Eating Healthy in a Tough Economy!

What About a Garden to Eat Healthy On A Tight Budget?

 

As I think about spring and summer and gardening, I get a bit hysterical because it means less attention to the goings on in my house.  How will I play cook, chief bottle washer, cleaning lady, mom, gardener and all of those things in between?  The key is to keep it simple!  Mainstream your life a bit.  My first action step is to get the family on board.  1.  Pick up after yourself. 2. Enlist help with planting, weeding the garden and with harvest.3. Prioritize, oh this is the toughie!  My mind wonders to a bible verse and a song written for it, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Spring and summer for me is a time to clean out the old and bring in the new!  The new being that of my garden.  The thought of fresh salad and fruit from my garden coming to my kitchen and finding its way to the plate is so very exciting!  With a bit of planning, you can have a small garden in just about any circumstance.

 

Your local nursery will have varieties that do well in pots.  This is a great way if you have a lot of time constraints and perhaps issues with space.  In the beginning, it is good to start small and then each year, add to it. 

 

One of my favorite things is my salad garden area.  I plant it in close proximity to my kitchen.  You will find spinach, lettuce, arugula, radishes and onion.  I find that the closer it is to my kitchen, the more I fit it in to my meal plan.  There is nothing more nutritional and easy than a chef's salad on the table in the summer.  A mix of greens, meat if desired, cheese and I even love to add berries to the salad.  Let your creative juices flow when it comes to the salad.  I also can't stress enough how wonderful it is to have herbs as a part of your garden.  I have a new favorite recipe for my oil and vinegar dressing and the best part is that I use my fresh oregano!  It has the best flavor.

Ranae's Favorite Vinaigrette Dressing

 1/3 c. apple cider vinegar (white works too!)

1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil (canola oil works too!)

1tbs. sugar

1 tsp. fresh oregano, basil,rosemary or thyme ( my favorite is oregano and thyme)

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

Mix all ingredients.  Just lovely!  If you use olive oil, keep it at room temperature or you will find it hard to mix and pour.

 

 

my lovely oregano



We are working on establishing more perennial fruits and vegetables in our garden.  Rhubarb is a wonderful plant to establish!  I love to make desserts with Rhubarb and strawberries.  The latest Cook it Quick Newsletter from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a great recipe for a Strawberry Rhubarb dessert.  http://food.unl.edu/web/fnh/cook-it-quick-newsletter-may-2013 You will find this website to be of a lot of help when cooking in your kitchen.  Other perennials we are establishing are asparagus, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, cherries, and pears.  A lot of the perennials I speak of will take a few years to establish, so don't delay!  This is a great way to have produce for generations to come without replanting every year.

 

Looking ahead to harvesting your garden, there is a lot of help with food preservation at this link http://food.unl.edu/web/preservation/home. 

 

When I began to be extremely interested in gardening, everything from establishing our fruit orchard to old fashioned sustainable living, a neighbor recommended the book, "Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening: The Indispensable Resource for Every Gardener."  I found it very reasonably priced at Amazon and it has been used for selecting crops, where to plant them, things to be mindful of etc.  It is just an amazing resource.  I also found a website that is interesting and by Rodale http://www.rodale.com/topic/organic-gardening  I also through the years have learned a lot from the publication, Mother Earth News, you can find them at http://www.motherearthnews.com/ 

 

Gardening in recent years is becoming the cool thing to do, especially if you are a foodie!  Such creativity with the emergence of roof top gardens in the cities, to growing yore items in pots on your patio to full fledged gardening operations.  If I have not convinced you to grow your own, visit your local farmer's market!  Buying local food is such a great way to eat healthy and help your local farmer all at the same time!  So what will it be?  A small container garden, old fashioned garden or seeking out your local farmer's market?  I love this time of year.  The food is being planted and there is nothing sweeter than watching your food grow and preparing it into lovely pieces of healthy art for your family to enjoy! I leave you with this fun video of a remix of Julia Child.  She always said that fresh is better and there is nothing more fresh than food from the garden.  Food is a lot like our favorite things in life, it gives us sustainability and feelings of satisfaction.  For me, gardening just adds more of a happy element to the food that I grow, prepare and consume.  Until next time, how does your garden grow, or does it?  That is your assignment, to grow or not to grow.  If the answer is yes, welcome to a whole new world of learning how to eat healthy on a tight budget, it can be done and it can be fun!