This evening we ate our first garden produce. I went out shortly before dinner and picked some romaine lettuce from our garden — the first stuff that’s all grown up and ready to sacrifice itself for my dinner. Currently there are six tiny tomatoes on the vines, and there are perhaps three zucchini blossoms ready to spring forth. The peppers and eggplant are (I hope) waiting for warmer weather, but the lettuce is ready to eat.

Eating stuff we planted and grew ourselves was more exciting than I expected it to be. There was something amazingly satisfying about wandering out to the garden, colander in hand, and coming back in with fresh-picked lettuce, still warm from the sun and the earth. Wearing only a light dressing of extra virgin olive oil and our 18-year-old balsamic vinegar, it was joined in the salad bowl by fresh radishes from Stephe and Ritu at Someday Farm. I know exactly what fertilized it, I know exactly what kind of pest repellent was used on it. It’s organic, it’s beautiful, and it’s ours.

We had the day off yesterday and took a quick trip to the garden center, mostly to buy some potted herbs since the re-potted kitchen counter plants seem to have given up the fight. The parsley’s hanging in, but honestly, the parsley wasn’t the most interesting thing there.

So we got a small pot of cilantro, a pot of rosemary, a pot of dill (even their dill doesn’t look thrilled to be here), and a pot of lemon thyme. I have no idea what I’ll do with the lemon thyme, but it smells lovely. We also got a pot of cat grass (to be kept indoors where the cats can eat it) and a small pot of catnip, which I’ll probably keep outdoors for the summer and then bring in, assuming it survives my attentions.

Oh, also, a pot of marigolds. It’s a big pot, but it has perhaps four or five separate plants in it. I’m going to separate them and plant them right in the vegetable garden, where they supposedly will do an organic job of repelling things that will eat the plants. Of course I’ve since read a lot of conflicting stuff about whether or not this works or is indeed an old gardener’s tale, but since we know they don’t hurt anything and they look pretty and add an unexpected splash of color to my very green garden, I’m going to give it a shot. So later on today I’ll be doing a little digging and potting those herbs.

Wish them luck.

I know it’s not much, but a few days ago we saw our first tomato. Since I took this picture, it’s grown some — it’s about as big as a good-sized grape right now — and has been joined by two siblings, barely as big as peas. This is almost the moment we’ve been waiting for.

And yeah, I’m as surprised as anyone. If this little bit o’ produce manages not to get blown off the plant in the severe weather we’re expecting tomorrow or eaten by some garden pest — and doesn’t just up and die — then we’ll be eating one day soon. Yes we will. Because, after all, we kill for food.

Over the weekend I re-potted the herbs I started from seed and set them out on the deck thinking the warmth and sunshine would accelerate their growth. As it turns out, not so much.

Last night Jim suggested that we head to the garden center this weekend and get some potted herbs — the started basil plant we bought is thriving nicely out on the observatory deck, and I think it’ll be yielding pesto before too long. What I’d really like is to have some cilantro on hand for entirely home-grown salsa later this summer — you know, when the tomato crop is in and the jalapeno plants are producing, she says optimistically — and perhaps some parsley, since I buy it at the grocery store every week anyway. Maybe some fresh rosemary would be good too. And I guess while we’re there a pot or two of cat grass would be good to have on hand.

Anyway, a trip to buy potted herbs sounds good. And it doesn’t sound like we’ve been defeated. It sounds more like we’re being practical.

Jim and I started a vegetable garden this summer. It’s our first ever. We aren’t garden people. We’re not even houseplant people. I have no idea what possessed us to embark on this little project, but it’s been fun so far (and a bit of work).

Our garden is a raised bed, 4 feet by 8 feet by 12 inches high. We figured it would be easier to do this than it would be to attempt to till the soil in our backyard. Our house and yard are set over a granite ledge, so it’s hard sometimes to dig a hole for tulip bulbs, much less dig an entire garden. We spent about $30 on the lumber for the bed, and considerably more for the 800 lbs of top soil and compost we filled it with. And that doesn’t take into account the started plants we bought.

We’re trying to keep the garden organic. Before we left for vacation, we noticed that something was snacking on the plants, so I sprayed with something called Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew. Yeah, I like it too.

Besides keeping the bugs away, vegetables need to be fertilized, and that was this evening’s project. In keeping with the organic scope of this project, I fertilized the garden with something called Neptune’s Harvest which is, as far as I can figure out, fish-in-a-blender. Yeah, somebody put fish in a Bass-O-Matic so that I might feed my tomato plants.