I grew up gardening with my family. My parents had an extensive garden that we worked on throughout the summer. We always grew enough food to preserve for the winter months. There were seven of us in the family, so the extra food we grew was frozen, dried, and canned. My mom carefully kept track of how many quart jars we had used the year before, while my dad kept the garden planned, tilled, and watered. All five of us kids helped with this process, and by the end of each summer, we had about 1,200 quarts of canned fruits, vegetables, juice, and jams. That was an incredible way to learn how to garden.

I remember during COVID, many people turned to gardening as a way to spend their time in isolation, with the extra advantage of having fresh food for themselves. Gardening during the COVID crisis helped people have more food and was emotionally beneficial. Right now, our lives seem to be heading toward another enormous crisis, so it would be a good time to start planning a kitchen garden to help you emotionally and financially. The prices of fresh fruits and veggies are slowly increasing with the deportations happening in the U.S., and life has become extremely stressful for most of the population.

I know many of us don’t have access to a large garden like the one I grew up with, but most of us could find a way to grow a kitchen garden. This type of garden is not for growing enough food to save or sell at a market. Instead, it is a small area filled with vegetables, herbs, and fruits to add to your meals each day. It can be grown in a raised bed, a small plot, a community garden, or even in pots by your door. 

Kitchen gardens were usually square or rectangular and always enclosed by a simple fence or wall to protect them from intruders and shelter them from extreme weather. They were also located near the house, making them easy to get to.

There are records and drawings of kitchen gardens from Medieval times. These included edible and medicinal plants and plants used to make dye for clothing. During medieval times, their lives depended on the success of their gardens. 

Early colonial records from the 1600s also include kitchen gardens. These gardens were kept so families had fresh food to eat each day. There were no refrigeration options then and few developed road systems, so it wasn’t always possible to go to the market to buy produce each day. These gardens usually faced southwest to get as much sun as possible to heat the ground and grow the plants. 

People have been surviving on kitchen gardens for a long time. So join centuries of gardeners and get started today, thinking about what plants you’d like to grow or what seeds you can buy.  You could cultivate strawberries to eat with your oatmeal, lettuce for a BLT, or zucchini for a stir fry. Then, as the world spins out of control, you can go outside and play in the dirt. 

To learn more about gardening during colonial times, read my novel about life in the Dutch Colony of New Netherland. You can buy a copy of it here on my website or with this link :o)