Fresh From Your Garden

Are you a gardener of baby boomer age or beyond? Read these important tips before heading out into your garden unprotected.

As we grow older,  we start to get achey in body parts that we never even knew existed, and if we aren’t careful, one day spent digging up the garden can turn into a few long days of recuperation and bed rest. So, what’s an aging gardener to do? You could recruit the kids, or grand-kids, or maybe hire someone, but if you prefer to reap the great benefits of tending your own vegetables simply follow a few of my baby boomer gardening tips.

Garden Early

Get out there in the early morning hours before the sun hits its peak while it’s cooler out. You’ll not only be able to work more efficiently, the morning dew will help you to pull the weeds out easier too.

Wear a Hat

A hat will keep the sun off your head and out of your eyes saving you a lot of head aches later in the day.

Wear White

Wearing white colored articles of clothing will not only help to keep you cool but will also enable you to see any little bugs or ticks that may be trying to catch a ride with you.

Take it Slow

There’s no rush! Work at your own pace and in small increments. Remember that old fable about the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race every time. You’ll be surprised how fast your yard and garden take shape even by only working on it an hour or two each day.

Try Garden Bartering

Don’t try to be a hero. If you find something is too hard for you to do, or takes way too much effort, get someone to help with that portion of the job. Overdoing it will only land you on your back for a few days. If you don’t have any family nearby, try a little garden bartering with a neighbor. Trade your wonderful watering abilities for his terrific tilling power.

Harvest in the Evening

Don’t pick your vegetables during the hot part of the day. Wait until just before you need to use them for dinner when the sun is starting to relax for the day. It’s better for you and it’s also better for your veggies. The closer you harvest to the time you are actually going to use them, the fresher those vegetables will be!

Become a Long Fellow

A long handled hoe, weed puller, or garden rake can be extremely useful to those of us with sore backs. The less bending, the better, right? Purchase or borrow long handled gardening tools. After suffering a stroke, I watched my father-in-law out in his garden. He used his long handled hoe to chop weeds out of the ground with one hand while he balanced himself on his walker with the other. That man gardened until he was well into his 90’s and grew one mean tomato. If he could do it, so can you!

Drink Water

Be sure to bring some bottled water with you when you head out to the garden. Keep yourself as moist as you keep your garden plants. Staying properly hydrated is important at any age.

Bench It

Get yourself a small stool, or a soft mat for sitting on, or leaning on while gardening. There’s no reason to be uncomfortable.

Give Me a Break

Take breaks and stop whenever you need to. It’s your garden. You’re the boss of what needs to get done in it. Give yourself some time off whenever necessary.

Age should never be a factor when gardening as long as you take care of yourself while taking care of your garden!

Find more great tips for Baby Boomers by reading  The Baby Boomer Body Book. The Complete Health Reference For Our Generation.

Vegetable Garden photo appears courtesy of Southern Foodways Alliance and a CreativeCommons.org search.

Filed under: Kitchen Gardening Tips, garden on October 22nd, 2008 | 2 Comments »

 
Over run with garden tomatoes?  Looking for an easy appetizer?  Here’s an easy appetizer recipe that tastes great.

Garden Tomato Salsa Recipe

Ingredients
2  tomatoes, diced (large tomatoes)
½ cup onion, diced
1/4 cup green pepper, diced
One garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Directions
Mix all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl or use an Authentic Mexican Volcanic Rock “Molcajete” Mortar & Pestle.

That’s it!  Just be sure to chill the salsa in the refrigerator for at least one hour (or more) before serving.  Garden Tomato Salsa tasted great when served with tortilla chips.  This recipe serves about eight.

Looking for more salsa recipes?  Take a look at this great cookbook.

Salsa Lovers Cook Book: More Than 180 Sensational Salsa Recipes for Appetizers, Salads, Main Dishes and Desserts

 Salsa photo appears courtesy of florian and Creativecommons.org.

Filed under: Vegetable Recipes on September 17th, 2008 | 6 Comments »

Vegetable Containers: Fast and Fun!

When setting out your fresh garden grown veggies, for your friends and family members to admire and devour, why not use a few of them as serving containers?

Bell Peppers of any color (using several makes a dynamic presentation) can be used for serving almost any type of dip. To do this all you need to do is carefully cut off the top including the stem, remove the seeds and fill them up. If they want to topple over on the platter simply take a thin slice off of the bottom, being careful not to slice all the way through.

You can also use Bell peppers prepared this way to serve any thin strips of raw vegetables that you can think of including… ta da, bell pepper strips! Try mixing the colors up a bit, put the red pepper strips in the green pepper, the green strips in the yellow pepper, and so on, and so on. Wasn’t that a commercial years ago? Anyway, celery, asparagus, cucumber and sliced carrots work well this way also.

When hollowed out and de-seeded, medium to large sized, tomatoes can also work well as a container for dip, sour cream or tuna salad.

Different shapes and sizes of squash will make interesting containers for dip also. Simply slice the top, hollow it out, and fill with your favorite recipe.

By using your imagination, you can use almost any vegetable as a container for something. Except for carrots, and green beans, they would be kind of hard to work with. And peas and, okay you should stick to any vegetable that is large enough to be able to hold something in a good proportion.

The fun doesn’t stop with the food either. I’ve heard of people using hollowed out cucumbers as bud vases. Like I said, use your imagination. Have fun with your veggies. Show them off!

Of course you could always skip the work and purchase a Le Creuset Stoneware Petite Bell Pepper Casserole instead.

Bell Pepper Photo appears courtesy of blmurch and creativecommons.org.

Filed under: Kitchen Gardening Tips, Vegetable Recipes on September 3rd, 2008 | 1 Comment »

A fun way to get your children involved, or in other words, trick them into helping you weed and water your vegetable garden, is to create a secret hideaway for them amongst the vegetables growing in your garden.

You can do this in different ways but to avoid damages to your other vegetables it is recommended that you build the hideaway close to the edge of your garden.

Crop Circles

The simplest way to create a secret area in your garden is to plant rows of corn in a circle, leaving enough room in the center for a child to hide and play. Be sure to leave an open spot for the child to be able to get inside. Depending on how much room you have in your garden, plant several rows of corn around the circle, leaving one foot of space between plants. As the corn grows, the secret hideaway will become more and more discreet.

Garden Teepee

Another way to create a secret area in your garden is to build a teepee. Do this by taking six or eight, ten-foot long bamboo stakes or sticks if you can find them available. Tie the stakes securely together at the top, using twine. Arrange the bottoms in a circular fashion and bury them at least a foot deep into the soil.

To create the walls of the teepee, plant vining vegetables at the base of each stake. You can use, green beans, cucumbers, peas or some of each. Be sure to leave one area of the teepee, plant free to allow a small opening for a child to enter.

As the vines grow they will cling to the stakes and each other to create a secret area below for a child to hide in and dream.

Be sure that the child is not allowed to climb on the teepee as it is a delicate structure and they can be hurt if it comes apart.

Getting children interested in vegetable gardening is a good way for the two of you to spend some quality time together. Not only will they enjoy watching their secret area in the garden grow and form, but they will learn about the growing process and probably be more eager to eat the vegetables when they are ready to harvest.

Another good way to spend quality time together is reading to your children. Pick up, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This is a wonderful tale to share while waiting for your own secret garden area to grow.

Another excellent book to share with your child is, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children, by Sharon Lovejoy. It includes directions for making a sunflower house, gardening tips for children and some intriguing recipes.

Garden photo appears courtesy of Leeks N Bounds and was found through a creative commons search.

Filed under: Grow a Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Gardening Tips, garden on June 16th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Since the main purpose of a kitchen garden is to be able to eat everything you grow you’ll want to steer clear of the chemicals when it comes to bug prevention.

Personally, I’d rather share a little bit of the crop with the bugs than to spray poison on anything my family will eventually be eating. By following an insecticide-free pest control regimen in your kitchen garden, you’ll be able to keep the insects to a minimum without using those nasty chemicals on your edibles.

1. Keep Your Garden Clean
Remove any dead leaves, twigs or anything that has fallen to the ground in, or around, your vegetable garden. Insects love to live and hide in the cool darkness under the debris and will attack your plants when you aren’t looking. By keeping your garden clean they will have to look elsewhere for a comfortable place to call home.

2. Abolish the Weeds
Pull out any weeds that pop up in your garden. Weeds are not only unsightly but they also attract bugs and the less bugs you have to share your vegetables with, the better.

3. Water Regularly
When vegetable plants are allowed to get too dry between watering, they can become stressed. Certain bugs, like the spider mite, are attracted to stressed plants. By keeping your garden watered regularly, especially during times of drought and the hottest days of summer, they will remain stress (and spider mite) free.

Watering regularly also helps to remove any bugs that are crawling around on your plants and vegetables by washing them off.

4. Control the Bugs On Your Other Plants
Although I don’t approve of spraying my edible garden plants with insecticides, I will use them on some of my other foliage and flowers when necessary. By keeping your other plants pest free there will be less bugs in your vegetable garden to worry about.

A good way to avoid insecticide over-spray from reaching your edible plants when spraying your other plants is to keep your beautifying flowers and foliage at a distance from your vegetable garden, or to only spray plants that are a few feet away. Also, wait for a wind-free day.

5. Know Your Bugs
When it comes to gardening, some bugs are insects and other bugs are just pests. Predatory insects (bugs that eat other bugs) can do most of your pest control if you let them. Praying Mantises eat aphids. Ladybugs eat Aphids and Mealy bugs. Parasitic Wasps love munching on whiteflies and if you are lucky enough to have some Lacewings in your neighborhood well, those babies will eat all of the above plus the eggs of many other damaging pests. 

To learn more about ladybug gardening benefits please visit Ladybugs are Good for your Garden.

6. Cut Your Losses
If any of your plants becomes heavily infested with bugs, it is best to cut your losses by removing and discarding the offending plant immediately before the rest of your garden gets damaged.

7. Handpicking
Some of the larger bugs, such as the Tomato Horn worm can be removed from your garden plants by hand. Although this isn’t for the squeamish, it can work.

Of course none of the above methods will remove all of the bugs from your vegetable garden but by following these simple steps you will greatly reduce the pest population without the use of chemical insecticides.

Find all of your organic gardening solutions here, at Arbico-Organics.com

Recommended Reading: The Art of the Kitchen Garden 

Nasty Tomato Bug Photo appears courtesy of jbweir and  creative commons .

Filed under: Grow a Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Gardening Tips, Uncategorized, Vegetable Garden on May 27th, 2008 | No Comments »

Intercropping, intersowing and planting catch crops are ways of saving valuable garden space in your home garden. 

More garden space means more fresh veggies for your family and more money saved at the grocery store.  Who wouldn’t want that? By doing a little extra planning (and planting) your home garden can produce a lot more produce in the same amount of yardage that you are already using.

Intercropping
Intercropping is when you plant two different crops in the same row to save valuable garden space. Intercropping is when you plant a fast growing vegetable, such as green beans, around or under a taller, slow growing vegetable, like sweet corn. Be sure to make your spacings between rows little bit larger than called for on the seed package to allow room for both crops to thrive.

Intersowing
Intersowing is very similar to intercropping. To make intersowing work properly you need to plant a fast growing crop, such as lettuce or radishes along with a slower growing crop, such as carrots or parsnips. Be sure to leave a slightly larger space between seeds than what is called for on the seed package. Alternate planting your fast growing seeds and your slow growing seeds while you sow them in the same row. By the time your carrots need the space, your spinach will be ready for harvest.

Catch Crop
A catch crop, also known as succession planting, is used when a quick growing crop has reached its harvest. Instead of leaving a big empty spot in your garden, you would plant a catch crop in its place. A catch crop has many advantages in that it will help reduce weed growth, keep the soil cooler and help reduce soil erosion in your garden. You might also use a catch crop in your garden to fill in the spots where you might have encountered any failures. It makes no sense to let the space go just because the buggies enjoyed your cucumber plants a little too much. Radishes, onions (from sets) and spinach make great catch crops.

Gardeners’ Choice offers high quality horticulture at affordable prices including fruits & vegetables, ground cover & much, much more!

Recommended Reading: Designing the New Kitchen Garden: An American Potager Handbook

Kitchen Garden photo appears courtesy of Josie Fraser and was found through a creative commons search.

Filed under: Grow a Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Gardening Tips, Vegetable Garden on May 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

The increasing popularity of today’s new kichen garden has inpsired me to share some of what I’ve learned digging around in the dirt for over 20 years in my own vegetable and herb gardens.

As the contributing editor of the now defunct Fresh Cooking From your Garden I spent many years writing garden cooking articles.  I’ll be sharing many of those past favorites along with some brand new ones that I’m writing especially for Fresh From Your Garden.

Be sure to grab the rss feed at the top of this page so you don’t miss a thing.

Kitchen gardening is back with a vengence and I’m here to help you grow the garden of your dreams.

Filed under: Grow a Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Garden, Kitchen Gardening Tips, Vegetable Garden on May 26th, 2008 | 3 Comments »