Hooray!! It's the 1st day of Spring!!
One of my passions besides cooking is gardening!! As the warm weather approaches I can't wait to get outside and start planting!!
Papa Giacomo always planted a vegetable garden in our tiny little yard in Brooklyn. I loved going outside to pick the fresh basil for the sauce every night, and I loved eating the figs right off the tree! He used to have a cherry tree and a peach tree too!! Fresh mint grew wild in the left hand corner of the yard near the shed. Papa Giacomo loved roses! He had roses in the yard that we could smell from a mile away!! They were beautiful!
I inherited my love of gardening from my nonno! We were outside all summer long! He used to paint the wooden fence red every year. Then he hung different color lights along the top of the fence. At night the yard was lit up and we would sit out there all night long with friends and neighbors. The kids would play and the elders watched as they had coffee and talked all night long!
The whole neighborhood knew each other. The grandparents would sit inside the garage and set up tables and even put a small TV hanging in the corner of the garage so that they could sit outside, eat and watch TV all day, everyday and all night long! The neighborhood was a "family". Everyone looked out for each other. We were lucky to grow up in a close-knit Italian neighborhood.
Here are some of the things I grew in my yard last summer. Italian frying peppers, Roma tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and butternut squash are shown here. It was the first time I planted Butternut Squash! It took over the whole garden but I didn't mind...they were delicious! They were very sweet and great for my Butternut Squash Risotto!
Here are some of my beautiful Beefsteak tomatoes! They were so beautiful!! There's nothing like growing your own vegetables. My kids loved to go outside and pick the veggies straight from the garden. Before we went to the beach, they would go outside a pick a few tomatoes to eat while we were at the beach!
These tomatoes were great for sandwiches as well as making a nice hearty sauce to put over un bel piatto di spaghetti!!
There's nothing like the smell of fresh tomatoes on the vine! On hot summer nights when I go outside after dinner to water my garden I can smell the fresh tomatoes and the smell of the Earth!
I like to sit out on my patio and stare out towards my butterfly garden. I watch all of the birds and wildlife going about their busy little lives. You never know what you're going to see!
I love seeing an occasional hummingbird! They are my favorite! I've waited many years to finally get hummingbirds in my yard! When my kids were very little we started a picture journal of all our backyard critters. It is amazing to see all the wildlife we come by in our own backyard!
One year I planted milkweed in my garden, not knowing that it is the only food that monarch caterpillars eat! I walked by one day and counted 17 caterpillars!!! I looked it up and saw what they were. My children and I watched them carefully each day! We were very lucky that we were able to witness one creating his chrysalis!! We were even luckier to see a few of them break out of their chrysalis into a beautiful monarch butterfly!
If you love gardening, take the time to register your yard as a Wildlife Habitat! I did this about 10 years ago!! Basically, you are certifying that you are providing food, water and shelter to wildlife. It is a wonderful thing to do with your children. We must teach our children to respect wildlife and to respect our Earth.
Start by clicking here: www.nwf.org/Garden-For-Wildlife/Create.aspx
