Whole Health Dietitian — Tastefully Fueling Active Transportation
Although it’s a rather frequent occurrence around our table, I love it when I sit down to dinner and realize that a majority of the food came from our garden.
In the kitchen, we transform plants . . .
. . . into dinner.
—
Of course, some of us start eating the plants before they make it to the dinner table (ahem, Sir).
Gardening lore says that you should plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s day. Matthew planted exactly one week early this year.
This year, we saved our own seed potatoes. This basically means we selected some of each variety from last year’s crop, set them aside (so they didn’t get eaten), and then, a few weeks before planting, let the eyes grow.
They planted 25 pounds of potatoes in one morning.
Happy St. Patrick’s day [tomorrow]!
Related posts:
Taters
They grow in the ground these days
Celebrate St. Paddy’s Day with Green Food
The fruits (and vegetables) of last year’s gardening and canning labors:
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From left to right on each shelf, starting with top shelf:
We grew everything pictured, except for the pears, which came from Matthew’s grandparents’ neighbors’ tree. Matthew’s mom did most of the preserving and canning last summer and fall, since we were a little bit busy with this. We contributed the green beans, lest you think we were total slackers.
Previous canning posts on HerGreenLife
Applesaucin’
Salsa, salsa, salsa
Pear preserves
We now return to our regularly schedule posting
Special guest post by Matthew
You can spend a lot of money on a grow light setup and special light bulbs, but all you really need is a 48” shop light (or a couple), and a warm white and a cool white bulb. I was a little skeptical at first, but this combination has worked fine for me for a wide variety of seedlings. I’ve started most everything common and some decidedly uncommon things.*
My fixtures take either T8 or T12 fluorescent tubes — I use T8 for greater energy to light efficiency as compared to T12. It is important to be careful how old your bulbs are, as long fluorescent tubes lose their efficiency long before they die.
I learned this the hard way — my seedlings were getting long and spindly instead of staying shorter and being robust. I replaced the bulbs and had much better results with my next round of seedlings.**
You’ll also need a shelf at least as wide as your lights… wider is really not necessary, but a little extra can give you somewhere to put odds and ends, even if that space is no good for growing.
I strongly recommend installing your lights on chains so they can be moved up and down as needed for the height of your transplants…. And to allow you to use your heat box when it’s appropriate. It’s also well worth taking the trouble to center the light fixture back to front.
I also recommend an extension cord long enough for your needs, an automatic timer to turn the lights on and off at about a 16 hour day (for most plants), and an electrical plug splitter (if you have more than one light fixture) so you can plug your lights into the timer.
Happy growing!
*I’ve started the following:
**Any store that sells fluorescent tubes and bulbs should accept spent tubes/bulbs for recycling. Please do not place in the trash — they contain mercury!
“Great eats” sounds a bit more descriptive, or at least more appetizing, than “Food dump” (the working title of this post), wouldn’t you agree? We pretty much rocked the kitchen last weekend, yielding a week’s worth of delicious food along the way.
Eating well, especially with a baby in the picture, requires time and effort, I’m not gonna lie to you.* It works, though, because we enjoy spending time cooking and baking — and the results are totally worth it (the resulting food, that is, NOT the resulting state of the kitchen)!
Friday
Anyhow, the great food parade began last Friday, when I whipped up a big pot of Easy Black Bean Soup to share with our special dinner guests — Gabriel’s great-grandparents — who drove all the way from Texas! We served the soup with a side of wonderful bread.
How easy is “easy,” you ask? Easy enough for me to make while home alone with The Dude all day and have dinner on the table before five-thirty.**
Saturday
Sunday
Obviously I have some more recipes to post. Look for those soon. In the meantime, you can check out the current offerings on the updated and reorganized Green Recipes page.
Finally, you have five more days to vote for Her Green Life in the Circle of Moms Top Vegetarian and Vegan Moms, and you can vote once every 24 hours. Thanks for your support!
*More on our evening/dinner routine in a coming post.
**A good two hours earlier than we usually eat these days, but it allowed Gabriel to sit at the table with us.
Her Green Life