If you’re like me and you enjoy the refreshing tastes of a fresh salad or seafood ceviche, then I couldn’t encourage more strongly the concept of growing your own veggies at home. Whether you decide to grow your produce indoors in a hydroponic garden of some kind or outdoors in a more traditional garden you will not be disappointed. In fact, once you start growing your own vegetables it’s only a matter of time before you begin growing your own herbs and fruit as well.

These days, pretty much all of the cooking I do involves homegrown produce and the taste difference is absolutely astounding. Otherwise decent meals are now out of this world, and all because I’ve began growing and keeping my own garden. Once dull Asian stir fries are now enjoyable taste explosions and ordinary pasta dishes are now freshened up with fresh chopped herbs like basil and oregano. Even things you wouldn’t imagine, like microwave or frozen pizza, can be given a little life and an extra dash of flavor from fresh garden grown hot peppers or mushrooms.

In addition, keeping a fresh garden will allow you to make your own salsas and tomato sauces from scratch and, if you keep a decent selection of species in your garden, there are virtually no ethnic or other cooking styles you can’t match in your own kitchen. So if you like to eat well and you have the time I suggest you plant a garden today; your appetite will thank you.

Ever since I was a little kid, I can remember vividly helping both my mom and my two grandmothers picking vegetables from and tending to our back yard garden. We would grow fresh produce from early spring right through the end of the fall. We would grow everything from squash, carrots, onions, and tomatoes, to okra, jalapeño and bell peppers, as well as chives and scallions. As my family is Asian – my parents and grandparents being natives of South Korea – there is a strong emphasis on fresh vegetables in our cuisine and my mother and grandmothers were ever watchful and insistent that only the freshest ingredients entered their family’s dishes.

Luckily for me and my siblings, this code was strictly followed and we were fortunate enough to grow up eating authentic Korean cuisine cooked fresh from our family’s own garden. While this style of preparing and eating might sound out of character for most Americans, it is actually quite common in both Korea and the wider Asian world as well. In fact, it’s not unusual in Asia to find entire villages and communities that get by completely on subsistence living, with each family making their own meals from foods grown or raised right on their own property. Even in some of Asia’s cities – as crowded as they are – you can find families doing their own gardening for fresh produce; it’s not just a way of life for my people but also a valuable part of our culture and, if my own story is any indication, can also allow for exposure to some pretty amazing and wholesome meals.

Tulips are some darn cool plants. I have been to Amsterdam twice in my travels now, and have been lucky enough to see a whole mess of tulips while there. The sheer amount of colors and varieties on display was staggering. Funny thing is tulips are not native to Holland, which seems to be what everyone thinks; they are actually native to Turkey. Their name originates from “tulbend,” which is Turkish for turban, because they thought the flowers looked like turbans.

I recently decided to give tulip growing a go in my own garden, and have been gathering information about them for the last couple of weeks online. From my research, here are a couple of general tips that anyone thinking about growing tulips should consider:

If growing other plants with tulips, make sure to plant them first, because digging later to plant may cause inadvertent damage to the tulip bulbs. Sandy soil is best for tulips, and must be well-drained. Best results come from planting in the fall around October. When planting, the hole should be three times as deep as the height of the tulip bulb itself. Tulips are very resistant to disease, and very rarely do you have to worry about that part of growing.

Overcrowding bulbs can cause growth problems, and if you have this problem simply relocated the bulbs after their foliage has died off, clipping new bulbs off the main one as needed for more plantings. If you wan to make your tulips in a bouquet, make sure to add a bit of sugar to the water the stems are in and the flowers will last much longer.

Follow the above tips and you should have a very colorful tulip patch after a couple of months! Break the cycle and say no to those roses!