For about the past dozen years or so, we have planted a garden in our back yard. We planted it mostly to learn how to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers. We didn’t plant because we needed to grow food to eat.

The way things are going in this world, we may need to change that strategy.

We really didn’t plant a garden in 2020 and 2021 for several reasons. The pandemic discouraged us in 2020 and we thought it might be good to give the ground a rest.

Last year, we got very busy with work and family issues and we sort of lost interest. It’s funny because we had a tomato plant spring up unattended and it produced a nice bunch of cherry tomatoes.  Susan did plant some flowers and they did well in 2021.

We haven’t decided what to plant this year. I think I want to grow stuff that we can eat.

For several years I grew some pie pumpkins. They are kind of easy to grow until the worms attack the fruit. But it you have ever planted pumpkins, you know that the  plants spread all over the place and you don’t get a whole lot of fruit in a backyard garden.

They are delicious and pumpkins keep very well without refrigeration. But you can spend a lot of time and money on pumpkins and only get a handful to harvest.

Susan has always done well with cucumbers. If we have a wet spring, she will come with a bountiful harvest – so much that we give some to our friends and family.  And they nice thing about cucumbers it that you can make pickles out of them and can them. Susan put up about two dozen jars of sweet and dill pickles one year and they have a lengthy shelf life.

Susan has mostly had good luck growing tomatoes. We spent a couple of hundred bucks several years ago to construction a 10x10x8-foot tomato cage surrounded by chicken wire.

When we have a good harvest, Susan blanches the tomatoes and we freeze for future dishes. She grows tomatoes from plants, not seeds, and there is some expense. But there is nothing like a summer salad with tomatoes and cucumbers you pick fresh from your backyards.

One season, Susan grew sweet potatoes. We had a big harvest. It takes a lot of work to grow and harvest potatoes but sweet potatoes are delicious and you can store them for a long, long time. I don’t think we would grow regular potatoes because they are so cheap at the grocery.

Susan grew carrots one year and got a nice crop. And that fall, a wild rabbit made a burrow under out shed in the back yard.

I tried growing corn one time but you really need a large plot, enough for several rows, to be successful. One year, I grew some broccoli. It was OK but the broccoli wasn’t as good as what you can buy in the store. Susan did well growing green beans one summer.

We do well with herbs. Mint is very easy to grow but we don’t use mint for much. Our rosemary plants have been very productive and hardy, but again, we don’t use rosemary much. She has grown parsley and cilantro, too. Susan grows basil and it does well. Basil is probably the home-grown herb we use the most.

And even if you don’t use these herbs much, they store well and they are fairly expensive at the grocery. We bought an inexpensive dehydrator and it does the job well.

I have always wanted a fruit tree in the back yard but have never purchased one. You can grow peaches, apples and cherries in Oklahoma. I have been fascinated visiting Florida as people have orange trees, lemon trees or grapefruit trees growing right in their yards.

So, if we plant this spring, I want to put in crops that we can eat, that produce healthy food, that are resistant to bugs and that have a good shelf life. That would include tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, carrots and green beans. I will shy away from pumpkins, broccoli, lettuce and black-eyed peas. I love to eat from that second list but I want to have a decent harvest if we are going to do the work.

By the way, I used to not think much of planting flowers until I realized that not only are flowers pretty, they attract bees and other pollinators who are important in fertilizing a back yard garden.