Eat Your Thinnings

Don't let those thinnings go to waste!  I was a bit heavy handed when planting my spinach and pak choi, so had to thin out quite a bit of the little sproutlings.  But they contain lots of vitamins and nutrients, so I will be using them in a salad tonight instead of letting them go to waste.  they are essentially the same thing as the microgreens you can buy at the grocery store or often find used as a garnish at fancy restaurants - just make sure if you eat your thinnings that they originate from plants that have leaves that are edible, like leafy greens. You wouldn't want to eat tomato thinnings for example since tomato leaves are toxic.  Thinnings that are not edible are still great for compost though!

Fun Gardening Projects for Kids

I think its important to get kids interested in gardening - its a fun activity to get them outside (vitamin D!) and away from the electronics for a while, and a great learning opportunity.  They can find out how things grow and build an understanding of where their food comes from, and it might even get them to eat more veggies!

Here are a few fun project ideas I've thought of or heard about over the years, I hope you and your kids will try one or it will inspire your own ideas for making gardening a fun experience! Feel free to leave comments below with more kid-friendly ideas.

Grow a Food Themed Garden

Do your kids love tacos, pizza, or spaghetti?  You can create a garden themed around one of their favorite foods, then make that food together from the veggies & herbs you harvest!  For a taco or salsa garden for example, grow some tomatoes, jalapenos, onions and cilantro.  For a pizza or pasta garden grow tomatoes, basil, garlic and oregano.  Have fun and be creative, you could choose a different food/theme each year.

Grow a Color Garden

This is a fun idea for another themed garden, just plant a garden with flowers, fruits, herbs and veggies all in your child's favorite color!  For example if they choose purple you could plant eggplants, beets, purple carrots and purple radishes, purple tomatoes (there are several varieties of tomatoes that are a purple color),  purple cabbage and kale varieties, peacock broccoli, blackberries, Thai basil, purple sage, chives (the blooms on chives are purple), morning glories, purple cone flowers & lavender (both great for attracting pollinators!), etc.  You may want to look online for heirloom and less common varieties as the seeds and plant starts at nurseries can be rather limited.  It may get them (and you) to grow and eat foods you might never have tried before!

Have a Sunflower Race

This is an easy project that you can do on a windowsill and can include the whole family.  You just need styrofoam cups with a few holes poked in the bottom for drainage (or reuse small plastic pots you got plant starts from the nursery in), soil, and a packet of sunflower seeds. Write each family member's name on a cup and have them choose a seed or 2 and plant it.  Set a time limit like 2 weeks or a month and see who's plant grows the tallest!  Kids should have fun checking on their sunflower's progress, and you could even have each person be responsible for caring for their own plant.  Once they are a good size they can be transplanted outside, and kids will also be impressed with how big these flowers get - depending on the variety they can grow to 6 feet tall or more!  You could use other types of plants too, sunflowers work well since they grow quickly and straight up and have a good germination rate, but you could do the same thing with tomatoes too, or maybe corn.

Get Artsy

A fun art related gardening project is handmade plant labels.  Let kids get creative and crafty using their budding artistic skills to decorate plant markers.  Some paint, maybe some glitter, permanent pens and large rocks from the garden or wooden stakes (or stir sticks for paint, usually available for free at the home improvement store) are all you will need.  They will have fun making them and its also a practical way to remember where you planted what, or which variety.

Grow Berries

Kids love sweets, so why not give them something healthy and easy to harvest that satisfies that sweet tooth and also provides antioxidants and vitamins?!  They should have a fun time helping to pick them and its easy to tell which berries are ripe by their color.  Try strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. Remember each has different preferred growing conditions, space or pruning requirements and different varieties do better in different planting zones, so do a little research before picking your plants.  Also remember to make sure kids know to only pick and eat from these specific plants, never berries they find in other yards or growing wild.

Pennies for Weeds

Need some help with all those weeds?  Why not utilize the help of little hands!  Make sure to teach them the difference between a weed and plants you want to keep, then let them loose in the garden to earn a penny for each weed pulled.  They will have fun and you will get rid of those pesky weeds for relatively little investment, plus you'll finally have a good use for all those coins in your spare change jar.

Dig for Buried Treasure

Turn your potato harvest into an exciting event by calling it a treasure hunt!  This is another great way to get a little help in the garden, you could even turn it into a contest to see who can find the most potatoes.  Make things even more fun by planting a variety of different kinds and colors of potato - white, yellow, red, purple, and even sweet potatoes.  You will probably need to loosen the soil for them, but they should have fun getting a little dirty and finding the buried treasures, and getting to eat them for dinner later!

A Garden of Their Very Own

A really great way to get kids interested in gardening is to give them a garden plot of their very own!  Section out a little space just for them, or a raised garden bed, and let them choose and plant what ever they want in it.  You could even help them make their own sign with their name on it so they really feel like it is theirs, and even have them be responsible (mostly) for taking care of it.  Kids love having a sense of ownership and control over something, and it will also teach them about planning, consistency & responsibility, as well as an appreciation for nature.

I remember loving my little corner of the garden that I got to have as a kid, I constantly checked on it and got to choose plants & seeds for it whenever we went to the garden center, I even enjoyed watering and weeding it because it was mine.  Best of all your child will get rewarded for their hard work with delicious healthy food that they grew themselves!

From Garden to Table

There's few things more satisfying than to pick veggies and herbs fresh from the garden and transform it into a meal.  Here is this morning's mini-harvest turned into breakfast, enjoy!

Thai Basil, Italian Basil, Parsley, Oregano, Kale

Egg white omelet (goat cheese, kale, herbs & cherry tomatoes), with breakfast potatoes (baby white potatoes, red bell peppers, onions, olive oil, herbs).

Whats in the Garden?

So you might think a couple of porches and a few windowsills isn't much space to grow food, and no its not!
But I do manage to grow quite a lot of things anyhow, I love variety.  Here's a rundown of all the edibles I've got growing right now, as well as a few flowers that I hope to attract beneficial insects with:

Kale - Lucinato, Red Russian, Curly (Dwarf Blue Scotch)
Chard - Fordhook Giant, Rainbow mix (Red, Yellow, White)
Spinach
Rosette Pak Choi (Tatsoi)
Sugar Snap Peas
Basil - Italian, Greek, Thai 
Purple Variegated Sage
Garden Sage
Rosemary
Oregano
Thyme
Chives
Garlic
Mint
Dill
Cilantro
Dwarf Lime Tree
Zucchini (planted it too late in the summer so its just getting blossoms now, wondering if it will produce anything - also seems to be dwarfed by being planted in a container.  Its kind of an experiment)
Tomatoes - Red Cherry (so my cherry tomatoes kept going all summer and then seemed to die back, but before I had a chance to rip them out they sent up new growth - I decided to let it be another experiment to see what happens, I know its probably too cool for any blossoms to pollinate but maybe they will overwinter in our mild climate and I'll get a head start on the growing season?  Or it will be a complete waste of time, we'll see)
Jalapenos
Orange Bell Pepper
Strawberries
Black Raspberries (although I'm not sure they're going to make it)
Lavender
White Alyssum
Freesia

The last 3 are meant to attract Pollinators.  The white allysum isn't my favorite flower for looks but it smells strongly of honey and is supposed to attract bees quite well - not sure how many would be around this time of year but we're still getting day temps in the 70s.

Well that's the rundown.  Can't wait to have more space to grow in so I can have even more variety and a lot more volume!  Oh and a compost heap would be really nice.  Maybe next year...

Getting Organized - Seeds

DIY seed storage binder (much better system than my previous method of keeping all my seed packets stuffed in a big plastic bag).  

Easy to make, just a large 3 ring binder and some plastic sleeves - the ones I used are designed to hold baseball or other trading cards and fits most seed packets if you fold them in half.  I used some white adhesive labels to make tabs for different categories to make it easy to find what I'm looking for.  I also got some small white envelopes that fit the pockets exactly so when I save my own seeds I can just pop them in the envelopes & label them with the type and year collected.

Cuteness

So this is William, my cat.  
This has nothing to do with gardening really except maybe that William likes to chew on my plants, but he is adorable and I will be posting pictures of him from time to time, so I thought you should be introduced.

Best Gluten Free Easy Banana Pancakes

So easy, so delicious!

I have tried a few versions of these and played with different ratios and ingredients, and here is the final Courtney (and husband) approved recipe.  They are sweet enough just from the banana to enjoy plain, but I like them with some maple syrup as well.  They are fluffy yet moist, and also don't need extra butter or cooking spray to keep them from sticking to the pan, I suppose because of the coconut oil in the batter and because I use a non-stick frying pan to cook them in. It also happens to be pretty easy to remember because its just 1 of each ingredient!  This recipe makes 6 small pancakes, about 1 serving for me, so just multiply the recipe by how many servings you need.

     1 Ripe Banana
     1 large Egg
     1 Tablespoon Milk (I use 2% Milk, could also substitute with unsweetened almond milk)
     1 Tablespoon Coconut Flour
     1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil (I use virgin unrefined)
     a sprinkle of vanilla extract
     a dash or two of cinnamon to taste

Just mix all ingredients up in a blender, I tend to add the flour in last.
Then drop about 2 tablespoons of batter per pancake into a nonstick pan on medium/low heat.
Wait a few minutes til browned on the bottom, then flip, they are done once the other side is browned too and the centers are cooked through.  Easy!

I use all organic ingredients and I suggest you do the same.  Also if you serve with maple syrup make sure it is real maple syrup, not flavored corn syrup (check the ingredients label).
Also great served with fruit.

Enjoy!