This was the summer of kale in the backyard.

Pole beans, too, grew out of the dirt into tendrils that wrapped along the fence, produced pink flowers that ultimately, magically, produced purple pods with fresh new beans inside.Rosemary and lavender, thyme and oregano, sage and mint and parsley grew out of window boxes on the back deck. Plants promising tomatoes and peppers, strawberries and melon, celery, onions, Swiss chard, turnips and beets sprouted in raised beds.

My family and I thus participated, in a bigger way than ever this year, in backyard vegetable gardening, a burgeoning trend in these strained United States, where everybody I know could use a few homegrown potatoes to lighten the grocery budget. Put a dollar in the ground, get $7 back, so says the National Gardening Association.

In 2008, 36 million American homes grew backyard gardens. In 2009, the number was 43 million. The trend is ever up, as more Americans realize how easy it is to get 50 bean pods out of a single seed right out their own back door, and pesticide-free at that. A 2011 Thomas Reuters poll says 58 percent of American consumers, concerned about toxins and wanting to support local growers more than ever, would rather eat organic.

But while the point of backyard gardening is to walk out your kitchen, pluck an organic tomato or cucumber from the vine and bring it to table, warm and bursting with nutrients, that’s not the only benefit.

Indeed, like the U.S. economy this summer, my backyard garden guaranteed little:My urban piece of land, already no bigger than a convenience-store parking lot and partially shaded by 75-year-old oaks, doesn’t get enough sun. Thesoil for the raised beds, trucked in during the record rains of April, was wet and clumpy and never seemed to want to loosen into loam. I didn’t add enough fertilizer, which made many plants produce less. I’m still waiting for Brussels sprouts and cucumbers.

But plentiful harvest or no, my simple garden, edged with old bricks and fallen oak branches, was a family love affair, and at times, a community one.

My one friend, who has studied plants for a dozen years and who runs the local farmers’ market, guided my hand, teaching me that leggy broccoli seedlings should be planted deep, and that sea kelp pellets make the best organically minded fertilizer.Another friend helped my husband design and build the raised beds. Another helped design perennial flower beds to round out the setting.

As for the work of the garden, my children and my husband and I spent hour upon hour making blisters on our hands, shoveling and wheeling dirt, then edging and sowing and mulching. My 14-year-old son, as the garden water-and-weed boy, provided ongoing upkeep. As such, he often was the first to come shouting in the house about new fruit as it emerged — fruit that wouldn’t have been, except by his tending.

Not every plant took, or produced. But every plant that did became of value at the table. The centerpiece of the meal became a celebration of our work, as we planned meals around fresh, organic vegetables and herbs, instead of meat as is the tradition in this heart-attack heavy country. Our garden brought the outside in, as it became part of our daily lives and responsibilities. We became more familiar with the rhythms of the weather. Rain meant nobody had to water that day – which meant rain, for once, was welcome.

I know it’s not as simple as all that. Growing a garden requires a certain amount of knowledge, experience, a lot of work and water. Certainly, I didn’t take up vegetable gardening for the pure pleasure of gardening. I would indeed rather that every plant produce.

But as state parks around the country pull up their boardwalks, as the economy becomes more unpredictable and going to the grocery store increasingly feels like a no-win game battled engaging me, my pocketbook and sly marketing campaigns, I find myself waxing a bit like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”

There’s no place like home, no summer joy like a single pole bean grown by your family, picked in your own backyard.

By DEBRA-LYNN B. HOOK