Growing your grub: Notes on urban gardening

I may cook the food, but the hubs grows the food. Yup, that's an aerial view of our urban garden above.The hubs and I began our garden adventures a few years ago after we’d moved into our current home, which had a small (but garden beckoning) backyard. We started off with herbs in a few planters and then expanded to a raised garden bed made from trapezoidal wooden boards purchased from Costco. The hubs has since graduated to making his own wooden garden beds with cedar planks freshly cut at Home Depot. This year, we currently have three rectangular garden beds and fig, lemon, and lime trees (the latter which will come in handy in the face of this crazy lime shortage). The hubs has moved all of our herbs from their pots into the garden bed, and now we have a good amount of greens to sustain our gastronomic needs.This year, Houston hasn’t seen much rain, but the hubs has combated this issue with an automatic irrigation system made with a timer and some soaker hoses. He’s even made a rain collector out of a 30-gallon trash can, but it’s in need of a little repair.This season’s crops include sungold and roma tomatoes, kale, scallion, rosemary, thyme, basil, Spanish tarragon, and mint, not to mention the figs, lemons, and limes. We’re still waiting on our lemongrass, shallots, and garlic to grow.It’s funny because I used to hate raw tomatoes as a child. I had to have them cooked, mostly in the form of ketchup. But now, I love raw tomatoes. I can’t wait to grub on some with extra virgin olive oil and sweet basil. Speaking of tomatoes, did you know storing them in your fridge completely ruins their naturally sweet flavor? Read this article on why, folks, you should seriously stop putting your tomatoes in the fridge.It’s definitely a cool feeling to know the food on your table came from the soil in your backyard. It makes for much more respectful cooking and eating. Nowadays, so many kids think the origins of meat is a plastic wrapped, styrofoam container from the supermarket, and their carrots should always be perfectly shaped, bright orange nubs in a plastic bag. It’s good to know where the stuff you’re putting in your body came from.Do you have a green thumb? What are some gardening tips for the rest of us pale green, brown, black thumbs? What are you growing in your garden this season?