Vegetable Harvest

I wrote earlier about growing vegetables in EarthBoxes. After I had finished the planting, Mala made the comment that she hoped we'd have at least one meal to show for the effort and expense... I'm happy to report we've hard our first harvest! Our kids were very excited to harvest beans and basil for a dinner we were preparing for some guests. Here's what they got:


On the left is some basil to serve as a garnish on a pasta dish, and on the right some beans which we steamed as a side dish. Within a week we had a second harvest:


Lots more basil---this time to make some delicious pesto---and more beans. (The kids brought in some oranges from our orange tree, but the tree hasn't really been taken care of and the oranges aren't very good.)

And today, less than a week later, we got another round of beans. The tomatoes are also beginning to show up---there are already more than a half dozen small green tomatoes and lots of flowers. The bell peppers are only just starting out---they're really tiny at this point---and the serrano pepper is still holding out and only now seems to have started flowering. All in all things appear to be going quite well. While we're not exactly "self sufficient", I think we've crossed the rather low bar Mala set!