Just thought I would quickly share a delicious salad that I made from the fruits of my labor in my

little urban vegetable garden.

This is one of my favorite salads, I love it so much I could eat it everyday!

Caprese Salad is simply made from tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil (I have several types of basil growing in my garden and I love to use a few of them together for added flavor), olive oil, salt and pepper.

I add balsamic vinegar because I love it, however, I think if you make a true Insalata Caprese it would not have any vinegar in it.

Makes for a delicious, easy, Summer lunch. Mmmmm.

Now I just need to get a cow or buffalo so I can learn make my own fresh mozzarella and I will be set.

Wouldn’t that be fun!

Hope you are enjoying your Summer!

xxKathryn

Berrylicious!

It was getting dark when I snapped this (that is why it’s a cruddy pic ;P ), but I wanted to document the first little batch of delicious strawberries to come out of our garden.

We’ve picked and eaten a few here and there,  but not a bunch at once yet. There were ten red ripe ones in the garden just begging to be eaten the other night, so my lil guy and I went out and gathered them for a yummy little treat.

Granted we each only got to enjoy two of these little beauties, but it is a taste of what is to come…we are all pretty excited.

xxkathryn

I will be back next week with another update.

xxkathryn

The gardening gene seems to be in my blood. Everyone in my family has a deep love of gardening. My grandparents were avid gardeners and spent hours upon hours in their garden. You could always find them there when you went for a visit. My children’s favorite thing to do during their visits to their great grandparent’s house was to water their garden and even had their own watering cans. My mother has always had a rather green thumb and since I was a child has spent a lot of time in the garden. My brothers both work for Landscape companies and work with plants on a daily basis. Then there is me. I wasn’t blessed with the family’s “green thumb” but rather was cursed with a “black thumb”.  I really haven’t had a lot of luck with gardening and haven’t really spent much time gardening because of it. I was talking to my dad the other day and we concluded that I must get the black thumb from him. Well this year I plan on changing that black thumb into a green one. One week ago we planted our urban vegetable garden in our backyard. We made some raised beds, had a truck of good soil delivered {boy there was a lot !}, then planted the plants and seeds I had purchased at a local nursery a couple of weeks ago. I am excited about embarking on this little adventure of growing our own food, as well as enjoying eating it! I am doing this for my children so they can see where their food comes from and how things grow. My lil guy isn’t the best eater, so I am hoping this helps encourage him in trying some new delicious foods that he helped grow. I think I am going to have to add a couple more planters because the three we made are already overflowing with all sorts of delicious goodies. There are a few more things I didn’t get planted that I would like to so having a little more room will be nice. We will be working on that in the coming weeks. For now though I will have fun watching what we have already planted grow. Here are a few pictures I took this evening of the garden’s progress so far. It is exciting to be able to pick and eat some of the strawberries that took off in the past week since we planted them. One benefit of buying plants rather than starting from seeds. Boy are they delish!

Until next time!

Veggie gardens seem to be all the rage this year… you may want to considering planting one of your own. It doesn’t need to be elaborate it can be even be planted in containers on a patio. There are all sorts of options when it comes to the urban vegetable garden. Experiment and have fun!

xxkathryn