NewsBreak Original

If you are interested in growing food, then come join me for a garden tour. You might pick up some ideas that might be helpful in planning your edible garden like which fruit trees and vegetables to grow, the varieties that thrive well in our growing zone, types of raised beds and barrels.. and many more.

The three-leaf clover or shamrock is synonymous to Ireland and also to St. Patrick's Day. We don't have shamrock in the backyard garden, but we have wood sorrel or false shamrock which I picked and used to decorate our table at last year's St. Patrick's Day dinner.

Popped-up in the backyard garden to harvest some purple Osaka mustard. The leaves are huge and perfect for making a mustard version of stuffed grape leaves or dolmades or dolmas. Let's call it stuffed mustard leaves. For the stuffing I will use rice, shrimp and chopped red onion. And that will be on the next video. Until the next one...

A colorful and healthy dinner with some garden harvest - broccolini, lettuce and snow peas. The dressing is homemade with zest and juice of freshly-picked Valencia orange also from the backyard garden plus honey, mustard, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of Himalayan pink salt. Also on the plate are seared ahi tuna, steamed potatoes, sliced tomatoes and medium boiled eggs.

I heard bees buzzing! They are busy foraging and soon it will be springtime! The broccolinis are flowering. They sure had seen the better days, so it's time to harvest them along with some snow peas. Then it's breakfast time, few minutes before work starts. A bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and strawberries that were also picked from the garden.

One of the advantages of growing your own vegetables is that you can grow unique instagramable varieties that are not available at the grocery stores. On this video, I will show you the seeds that I sowed - carrots, beets, rutabagas, leeks, magnolia blossom tall snap peas and different varieties of radish. Come join me in the garden. Gardening is fun, exciting and rewarding in many ways!

A simple and healthy Sunday brunch with some backyard garden harvest. Colorful tomatoes sliced and placed on a baguette with mozzarella. On to a 350°F pre-heated oven until the cheese melted, and then garnished with torn mint. Pork chop cut into cubes and cooked with apples and rosemary. A plate of donut peaches, bunches of grapes and store-bought watermelon and eggs. The beautiful lilies were also from the garden.

Some beautiful harvest from our backyard garden into our dinner table. Freshly picked peaches, variety is Red Baron, rubbed with turbinado sugar, then grilled. A small bucket of figs sliced in half and served on a cutting board. Tuscan-inspired soup with eggplant, tomatoes, pork and garnished with basil. And, homemade freshly-baked focaccia with kalamata olives and rosemary. Cheers!

Cucumbers are very easy to grow as long as you provide them with their basic needs. They need full sun, frequent watering and well draining fertile organic soil. And that's basically it. The most common pests are the leaf miners, so it's a good practice to regularly inspect the leaves for damage, toss them right away and spray the rest with neem oil. Neem oil is for organic gardening.