You hold this seemingly inanimate object in your hand. Once you place it in soil, give it some water and light it GROWS! And it keeps growing, giving pollinators a purpose and habitat, sequestering carbon, building soil, and giving you food—plus providing its own seeds to continue the process.
Being part of this process ties us back into nature in a way that very few things can. And more of us are feeling that pull back to nature as gardening continues to grow as a hobby and passion across the globe. There are so many ways to start seeds, from Winter Sowing to Soil Blocking here we’ll focus on starting seeds indoors, under lights.
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Why Start Seeds?
Slow Bolt Napa Cabbage
On a more practical level, an obvious benefit of growing a garden from seed is major cost savings. A packet of seeds is usually less than the cost of a single small potted vegetable or herb start. Add perpetual savings if you can save the seeds that grow from the plants as well. More about this in my article, Seed Saving Starts Now.
Remember only open pollinated varieties are recommended for seed saving, as these are the only kinds that will grow back ‘true to type’. Many seeds sold are hybrids, meaning that they took certain traits from two different plants and combined them. Growing seeds saved from those hybrids will likely revert back to parts of their parent plants, sometimes with really funky outcomes!
Tips and tricks from a gardening Mom on how to get your kids (and stubborn adults) to eat more veggies. This is high summer in the garden and wow is there a LOT of fresh food coming in.
Really, how are we supposed to make dinner EVERY night?!? Not to mention, breakfast, lunch, and ALL THE SNACKS… Even with easy-to-incorporate veggies like cucumbers and green beans, we can all get in a rut.
Since “Food is Fun” is one of my mottos, I’ve gathered a few simple tricks over the years… And these are different than the hide-the-veggies-in-the-food ideas—which I used to do, but really we should be loud + proud when we eat more veggies!
P.S. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for home grown / locally grown produce because when food naturally tastes good it is easy to eat!
My Favorite Ways to Eat More Veggies
Here are a few of my favorite, real-life ways to eat more veggies—no hiding required. These are the tricks I reach for again and again, especially when the garden is overflowing and I need quick, easy wins at mealtime. They’re simple, flexible, and built around the idea that food should be fun (always). Because when veggies look good and taste good, everyone at the table—kids and grown-ups alike—is way more likely to dig in.
Snack Tray
AKA ‘kid version’ of the charcuterie board… chopping raw veggies and slicing cheese, putting out a few nuts, crackers, sourdough, and of course some dips like hummus and dressings… and—boom!—meal complete.
**Look for different colors, shapes, and sizes of familiar foods.** There are ‘Lemon’ and ‘Dragon Egg’ cucumbers to keep them eating more. Purple, yellow, red, and white carrots are pretty cool too!
Sauté Saves the Day
This high heat browning technique is quickest way to add layers of flavor to veggies. Starting with onion + garlic, toss in larger chunks/slower-to-cook veggies first, and then add shredded veggies—and maybe some peppers or tomatoes for flavor. One of my favorite combos is chard, kale, or beet greens with onion and garlic, plus some tomato to up the acidity and create a little sauce base.
Variety of beets ready for the grill.
Just Grill It
Like roasting in the winter, grilling in the summer adds so much flavor to food! A family favorite is roasted peppers, onions + zucchini, with an olive oil and salt + pepper prep. The fun part is drizzling a little dressing on afterwards. Salad Girl’s “Curry Fig” is phenomenal on zucchini after—or if you place veggies on foil while grilling, marinating in it first.
Shape Shift
My mandolin is a meal saver. I can shred zucchini into coleslaw or use it as a salad base. I can also shave carrots, beets, or kohlrabi into ribbons or sheets. The mandolin even turns regular old cabbage into an instant salad. I’m using the same tried-and-true veggies my family loves—but presenting them in different ways makes it more fun for my kids. And honestly, it’s more fun me and my hubby too.
Herbal Appeal
Three kinds of basil, each with their own unique flavor, adds to the fun of Italian salads!
Most of us have a few potted herbs around, and this is the time to use them! Most herbs do much better after getting a pruning anyway, and they add fresh, intense flavors to your meals. Thyme with lemony dishes, of course adding basil to Italian dishes, and chives to anything with eggs (including hard boiled) just brightens up the flavors. I’ll also mention that many herbs are VERY easy to dry simply by hanging if you start snipping and realize you have a LOT of green!
Quickles
Quick pickling is a life saver as the dog days of summer wear on. I use a simple quick pickle recipe—and I have found adding a little of Salad Girl’s “Lemony Herb” to the mix goes a long way. Any veggie you enjoy raw makes a good candidate for pickling. From cucumbers to carrots, green beans, radishes, zucchini, cauliflower…pickling these is a great way to eat more veggies.
Basic Quick Pickle Recipe
1 Cup cider vinegar 1 Cup water ¼ honey or sugar 1 T kosher salt.
Heat brine to dissolve and combine. Then pour over jars packed with veggies, seal, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. Enjoy for a few weeks, if they last that long.
Adding quick pickles to salads is a great way to jazz up salads that soak up lots of flavor—and they’re also amazing over potatoes. This recipe is meant to be played with, so make it your own! My seasonings have included mustard seeds, garlic, fennel leaves, dill, onion slices, peppercorn, hot peppers, bell peppers, ginger, and any garden fresh herbs.
Ferment It!
Another, healthier version of pickling is fermentation. It doesn’t use vinegar, but you end up with that puckering taste, plus TONS of amazing gut-friendly, good bacteria. If you’re interested, check out my blog on different ways to pickle + ferment your beans, cucumbers, carrots, etc. into crispy, crunchy snacks that last months in your refrigerator.
Summer Fun
I love summer—and spending it OUTSIDE is key. So I try hard to make fast work of preserving and putting up food now to enjoy all winter long. Don’t forget you can freeze things like tomatoes and shredded zucchini to cook with later.
**There’s a reason meal kit services are all the rage right now, but that’s just not my world. Plus the packaging, delivery and processing takes adds up to a hefty carbon footprint that takes a toll on our planet too.**
Closing Thoughts on Helping Your Family Eat More Veggies
I hope this post inspires you to find a few new ways to remind yourself that food is fun—and that eating more veggies doesn’t have to feel like a chore. Sometimes it’s just a small shift, a new presentation, or a fresh idea that makes all the difference. I’d love to hear what works in your kitchen, too. Please share your favorite tips for getting your family to eat more veggies!
This is the Spring to get growing a vegetable garden!
With so much up in the air dealing with COVID19, I am soothed knowing the ground beneath my feet is here for me.
Gardening can be a great escape that also keeps you: going outside and getting sun, moving while the gyms are closed, feeding you healthy food, …which all seem like pretty good reasons to go ahead and plant a (bigger) garden this Spring!
Let’s Dig In!
Victory Gardens were a sign of national patriotism back in the days between WWI and WWII.
Even schools had gardens, which I am happy to say was already well on it’s way to making a comeback! This school garden influx is tied with the national push for Farm to School eating in school lunches!
Those home gardens focused on quick to perish or easy to store at home foods. Home Grown veggies could be found in over half of American’s lawns for a few years! To put that into numbers, “by 1944, an estimated 20 million victory gardens produced roughly 8 million tons of food—which was the equivalent of more than 40 percent of all the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States,” according to the History Channel.
The Agricultural Departments also urged us to keep our chickens, ‘two for each family member’ and I’d be happy to help you get started with that too 😉 I’ve got an article, Chickens in the Hood all about that!
During these uncertain times, I simply feel better knowing I am doing something (anything) to prepare and plan for the future. Of course, I already loved growing food, so growing more makes sense. For those of you not used to digging in and planting there are a few tips to get you planting a successful garden.
Basic Garden Tips
Plant what you will eat.
Plant in the sun, near water if possible.
Fence it in, because critters want to eat fresh veggies too.
Add compost, good soil matters.
Grow Vertically to keep the garden footprint small.
Plant Diversity
Consider planting a few fast growing crops like greens (lettuce, spinach) and more expensive herb plants- which also are things that you need to keep going to a store to keep buying ‘fresh’. Beets, radishes, kohlrabi and kale are all ready to harvest in 45 days. Bush beans are another crop that is ready in 60 days, and beans are truly one of the easiest plants to grow!
Or try something like cucumbers that most families love- and if you get too many, quick refrigerator pickles keep well- or go all out and make homemade pickles and slowly become just as addicted to homegrown as I am 😉
There are also lots of plants to grow inside, from salad gardens to microgreens. This is also still time to start some seeds indoors, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, kale. Only onions, celery and peppers are really past their prime for starting indoors.
The satisfaction of knowing you’ve got a plan feels almost as good it will to pick that first ripe green bean, carrot or tomato later this summer. If you want to really go for it you can plant two crops in a row of many crops (yes even in Minnesota). This technique is called succession planting.
Why Garden
For most of us, gardening is a leisure activity, and I think there’s a very good reason gardening ahs been on the rise right along side technology use and stress- because it decreases stress and gets us into the real world. In real time.
Right now, with so many things are out of our control, this is one way to work with the rhythm of nature and take back a little control over our food in a way that keeps us healthy on so many levels!
So, I urge you to start a garden, even a tomato in a pot, a few feet of climbing beans or a salad garden this spring. If you want to learn more about putting in a sustainable vegetable garden, I’ve got an array of in person and online classes available, check my SHOP to register.
But keep in mind that plants want to grow, that’s their job! If you give them soil, sun, water and protection from animals, the plants will reward you for your help!
