With careful planning (and a few learning mistakes along the way) my garden in Santa Barbara now provides an abundance of fruits, vegetables and herbs year around. Eating food made with seasonal ingredients fresh from the garden gives your meals incredible depth and flavor with fewer ingredients. The pleasure of apples in the fall or lemon cucumbers in the summer is a splendid reward for tending to all those seedlings throughout the year. My garden is in a great sunny spot on our property and consists of six large raised beds flanked by fruit trees and herbs along with a beautiful antique sink I found in Summerland.
Here’s a peek of what you will find in my garden throughout the year:
Vegetables: Cocozella zucchini , cucumbers, Hungarian wax peppers, jalapenos, Thai hot pepper, red bell peppers, leeks, garlic, Japanese eggplant, lemon cucumbers, bush beans – yellow and green, vine snap beans – white and purple, corn, sunflowers, red leaf lettuce, arugula, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, nasturtium flower, basil, purple basil and Thai basil.
Fruit: Mulberries, nectarines, Santa Rosa plums, strawberries, French strawberries, lemons and limes.
Vegetables: Pumpkins, tomatoes, yellow and red potatoes, red and golden beets, radishes, butter lettuce, red leaf lettuce, arugula, carrots, green onions, white onions, broccoli, napa cabbage, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, amarath and Hokkaido Stella blue squash.
Fruit: Tangerines, tamarillo, pink lady apples, fuji apples and avocados.
Vegetables: Broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, Napa cabbage, red cabbage, butter lettuce, lettuce mix, bok choy, celery, swiss chard, parsnips and shallots.
Vegetables: Spinach, Japanese spinach, asparagus, potatoes, sugar snap peas, snow peas, chives, Swiss chard, radicchio, parsnips, rhubarb, shallots, and nasturtium flower.
Fruit: Meyer lemon, strawberries and French strawberries.
Onions, Swiss chard, carrots, lettuces’ and most herbs with the exception of basil: Flat leaf parsley, savory, oregano, peppermint, chives, thyme, sage, dill, cilantro, lemon grass, lemon balm, tarragon, lemon verbena, bay and rosemary.
