Gardening is a rewarding hobby that can help you eat fresh healthy foods. But we need to be realistic – gardening is hard work, weeding, spreading compost, watering. So when you plan your garden, plan the foods you enjoy eating. It’s not too late to adjust your plan, especially for your ‘second season’ crops!
This was a hard lesson I learned when I planted my first garden on my own. I planted all the foods my parents had grown. Hard work and food I didn’t like to eat later – I made major changes the following years!
Changes were made again when my family came along. Children like gardening more when they like to eat the foods they help raise. It is important to supply them with appropriately-supplied tools, and to not push their attention spans.
Even if you haven’t started seeds early, most planting zones are coming into a warmer season, and you can plant directly in the garden.
These are our basics. Use them for suggestions, and include foods your family enjoys.
- Potatoes – Yukon Gold
- Cabbage –Napa, Red, Solid white
- Cucumbers
- Corn – Butter & Sugar bicolor
- Beets – Bull’s Blood
- Tomatoes – Heirlooms and cherry
- Peppers – bell and hot
- Broccoli and cauliflower
- Bush beans- Blue Lake
- Snow peas
- Eggplant
- Squash – yellow, zucchini, and butternut
- Onions – yellow and red
- Herbs- thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, chives, basil and mints
- Lettuce – Butter crunch and Red oak
- Swiss Chard
- Asparagus
- Watermelon – Sugar Baby
- Cantaloupe/Muskmelon
There are variations to what will end up in the final plan but this is where we start. This may seem like a lot, but you do not need to plant a hundred plants of each – five or six will work for many of them. We donate extra produce to the local food pantry, and who hasn’t had extra squash, tomatoes or beans?
