How to Make Food with Your Back Porch

It ain’t no hanging garden of Babylon. It’s a few cheapo rectangular planters, a couple of bags of dirt, and a handful of spindly, but determined little plants. In a few weeks, if the weather cooperates, and the gods smile kindly on me, it will yield enough fancy-schmancy tomatoes to feed two people for a few weeks. Maybe there will be enough basil to make a few tablespoons of pesto. Maybe we’ll get a handful of apples and grapes before the birds and the bugs decide to chow down.

This shouldn’t excite me this much, but it does. Learning that your house is not only good for shelter, warmth and the occasional video game, but can also be used to grow food is a revelation. A few years ago, while the real estate agent nodded and smiled, and the previous owner spoke of the recently-replaced water heater, I stared out of the back window and envisioned my own personal produce aisle. There would be fresh herbs, edible flowers and a respectable crop of wild strawberries amongst the shrubs. I would float out the sliding door, like Donna Reed in yoga pants, and gather bundles of fragrant fauna in my arms. All of this from a kid who grew up in the country, and whose parents were “green thumbs”…it’s almost enough to make a gal break into verses of “This Land is Your Land”.

This unruly cornucopia is my pride and joy. Perhaps I’m not yet ready for a chicken coop, or my own chevre-producing goat, but peeking out at the tiny wannabe vegetables makes me feel like a regular Jenny Appleseed. E-I-E-I-O!