

My first strawberries are appearing. Tiny green buttons of goodness. I even have the first buds on one of my tomato plants. Though I have only begun to harden them out. It will be another week, perhaps two until I can leave the pots outside all the time.

I have so many things just waiting that magic moment when they can be released into the wild to grow, bloom, and produce. Cucumbers, squash, beans, peppers, and too many of my lovely ‘maters’ to count. Well, not really. I am guessing I have close to twenty tomato plants of four (maybe five) different varieties.

And today I have more planting I still need to do. Corn, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and fennel for certain.

For me, my biggest disappointment is the lack of information specific to urban gardening. I have shared with you before some of the wonderful YouTubers that I follow. They have some good advice, no doubt about that. BUT all of them have farms out in the country somewhere. Most of them have grown to the point that they have corporate sponsors whose products they plug. That just does not scale to urban farming and homesteading.

My greatest success and joy is companion planting. Watching the way that my plant babies grow stronger together, each giving to the other something, reminds me of how this world is supposed to work.

Well, I just wanted to give you updates on how my garden is doing. I hope that many of you are experiencing the same success and tasting the first fruits of your labors as well.

May the Goddess bless you with an abundance,
From our @HomeCrazzyHome to yours