How Does Your Garden Grow?

Or maybe the better question is, will your garden grow?  This past weekend, my husband, kids, and I dove into the deep end and planted our first organic vegetable garden, in fact our first veggie garden ever.  We have a fantastic piece of dirt behind our garage that is absolutely useless for anything else and perfect for a garden (I think).  It is nice and sunny most of the day, right by our compost bin, and close enough to our yard/house that we will tend it regularly.

I have an aspiring green thumb.  I come from a long line of very green thumbs, so I think I have it in me but experiece seems to be what is missing.  Fortunately, my Mom is a fantastic gardener, in fact she grew up on a farm and had a Mom (my Grandmother) who can grow roses (and everything esle) like nobodies business.  So you can probably see as well as I can that the potential is there.  As for the experience, well after about 9 months to a year of contemplation and the dryest year on record in Houston, Texas, we have finally gotten the courage and the conditions to get started.  When my Mom was in town for Easter, she helped us plan the garden on paper, gave us lots of pointers, and said good luck.

On Saturday morning, Greg got out there and scraped all the dead weeds and grass away and turned all of the dirt over with a shovel.  We rose bright and early on Sunday morning and began mixing in some composted manure/humus mix into the dirt with our rented roto-tiller.  It is amazing how beautiful the dirt looks once that process was finished.  The kids especially loved watching Greg maneauver that machine.  In only a couple of hours, we had some soft rich soil ready for our seeds and plants.

All four of us made the trek to Home Depot to return the roto-tiller and to pick out our seeds and plants.  We had a general plan of what we were getting because Mom helped us plan, but we also adjusted during the process to give the kids some say in what we would grow in the garden.  In the end, we all agreed on:
watermelon
cucumbers
zucchini squash
corn
tomatoes (plants instead of seeds since we are late getting them in the ground)
sugar snap peas
green beans
carrots
spinach
swiss chard
lettuce
herbs (parsley, cilantro, basil, lavendar, sage, and thyme - plants instead of seeds)



Garden Plan

 As I was reading the backs of the seed packets on the way home from the store, I started to feel overwhelmed.  Plant in this kind of soil, this deep, this far apart, pack it in this way, thin it to this many inches, etc.  Oh good grief, is every kind of plant really that different and do I have to be exact for them to grow?  I then realized that it was such a good lesson for me, because this is how so many of my clients, readers, friends must feel about diet and exercise.  You read and hear so many conflicting recommendations on eat this not that, this food is so good for this and then someone else says it will harm you in this way.  You must exercise just like this and for exactly this amount of time, blah, blah, blah!  As one of my clients likes to say, "it is all just too much".  Well, as I decided in that moment about my garden and as I encourage my clients to do, "everything in moderation" and "it is better to do a little something that you think moves you in the right direction than to stay in the same place and do nothing".  So, to work I went attempting to plant my seeds and plants in the way that the package said, but in the end I was just so darn proud to get them in the ground and to learn more about gardening through the process.  "There is no better way to learn then to try and make mistakes."

Our First Garden 4-15-12

I am thrilled to say that I got everything in the ground on Sunday, because it started to rain Sunday night and has continued to rain throughout the day today (Monday).  In my inexpeienced gardener mind, that rain seems like a really good thing on the day after you plant your garden, but I guess I will find out in a week or two when hopefully the sprouts began to peek above the ground.

If you are an aspiring green thumb like myself, I hope this encourages you to give it a shot, even if it is just some herbs or tomatoes in a pot on your patio or porch.  If you have kids and want them to eat more vegetables and fruits or just want them to be more in touch with where food comes from, then find a way to plant a garden and get their hands in the dirt.  Again, even a pot on the porch or patio is a great place to start.  If you have no interest in gardening, then I hope you at least walk away from this article realizing that even if you become overwhelmed by how to exercise, have a healthy diet, or how to do underwater basket weaving, give it your best shot because giving your best effort is always better than sitting around wishing that you could...


WHAT'S FOR DESSERT
Do you find yourself looking for a beautiful dessert that doesn't take forever to make and doesn't completely sabotage the good work you have done all week trying to eat healthy?  Well, this has been one of my favorites since I was a child and for some reason I just had not thought about serving it to my family in a while.  Greg's birthday is today, so when I passed the beautiful strawberries and angel food cakes at Whole Foods on Saturday (nice placement marketing WF), I thought that Strawberry Shortcake would be a great birthday cake this time around.  You could of course make an Angel Food cake from scratch, but if you can find one that is already made and does not have all kinds of preservatives in it, then you just saved yourself a good bit of time (and you don't have to figure out what to do with all of those egg yolks).

Strawberry Shortcake
servings:  8

1 prepared Angel Food Cake
2 pint strawberries
1-2 t granulated stevia (like truvia) or sugar
creamy yogurt, whipped cream, or powdered sugar (optional)

About an hour before serving, slice strawberries in a bowl.  Sprinkle strawberries with one teaspoon of granulated Stevia (like Truvia) or 1 teaspoon of sugar.  Cover strawberries and let them sit in fridge until ready to serve dessert.  Cut the angel food cake into 8 pieces and place each piece on a small plate.  Top each serving with 1/8 of the strawberries and if desired, finish with a dollop of yogurt, whipped cream, and/or a sprinkle of powdered sugar.  ENJOY!

Here's to fresh, fast, and fantastic food!

Aimee