Heart Felt Gardening

FEED YOUR BODY
Heart Felt Gardening

After the article a few weeks ago about ways to eat local, my friend and author Jill Russo Foster told me about her life-long love with home gardening. For her it is really heart felt.

Living in the woods, I’ve never been able to have a garden. After Jill shared her experience, I was inspired to start growing heirloom herbs from seeds in peat pots.

There’s a small bright, sunny patch waiting outside for the tender plants to season our summer meals.

Read Jill’s thoughts on gardening and how you can grow food and memories for your family as well.
Gardening Thoughts and Memories by Jill Russo Foster

I think it’s so interesting that Michelle Obama is showing us the benefits of having a garden. It’s like second nature to me.

No matter where I have lived, even in an apartment, I have always had a least tomatoes on the balcony.

My earliest memories of my grandmother Nanna (my father’s mother) was of her working in the garden which was half of her backyard. She was always tending to the plants with her kerchief on top of her head to keep the heat off.

When I was at her home, she would be out in the garden from early May to late September. I would be able to get the greatest tomatoes fresh picked off the vine and eaten within minutes. She tended to her garden until the age of 93 doing all the work herself. Now I have my own garden, smaller in size than hers but manageable for me.

I started my garden a few weeks ago as seeds this year – something I usually don’t do. In my windows right now I have about 100 plants growing – everything from lettuces – mixed greens, arugula, spinach, iceberg, beans – green, wax, peas, green and yellow squash, cucumbers, and herbs – basil and parsley. Tomatoes don’t start well for me in seed form, so I buy them as plants.

From my experience there is nothing better than walking into my backyard and making a decision about what I want to eat. It’s like having a supermarket with all my favorite choices. I can’t grow all my favorites so I make trips to the local farmers market on Saturday mornings. There’s a farmer who has exotics like dandelion greens (not the yellow ones from the backyard, but blue dandelion) and squash blossoms. He is always there from mid May to late October, so it’s a regular part of my Saturday morning routine.

My Nanna passed down to me the love of working in the garden and being rewarded with eating – and enjoying – the “fruits” of my labors.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Click here to check out Jill’s website and book Cash, Credit and Your Finances: The Teen Years. She shares her years of expertise to help our kids learn about and how to handle money. Thanks Jill!

 

The Truth About the Musical Fruit

FEED YOUR BODY
Food Focus: Beans

 

 

As kids we all heard the rhymes about the “musical fruit”. So what’s the real deal about beans?

Beans, or legumes, including peas and lentils, are an excellent source of plant-based protein.

They offer a highly usable, highly absorbable source of calcium for the body.

They are high in antioxidants that vary by the color of bean, the darker colored beans having the most. So black beans have the highest levels followed by the red, brown, yellow and white beans. The *ORAC score for the antioxidant level of black beans is more than 4 times higher than an orange!

Beans are known for being rich in fiber which keeps blood sugar more balanced, can help reduce cholesterol and ease constipation. And the fiber makes them quite filling!

So enjoy all the powerhouse beans. They taste good, have many uses in recipes, are inexpensive (especially if you soak and cook dried beans) and provide whole food nutrition for our bodies!

Try mixing different varieties of beans for a taste treat.

Tip:
The side effect that earns beans the reputation as the “musical fruit” often comes from being undercooked or improperly prepared.

To help reduce the possibility of gas when using dried beans, soak them in water overnight, drain and use fresh water to cook until tender, and add spices like bay leaf, oregano or cumin, or add kombu (a sea vegetable) during cooking.

*The ORAC score is a method of measuring antioxidant levels of foods and supplements developed at the National Institute of Health.