Planting a backdoor garden with herbs and tomatoes

I love to cook with fresh herbs. Who doesn’t? But what I love even more than cooking with them is having them growing right outside my kitchen door. Along with tomatoes. All summer long I can step out my backdoor, gather tomatoes, basil, chives, dill, cilantro, and more – and whip up some fresh pesto, salsa or herbed veggies.

My girls are learning what they are too. So I can send them out with the kitchen scissors to gather the herbs while I cook.

It’s a small garden. And just the perfect size for my daughters to help with the weeding. Plus it’s centrally located next to where I park my car. Which means it usually gets watered while I’m staling around the yard keeping one eye on a sleeping toddler who fell asleep on the way home.

All our herbs are organic and came from local nurseries. For the sake of convenience, I bought them at our food co-op, Three River’s Market. Because one-stop-shoping is always a perk.

In addition to what is listed above, outside my kitchen door I have sage, mint, rosemary, and lemon verbena that comes back every year. This year we planted three types of tomatoes; a large variety, two grape varieties and two tomatillos to make green salsa. We used mushroom compost so that’s why you see lots of mushrooms growing in a few of the photos.Plus I have two watermelon plants because ever since my middle daughter was about seven months old, she could eat her weight in watermelon.

Actually, it was the first solid food she every ate, during a Fourth of July picnic. My oldest daughter’s first food was an avocado in Mexico. And I can’t even remember what my third child’s first food was. I probably wasn’t even looking. Ha. Just kidding.

We’ve been having a good time in this little garden of ours. Here’s some photos to show you.