A garden may mean different things to different people. To some, it’s a way to trim back the grocery budget. If laid out properly and maintained, a 50-by-50-foot garden could produce all the vegetables a family of five would need for a year. Even a 20-by-20-foot plot could produce enough food to greatly impact that weekly trudge to the grocery store.Some find it relaxing, some, a source of exercise. Light gardening will burn 170 to 240 calories an hour, while vigorous work such as spading and hoeing will burn 250 to 350.
Most have found how much better homegrown harvest tastes than the store bought stuff and how much better it is for you. Tomatoes that are picked green will ripen with 1/3 less vitamin C than vine ripened ones, and broccoli will lose 2/3 of its vitamin C six days after harvest. But even when stored for a period of time, good amounts of disease fighting beta-carotene are found in winter squash, carrots and sweet potatoes.
Why should it surprise us that fresh, just-picked veggies are the best for us? You wouldn’t need to take another store bought vitamin if all your vegetables came from your garden.
Going down the list we find that asparagus is high in vitamins A, C, B1, and Calcium. Because they root deep they become a good source of minerals too. Beets are high in A and C, while turnips are packed with B2 and E.
Besides the beta carotene found in carrots, significant amounts of B1, calcium, and phosphorus make the carrot one of the best snacks you could give your little munchkin. They would consider it a tasty treat if it came from your garden; the store stuff can taste pretty bad sometimes, thus leaving a bad taste in their mouth for veggies.
Parsnips, when harvested in the winter under 12 inches of leaves, will give you a whole new appreciation for this B6, C and potassium packed, cream-colored, carrot-looking thing. Other vegetables whose flavor sweetens with each passing frost include broccoli, which has more body-ready calcium than a glass of milk could ever hope for. Brussels sprouts are just plain stuffed with everything. And just one serving of Cauliflower will give you all the vitamin C your body will need for that day. Cabbage goes beyond that, adding good amounts of vitamins B1, B2, A and calcium as well.
Onion and leeks rate high in vitamins A, C and E, with corn adding vitamins A, B and some minerals, though not in very big amounts. My wife says there is not much nutrition in sweet corn; and I guess after it’s been smothered in butter and sprinkled with salt, any good has probably been canceled out. But I tell her, “It’s got to be better than a Twinkie.”
There are many more, including spinach. We around 50 years old know what gigantic muscles can be had by downing a can of this stuff, and these are necessary when protecting our Olive Oyls from the Blutos in our lives (I still don’t know what he saw in her, what a bean pole).
If gardening is your thing, whatever your reason, be it saving money or good health, your tastes buds and, more importantly, your children’s buds will say, “I didn’t know veggies could taste this good.”
If you have any questions about your landscaping, lawn, or garden, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope and write to Niemeyer Landscaping, 3368 Perry St., Hudsonville, 49426, or e-mail NiemeyerLandscaping@Juno.com.
Tags: asparagus, bad taste, beets, Beta Carotene, broccoli, carrots, different things, glass of milk, grocery budget, grocery store, munchkin, parsnips, phosphorus, six days, sweet potatoes, trudge, turnips, vigorous work, winter squash