My Kitchen Garden.

Growing up in the Caribbean (especially the countryside) there’s what we refer to as a kitchen garden adjacent to just about every home. Our kitchen garden was a plot of land directly behind our home where mom usually had bodi, corn, peppers, okra, dasheen, eddoes, cassava, tomato, eggplant and pigeon peas growing. Though I now deal with a short growing season and many of the tropical type vegetables would struggle to grow, I still try my best to keep to keep the kitchen garden tradition alive.

Gardening is one of my avenues for dealing with stress, so the first chance after the winter’s frost to get into the dirt is something I look forward to. Though I can’t grow many of the tropical type vegetables I adore, I’m still successful in growing some of the hottest peppers in the world. Scotch Bonnet, Habanero, White Habanero (first time this year), Chocolate Scorpions, Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, Ghost Peppers… ones at the top of the scoville scale.

Every season I try to grow something I had never tried my hand at before and this year we had a successful crop of Yukon Gold potatoes and the strawberry bush in the planter I made a few years back, took on some of the most fruity strawberries we’ve ever tasted! many of which ended up in homemade strawberry ice cream.

Here’s a quick video of this year’s harvest!

Harvest time is always exciting but knowing that winter is just around the corner can be a bit sad… as the winters in Canada for an island boy can be tough (even after 24+ years). What do you grow in your garden? Leave your comments below.