How Does Your Garden Grow?
We all know the benefits of eating more fruits and veggies, and we know that the fresher, the better. Nutrition is the most important element in getting produce quickly from garden to table. Research suggests that our food supply may be 40-60% less nutritious than when we were growing up. With our own garden we can pick our own produce when we are ready to use it.
There are several ways to grow our own produce easily and nutritiously (visit my website for links to each of these ideas):
We can use part of our yard or landscape. Amending soil and controlling pests can be done naturally. Containers can be used to plant individual plants or crops. This provides a more limited space to grow some produce without digging up parts of our yard.
Hydroponically and aeroponically grown produce is another big trend as we think about eating locally and being green. Disney pioneered this trend in their Epcot Land Pavilion and O’Hare Airport has aeroponic gardens for its restaurants. Gardening kits are available for home use to grow produce in this way. Some of its advantages: there is no soil, the main attractor of bugs; the water used to feed the roots is provided with the necessary nutrient content; the plants grow 30-50% quicker; growing vertically allows a large amount and variety of produce to be grown in a single small space.
No matter which method is used to grow some of our own produce, we can provide fresh, nutritious food to our families from our own garden enjoying the fruits of the season.
