Growing own vegetables and herbs

Gold hibiscus

amerillis

heirloom Italian Tomatoes

Star Burst Lily

I have always had a garden of some sort, as a child I had to grow everything in pots as the back garden was concreted over...part of after WWII minimalism I suppose.
In the 60's my family moved to a larger house and I had my own garden for a while, growing roses and rhubarb..under  a bucket, with a hole in it so it "forced" the plant to grow quicker; also there we were close to local farms..it was never quite warm enough then, to grow tomatoes.
In the 70's and 80's I worked in large private houses that had teams of gardeners, and many had their own herds of Jersey cows ( great for almond yellow cream) and livestock, chickens, ducks, cattle; and later in the year, wild pheasants..to be shot in the Fall in our many "Shoots".


Other places had no vegetable gardens but did have large areas to grow cilantro, which I had to cut with regular scissors, for cooking Kuwaiti style and for a long time could not stand the smell of oily cilantro, and the blisters it gave me to cut it.


In the 90's I was still growing in containers but the weather in LA made it possible to grow all manner successfully in pots, of warm climate vegetables and herbs.

Roma Tomatoes

Air Plants

Snap dragons

wild foxglove, this is not a hybrid

Since 2004 I have had my own garden, here in West LA, in fact the first thing I did before actually moving in, was to prepare the grounds, bringing in lots of good mulch, top soil and manure..everyone thought I was crazy, but now they are all envious of a small garden that can grow such a variety of plants and herbs..it is also a "sun trap", and is usually 10f degrees warmer than the reg temp.

general culinary mint..mild and used in many dishes

perpetual purple basil..grows all year

Italian green pepper

patio tomatoes..actually bred for container growing

Georgia Peace Rose

Palace peach roses

Lady Bug ( they eat aphids off tomato and cabbage plants)on French Lavender

This year I am growing 6 types of peppers including 2 very hot ones, white eggplants, blue lake beans, 5 varieties of tomato, English thyme, culinary sage, 3 varieties of white sage, perpetual purple basil, rosemary, cilantro, parsley,  lemon verbena, satsuma kumquats, white ginger,cactus, as well as roses, and  2 types of lavender, Spanish and French, salad greens, and broccoli.
It is very important to grow flowers in any herb/vegetable garden as they attract the pollinating insects, although all my cactus flower at night and require moths to pollinate...also marigolds around tomato plants repel insects harmful to the plants..there is a world wide shortage of honey bees, everywhere except my garden, it seems.
Here are some shots of my garden so far this year

Broccoli and eggplants

cilantro

peppermint..stronger good for teas

French Lavender

And where ever you live try and grow something for your table, there is nothing so satisfying as home grown...