My garden’s starting to wake up after another long winter. Check it out:

Our new lemon tree is still inside, but it’s acclimated nicely. See all the buds? It’s absolutely covered.

The radishes have started to come up.

And the spinach has started to come up, too. We had to net that bed to keep the squirrels out.

Our wintersown broccoli is doing great.

The raspberry cane that I just planted has broken dormancy. See that little tuft of leaves at the top?

And the new blueberry bushes seem to be happy, too.

Our apricot bushes are blooming for the first time. Will this be the year that we finally get apricots?

My daughter’s cabbage transplanted nicely. If she wins the cabbage growing contest, she’ll get a $1,000 scholarship. Hey, it’s worth a try.

The daylilies that I rescued from a curb pile last year are coming up. I can’t wait to see what color they are.

And that’s just a small portion of what’s going on in my garden at the moment. The cherry and apple trees have broken dormancy, and I just got the potatoes and peas planted. Can’t wait for warmer days and homegrown meals.

Well, I did it. After years of thinking about ordering a lemon tree, I finally ordered one – and not a little one either. A big six foot tree that should start producing lemons for us this year. I have a back yard full of fruit trees and bushes that I bought small (and cheap), and I’m still waiting for them to start producing, so this time I decided to go for instant gratification.

After considering all of my options, I selected a Meyer lemon tree from Fast-Growing-Trees.com. Their website says that you’ll have lemons the first season, if you buy their largest size (which I did), and that their trees will continue to fruit when you bring them indoors for the winter. It sounds good, but will it work out that way?

I’d say we’re off to a good start. My tree arrived via Fed-Ex on Friday (about five days after I ordered).

And I’m very pleased with the health of my lemon tree. The leaves are bright green, and show no signs of disease.

And there are buds everywhere!

My husband and I potted it up; and placed it next to a humidifier, until it’s warm enough to take it outdoors.

Now, if I could just coax spring into an early arrival.

One of my favorite things to do in my backyard? Grocery shop.

When we decided to landscape our yard a few years ago, I knew I wanted lots of edibles in the backyard. We didn’t have a lot of space to work with – our lot is just .18 acres, and the house takes up a good chunk of that. But with enough research, I figured if could find some things that would work in our small space.

So what did we end up planting?

• 3 apple trees
• 6 blueberry bushes
• 2 apricot bushes
• 2 cherry bushes
• 75 strawberries plants
• Grapes

We later added a perennial herb garden and a prickly pear cactus (free from a curb pile).

So really, we managed to squeeze quite a few food-producing plants into our beyond-small backyard. And when you factor in all of the annuals that we grow (squash, tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, celery, lettuce, swiss chard), that grocery list really starts to shrink down to size. I’ll take shopping in my backyard over shopping at the store any day.

Want to turn your small space into your very own mini-mart? Here’s what I recommend:

• Choose dwarf, bush or compact varieties of the plants that you want to grow. I used dwarf apple trees, bush cherries, bush apricots and a type of high bush blueberry that grows tall and skinny
• Choose plants with a high-yield and/or a long growing season. My scaled down plants produce just as much food as their much larger counterparts, but take up far less space
• Plant in layers. Shade-tolerant plants like lettuce, radishes and strawberries will do just fine planted under something else
• Grow vertically when you can. I trained my grapes to grow on arbors, so they don’t take up any space