The Best Garden Foods
- Greens of all kinds are fast and easy to grow, and provide you with nutrients that are important in your diet. If you live in a temperate climate, you probably have a growing season that is long enough to grow two or even three crops of greens in a summer. Lettuce, arugula, spinach and kale are common varieties of leafy greens that can be eaten raw, added to stirfrys or used as ingredients in more elaborate dishes and salads.
- Root crops are useful elements of gardens that are grown in colder climates because they will often survive well into the winter. Carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips and potatoes all grow underground and can have their growing season prolonged if you heap dead leaves and even snow on top of them when the weather turns cold. Root crops can also be kept for several months when stored in cold storage, as long as they are kept at a temperature that prevents them either from getting so cold that they freeze or getting so warm that they sprout and spoil.
- The addition of fruit trees and vines to your garden broadens the kinds of food that you can produce yourself. Raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries can all be grown on bushes next to your vegetable patch. Fruit trees such as apple, pear, peach and plum can be grown on the northern edge of your garden, so that they don't shade your vegetables and help to cut the northern winds that might cool your garden soil. Fruits can be eaten fresh and enjoyed throughout the summer, or canned, frozen or made into jam for later use.
- Herbs add many unique smells and flavors to a vegetable garden, and can be used to spice up meals that are made with fresh garden vegetables. Siting your herb garden next to your kitchen door can provide you with easily accessible herbs for cooking. Thyme, tarragon, parsley, mint and chives are some of the more common and easily grown herbs for backyard gardens. Most herbs will spread on their own once you have planted a few sprigs, providing you with plentiful bounty every year that you use them.
