Returning to her roots in the vegetable garden

 Washed-out photos of me as a toddler prove that my gardening career started in a vegetable garden, where pole beans served as a yard stick and showed just how small and young I was.

When I rediscovered gardening as a homeowner a few decades later, my focus was on ornamental gardens, except for a handful of tomato plants that rewarded me for my doting with that magnificent summer treat — the perfect BLT.

But over the years I began growing more vegetables, continually outgrowing raised bed after raised bed. A couple years ago I built my dream raised-bed garden, importantly surrounded by a fence so that I no longer had to worry about deer. Eight 4-by-8-foot beds and another four smaller beds for growing flowers now provide all the space I’ll ever need for growing food.

I planted the first few seeds in the garden over the weekend. Sugar Ann and Snak Hero peas (the latter is a new All-America Selections winner that I’m trying out) will probably be mostly consumed while I work in the garden. If you can’t snack straight from your plants, what fun is it?

I also planted a few rows of loose leaf lettuce, three varieties of beets, including Badger Flame, which was a collaboration between University of Wisconsin horticulture professor Irwin Goldman and chef Dan Barber. And I transplanted onions I started from seed way back in January.

I probably could have planted most of these a couple weeks ago, although the cold days of spring hang on much longer close to Lake Michigan. But even knowing that I may have been a bit late in sowing, the simple act of sticking a seed in the ground is immensely pleasurable. Few things offer so much promise for so little work and money.

I’ll continue planting lettuce weekly as long as the temperatures allow, and I’ll soon be adding several other vegetables, including spinach and arugula. I’m trying out a super spicy arugula variety called Wasabi this year.

These simple leafy greens are almost too good to be true. They take next to nothing in the way of care or expertise, they cost fractions of pennies and, like cut-and-come-again lettuce, they’ll keep providing for months. If you think about how much a box of mixed greens costs in the grocery store, it’s a no brainer to keep planting it.

There’s also a great deal of comfort in knowing exactly how it was grown (organically, feet from my kitchen), who touched it (just me) and when it was harvested (likely within minutes of eating it).

I don’t profess to be the most self-sufficient person, but planting those first seeds always makes me feel a little bit better prepared for whatever life might throw at me.

I guess I had the right idea about gardening from the very beginning.