By Wayne McLaurin
Georgia Extension Service
Volume XXVII
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Consider building your next garden around what you eat.
Kitchen gardens are
an old idea that deserve a second look. They enable you to
enjoy meals with
a gourmet taste at homegrown prices.
Plant a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers to stimulate
your taste buds
and enhance your favorite recipes. Design the garden outside
your kitchen door
or in several large containers.
One idea is an Italian kitchen garden. Vegetables to grow
could include sprouting
broccoli, zucchini squash, peppers, eggplant, Romano pole
beans, fava or cannellini
beans, fennel, and paste or Roma-type drying tomatoes.
Herbs could include basil, rosemary, oregano, marjoram,
chives, mint, summer
savory, thyme and sage.
Gourmet greens such as arugula, radicchio, romaine lettuce
and cutting chicory
will add robust flavors to your salads. Include your favorite
edible flowers,
too, such as nasturtium, pansy, borage, lavender or chive.
This garden can be done for many countries. But Melanzane
spaccatelle (baked
eggplant) can come only from an Italian garden.
Sorry, but real spaghetti doesn’t grow on plants regardless
of the existence
of spaghetti trees. However, spaghetti squash might be a real
addition to the
garden.
