Photo by: Rachel Tayse

Growing a Garden: The Ultimate Meal Plan

Photo by: Rachel Tayse

If you still have snow on the ground where you live, don’t hate me; we’ve already got tomatoes growing in our garden this year. There are a least a dozen or so about the size of a quarter or a little smaller already on the plants. Your time will come and just as your harvest is beginning, ours will be tapering off come mid-summer and give way to the hot Texas heat. No matter where you live, now is a great time to think about planting a vegetable and fruit garden. We’ve started our first garden in many years in our smallish-suburban back yard. My husband says gardening is the ultimate meal plan. Because not only do you have to think about the varieties you want to grow, but you’ll also need to figure out how to prepare the produce when they ripen. And there is lots of buzz these days about eating local. How much more local can you get than your own backyard?

Are you ready to get started on your Ultimate Meal Plan? Here are a few tips to get you going:

Choose your space. Then plan for that space. Raised beds generally give you a lot of flexibility. They allow you to enrich the soil and are much easier to dig in. Only have a patio? No worries. Many fruit and vegetable varieties grow well in pots too!

Plan what you think you’ll eat and add something new in for fun. Sure, tomatoes are the most popular (and one of the easiest to grow) plants in backyard gardens. But it’s fun to try and grow something beyond the norm. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine tried to grow artichokes in her backyard garden. Wow! I had never seen that and admired her ambition (sadly, she moved away before I knew if they grew well here in southeast Texas).

Choose your seeds or plants. Check with your local nursery or extension service to find out what varieties grow best in your area. Some even offer classes on how to start a garden with tips specific to your area. You can choose seeds or small plants that are locally grown or organic. We bought small tomato plants from a local feed store in Houston. They were cheap and gave us a big head start over growing them from seed. One thing about most feed stores: they sell bulk seeds for much less than what you can buy them for at larger home improvement stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot. We bought lots of seeds for lettuce, cucumber and many other varieties.

Be realistic about what you plant and when you plant it. In our area, Urban Harvest is a great resource for education classes and they also have planting schedules to give you an idea of crop rotation and seasons. For us, there is not much that will grow well in Houston’s heat at the height of summer, so we plant early and harvest early. After a short break, we gear up for a fall garden when temperatures cool! Like I mentioned, you can check with your local extension service to get similar advice or ask around to find similar non-profit organizations like Urban Harvest to help you get started.

Start a co-op. If you want to start a garden, but have a small space, consider growing a garden with friends. Get together and decide who will plant what. Be sure to have a few guidelines like how much you’ll spend to get set up or how you will divide the harvest and share accordingly. Can you imagine city dwellers with patios filled with pots of all sorts of fruits and vegetables? How cool!

Get the kids involved. Kids love to dig in the dirt. Growing a garden not only gives them that opportunity but it also lets them learn about the food they eat and reap the rewards when it’s time to pick the ripe fruit or vegetable. It’s also a great way to spend time together and just plain fun!

Think green and conserve your resources. Starting a compost pile is easy and is a great way to recycle those fruit and vegetable peelings to make a rich soil that you can use later in your garden or yard. Consider using a rain barrel to collect rainwater and use that in your garden. Rain barrels can be found at home improvement stores or you can set up your own.

Get advice, both old and new. My grandmother grew up on a farm and has been gardening for much of her life. She has been a great resource for setting up our garden! My husband has also been learning a lot on YouTube about training tomatoes and much more!

Find recipes NOW. Once you’ve figured out what you’ll be planting, start looking for recipes while you’re waiting for your harvest. When that bumper crop of tomatoes (or whatever!) arrives, you’ll have a plan on what to make and how to use everything up.

Share with friends. For many gardeners, no matter how much planning you do, there is still a bounty of produce during the growing season. It’s a great time to share with your friends and neighbors! Either give them the fruits and veggies for them to prepare at home or better yet, plan a garden party with menu items prepared from those you’ve grown!

Most of the work in our backyard garden has been done by my husband. The kids and I gave some suggestions on what varieties of vegetables we wanted to plant and he sort of took it from there. Ours is a bit more complicated (or so I say) than your average garden. We’ll not only be growing vegetables but also fish! You see, he’s set up a backyard aquaponics garden where the fish and plants help each other grow. Come fall, we hope to have a fish fry too! I hope you’re inspired to begin your Ultimate Meal Plan. Let me know how it goes!

Brenda Thompson is a mom, foodie and self-taught meal planner who provides ideas on how to get organized in the kitchen, save a little money, eat healthier (and family friendly) and have a little fun along the way.

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