Planting a Recipe Garden

Start a small little garden this year in your backyard or even in containers on the patio!

Think about planting a Recipe Garden, which you can grow all the ingredients at your doorstep.

Grow all the ingredients (or as many as you can) to make a favorite recipe — or plan to give that recipe a new twist with your garden bounty, such as using chopped chard in your taco instead of lettuce!

Here is a few plant garden ideas to start this season….

Pizza Garden: Tomatoes, basil, oregano, peppers and onions.

Salad Garden: Lettuce, carrots, radishes, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Salsa Garden: Tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and peppers.

Taco Garden: Chard, tomatoes, cilantro, hot peppers, onions.

Smoothie Garden: Kale, strawberries, blueberries, mint.

Pickle Garden: Cucumbers (“pickling” varieties are best), carrots, beets. (You can pickle just about any vegetable.)

Grow Your Own Salad (indoors): look below to see a fun recipe!

Plant a Snack Garden

Grow fruits and vegetables that are easy for kids to harvest, wash and eat without any preparation — cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, mini carrots, cucumbers and more. You’ll be encouraging kids to enjoy these healthy substitutes for fat- and sugar-laden chips, candy and cookies.

Or you could design a little Edible Landscape

Edible landscaping describes the horticultural practice of incorporating plants with edible parts (fruits, flowers, stems, leaves or roots) into a design whose primary function is to be aesthetically pleasing. The tasty and nutritious harvest of the landscape is an exciting secondary benefit.  The design may feature only edible plants or include a combination of edible and non-edible, ornamental plants.

This easy low carb chopped cucumber garden salad is great with summer vegetables. Just chop, mix and enjoy

Ingredients

1 cup cucumbers, chopped

1/2 cup tomatoes, chopped

1/4 red onion, chopped

1/4 cup sweet bell pepper, chopped

2 tablespoons fresh mint, minced