How to Grow an Organic Garden

grow an organic garden

It’s Spring!! It’s time for spring cleaning of the body, mind and spirit. And it’s also time to clean out your yard and gardens to prepare for the new season.

Have you ever wanted to grow your own fruit and vegetables in your own backyard?

It is super easy, a critical skill to know how to grow your own food and is actually very enjoyable to be outside in the warm summer air tending to something that will bring you such joy, nutrition and flavour in just a few short weeks.

Here is how to get started:

If you already have some garden space, move the soil around as well as you can with a hoe or a rototiller. This will break up the hard soil that has gotten hard over the winter months.

If you do not have a garden yet, choose a space in your yard that has the most sun possible and dig the layer of sod off the ground until you reach your desired space. Then dig the soil around, remove any large stones, rototill the soil or use a hoe to break up the hard soil so that the roots of the plants and seeds you will be planting can actually reach down and root themselves easily.

You can add compost or fresh top soil to the earth that you have just turned over to provide fresh nutrients for your plants to grow.

Choose a garden layout that will allow you to walk easily through your garden or be able to reach everywhere from being on the edge. I always plant my garden in rows because it makes it much easier for planting, weeding and harvesting. But some microgardens do well growing in pods rather than rows. It depends on how much space you have.

The easiest vegetables to grow from seed are carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, kale and herbs. They are very hearty and produce decent crops with little tending.

However if your looking to make the most out of your garden, click here to read ‘Backyard Medicine – Grow Your Own Natural Remedies”, before choosing what to plant.

Once your soil is soft and you have chosen your seeds, make a shallow row, approximately 1” deep, for your seeds to drop into.

Plant your carrot seeds about 1” apart in the row, as you can imagine how much space each carrot needs to grow and expand to become full sized.

Beets need a little bit extra space because each beet seed will produce 4 beets.

For the lettuce, it depends on the type you are growing – leaf lettuce can be planted fairly close together because it grows just as leaves, but romaine lettuce will form into heads and needs a few inches of space.

The important thing is to keep in mind the amount of space the vegetables need to become full sized (like you would find at the grocery store) and give them that much space to grow.

Once you plant the seeds, cover them with dirt and pack the dirt lightly. You can water them every day until they start to sprout and then keep watching them. Once you can see the actual rows forming, then you can begin to see what each of the plants look like and you can decipher the vegetables you want growing from the weeds that will also pop up!!

Pull out the weeds so their roots don’t crowd out your vegetables’ roots and keep watering them regularly throughout their growing season.

You can also plant already growing vegetables such as tomatoes, because they need a longer growing season than our climate allows for. By purchasing tomato plants that are already well established, you can enjoy their fruits in mid-late August. This is the same for pepper plants, but they are often difficult to grow!! (Or at least I don’t seem to have much luck with them!!)

Good luck with your garden adventures, and be sure to share this hobby with your children. There is no better way to spend the summer months than being outside and enjoying time with Mother Nature.

Stop Throwing Away Juice Pulp! Do This Instead

Stop Throwing Away Juice Pulp! Do This Instead

If you are anything like me when it comes to making homemade juices, it absolutely kills me to fill up my green bin and throw away the pulp leftover from juicing. It feels like I’m throwing away vegetables or fruit that still have nutritional potential, not to mention hard earned money.

The reason we want to take the pulp out of the vegetables when we are juicing is to give the digestive system a break from having to do any work, while the nutrients in the juice are absorbed directly into the bloodstream and go to work feeding our cells.

But the pulp is by no means devoid of nutritional value simply by removing the liquid from it. It has a ton of fibre and other nutrients that are not extracted during the juicing process. Use the following ideas in your own kitchen to get the full benefit of your fruits and vegetables.

Top 7 Ways to Use Juice Pulp and the Best Fruits/Vegetables to Use for Each

  1. Freeze It – Pulp can be stored in freezer bags or glass containers in the fridge or freezer for use later in any of the below ideas. If you don’t have plans of using the pulp within 48 hours then it is best to freeze it immediately.
  2. Crackers – The best pulps to use for crackers are the naturally drier pulps like celery, zucchini, carrot, and sweet potato. Crackers can be made in a dehydrator or in a low temperature oven.  Simply mix the pulp with ground flax seeds and spices and dehydrate until crackers are crunchy and dry.
  3. Soups/Stews – Pulp is great to add to soups and stews as a thickening agent and to give your meal extra fibre. The best options are carrots, celery, parsley, kale or spinach, zucchini, and sweet potatoes.
  4. Homemade burgers/veggie burgers/falafels – This might be my favourite option, because the pulp can be so easily hidden in these patties. It also adds a binding factor to keep the burgers intact as they are cooked. Try using carrot, zucchini, and celery pulp.
  5. Add to muffins – Zucchini or carrot pulp can easily be added to traditional zucchini muffins or carrot cake recipes. For healthier baking look for recipes that are lower in refined sugar, flour and lower in saturated fats.
  6. Smoothies for extra fibre – Fruit or vegetable pulp can easily be hidden in your favourite smoothie recipe. My favourites are zucchini, pineapple, apple and cucumber pulp due to their mild flavours and textures.
  7. Homemade vegetable broth – Just like you would use leftover carrots or celery and onion to make a homemade vegetable broth, do the same with leftover juice pulp. Add a variety of herbs and spices to add an extra kick of flavour to your broth and simmer on low heat. Once cool, strain broth for use. Extra broth can be frozen for use later.

So, before you throw your next batch of juice pulp in the green bin or compost pile, consider the above options to get the full benefit of your produce. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day Recipes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day Recipes

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Here are a few green recipes that are super healthy and very green! (and we promise, no green food colouring!)

Breakfast

Green Pineapple Smoothie Delight

To a high speed blender, add:

2 cups frozen pineapple, diced
2 cups kale or spinach
1 whole orange, with peel removed
1 cored and chopped Granny Smith apple
4 ice cubes
water from a young coconut (or 1 cup water)

Fresh Organic Green Smoothie With Salad, Apple, Cucumber, PineapBlend this up and pour into a tall mug. It will taste somewhat tropical with the pineapple, so maybe add a fancy toothpick umbrella for added fun!

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Lunch

Green Rainbow Salad

Wash a whole head of your favourite greens – romaine, leaf lettuce, spinach or kale.

Tear up your lettuce and add to a large bowl.

Add more greens…
avocado
green grapes
diced cucumber
green pepper
brocoli

healthy fresh vegetable salad and forkThen add your rainbow colours…
red, orange and yellow peppers
cherry tomatoes
shredded purple cabbage
blueberries, and raspberries if you have them.

Green Salad Dressing

Squeeze 3 limes into a bowl
add a drizzle of olive oil
a few shakes of salt
a dash of pepper
10 small stalks of cilantro, chopped

Stir this up and pour over your salad. Enjoy!

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Dinner

Green Broccoli Soup

This is my Mom’s recipe she is sharing with us today. It’s quite delicious, so I hope you enjoy it!

Steam 2 heads of broccoli
Peel, chop and boil 2 medium-large potatoes (enough for 1.5 cups of potato)
Chop 2 onions and sauté in frying pan until translucent/golden

Add all of these to a large crock pot and add;

4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup almond milk
2 tbsp chopped chives (or to taste)
1 tbsp chopped parsley (or to taste)

Top view of a broccoli soup in a white bowl

Use your hand mixer to chop all of your ingredients into a fine, soup-like texture.

Heat in your crock pot on high for 2 hours and enjoy!

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Dessert

Green Fruit Salad

Peel and chop 3 kiwis into bite sized pieces
Core and chop 1 Granny Smith apple
Chop 20 grapes in half
Chop 1/4 honey dew melon
Core and chop 1 green pear
Peel and chop 1 orange

Add all of these to a large bowl and mix. The orange juice will keep the apple and pear pieces from browning and make a lovely, sweet juice to top off your salad bowl. Enjoy!

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

5 Hacks to Upgrade Your Paleo Diet

5 Hacks to Upgrade Your Paleo DIet

There are so many diet plans that you can choose from to follow, but it really comes down to how your body functions best. You know your body and how you function, and how your body feels after eating certain foods.

That’s not to say that you can proclaim “my body feels best on bread and chips” just because your taste buds like it.

This is a real observation about how your body feels after eating meat, or dairy or starches.

It’s time to listen to your body because it’s easier to hear it when it whispers, than when it has to start shouting.

So if you have listened to your body and chosen to follow a Paleo diet, there are a few ways to make it even better.

But first of all, let’s break the Paleo diet down.

A Paleo diet consists of foods that mimic what our pre-agricultural, hunter-gatherer ancestors may have hunted, gathered or foraged for in the wild. Such as a variety of meats and vegetables and a small amount of fruits and nuts. No grains or processed sugar.

Hacks to Upgrade Your Diet:

1. Buy Organic!

Organic foods that are not treated with pesticides and heavy metal toxins contain more accessible vitamins and minerals that conventionally grown produce. They may cost a bit more, but they are definitely worth it. To learn more about the value of organic, check out our previous blog on The Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 here.

2. What Meat are You Eating?

Think back a few million years. Were there abundant sources or added growth hormones, antibiotics or vaccines added to the animals’ feed? I doubt it. So steer clear now!! Choose organic, grass-fed beef, buffalo, free-range chicken, wild caught salmon, elk, venison, etc.

3. Focus on Veggies

Choose a variety of leafy and cruciferous veggies to go with every meal! That means kale, lettuce, spinach, Bok Choy, Celery, Brocoli, Cauliflower, and Brussels Sprouts. Also add in low-sugar fruit, like raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries and Granny Smith apples. These fruits will not spike your blood sugar. Raw nuts and seeds and avocados are great sources of healthy fats.

4. What else are you eating?

Food marketing companies are very tricky – they can put Paleo on just about anything and get away with it! I don’t think that cookies, bread and chips were available in the wild a million years ago, but somehow they have found their way to the Paleo aisle at the grocer. They tend to have excessive amounts of sugar, sweeteners, preservatives and varying degrees of unhealthy additives but fly off the shelves because they are “Paleo”.

I also don’t think that our ancestors had a deli they strolled up to and ordered salami, pastrami or any other nitrate-filled preserved deli meat. Eat real food!!

5. Mix it Up

Who says you have to be purely Paleo every day? Agricultural developments and transportation advancements have allowed for nutrient, vitamin and fibre-rich foods to come along. If your body likes legumes as they are significantly lighter to digest than meat, give it legumes! Or if you like freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning, have at it! Listen to your body and hear what it has to say.