Garden | GoodFoodMama
Creating a Garden Where Vegetables and My Dog can Coexist
As the end of the year approaches I am thinking about a spring garden full of yummy vegetables, herbs and fruit waiting to be harvested and eaten. Alas, my chocolate lab, Coco who has taken over my backyard, brings me back to reality. My goal for the New Year, not resolution, but goal is to reclaim my backyard and build a garden where a bounty of produce and Coco can coexist.
Here are some photos of my garden and Coco as well as links to some great information to help me with planning. Are you thinking about starting or reviving your garden too? Lets chronicle this journey together.
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Posted in Growing Good Food	
Growing Your Own Food – Good for Kids
Growing your own food is a great way to help your kids eat more fruits and vegetables because most kids like to eat what they grow. Also growing your on produce makes it easy to incorporate more fresh fruits and vegetables into healthy meals and snacks. Growing your own food teaches your child about the environment in which they live, where their food comes from and how plants grow.
This is what I am growing now:
Here is what has grown in my daughter’s school garden:
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5 really good reasons to grow your own food
Here are my top five reasons to grow your own food:
It is pretty much common knowledge that eating fruits and vegetables is one of the most important things you and your family can do to stay healthy. Growing your own food in your backyard, on your windowsills, or in patio containers ensures that you will be eating more fruits and vegetables daily, thus providing you with essential vitamins and minerals and other nutrients that are important for good health. Also, growing your own food teaches your children where their food actually comes from and that it doesn’t come from the grocery store, but from the soil, the earth.
Purposeful Exercise
Growing your own food provides you with purposeful physical activity on a regular basis. Planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting offer plenty of exercise and can help you relax as well. Gardening is great for the whole family!
Cut your grocery bill in half by growing the fruits and vegetables you eat the most.
Better Tasting Produce
When you grow your own fruits and vegetables you have control of what does and does not go into your food therefore, keeping it safe to eat and tasty too!
Growing your food organically, without herbicides or pesticides, helps reduce air and water pollution. You also help reduce the carbon emissions resulting from the transport of fresh produce from different parts of the world via planes and refrigerated trucks to your neighborhood supermarkets.
Even if you don’t have a backyard, you can still grow your own food. I grow leafy greens, such as spinach and arugula in containers. This could be an option if you have a balcony or patio that gets a good amount of sun or start with an indoor herb garden on a windowsill. Another possibility would be to find out if there are any community gardens available in your city where you can tend to your very own plot.
Check out these Gardening Resources to help you get started.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fruit and Vegetable Gardening
http://communitygarden.org/learn/starting-a-community-garden.php
Find a community garden near you with our Bi-National Community Garden Database
http://acga.localharvest.org
Getting Started: A Guide for Starting a School Garden
http://www.lifelab.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/GettingStarted.pdf
Kitchen Gardening 101: How to Grow Your Own Food
http://kgi.org/how-to-grow-a-kitchen-garden
http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/top-10-reasons-to-grow-your-own-organic-food