I think the fact that my favourite recipes all harken back to my childhood and adolescence is no coincidence: my folks are both soil scientists and, as you can imagine, avid gardeners. The garden of my childhood home spans three properties in our tiny Manitoba town, and in addition to dozens of beds of beautiful flowers, mature fruit trees, a pond, a small but deceptively abundant raspberry patch, corn plants that positively tower over my 6″3′ husband, there is a healthy amount of yard-space dedicated to the cultivation of fresh lettuces, spinach, peas, beans, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and more.
It was always this way, and this time of year at our house always meant that there would be mounds of fresh garden produce piled on the kitchen counter awaiting inclusion into our favourite recipes. It’s the same now that I have a home of my own: though my garden is small in comparison, the nurturing of plants is a given, and every year my yard is resplendent with life – despite having been assigned to tasks like counting seeds as a child and promising all who would listen that any garden of my adulthood would be inanimate.
