It’s Healthy! It’s Organic and I Grew It Myself!!

By Melba Robinowitz

You don’t have to be a farmer to surround yourself with healthy, edible plants as long as you choose the varieties for our short growing season and climate. If you haven’t tried a kitchen or patio garden, or dug up a corner of the yard for a couple plants and a patch of lettuce or chard, this is your year to begin. There is no better way to give children a sense of how they fit into this great universe, than to observe the capacity of a tiny seed to burst forth, to grow and provide healthy fresh food as nature intended.
The purpose of this article is to dispel the myths of the green thumb and to challenge people who feel they don’t have the space or time. If you want fresh, green, good things to eat, it’s like doing the laundry, you just fit it in. Growing lettuce in old-fashioned dish pans or the grey moulded trays restaurants use for cleaning tables can be a place to start. However, if you enjoy exercise and can see this as a way of connecting with your eight year old, who is stuck to his computer screen and eyeing the older kids whizzing by on skate boards, you may want to consider digging up a space in the back yard for a raised bed.
Either way, you are headed toward a healthier life style and great personal pride.

Imagine a bowl of incredible salad with bite size lettuce pieces, maybe romaine, butter crunch and red Bibb, scattered loosely in the bowl with arugula, cress and spinach. As you raise the layers, there are thinly sliced radishes and small circles of green onions. Tomato wedges are placed end to end around the edges and three colourful nasturtiums rest cheerfully in the centre. As you reach to set this masterpiece onto the table to share with friends, you whisper, “I Grew This Myself.”

Everything in the salad bowl can be grown in your own back yard, including a special variety of outdoor tomatoes developed in New Brunswick for short seasoned climates. (See Latah Tomatoes/ Fact Sheet/ Organic Farm Website.)
Here are a few tips and suggested resources to help you get started.

Your first objective is to generate interest with family members. Begin by thinking about crops that best fit your situation; indoors or out, patio or garden, kitchen counter or laundry room window-all are options to consider. Maybe your neighbour has a large patio or a neglected garden. Why not invite her for tea and offer to share the expense and work? There may even be a community garden available near-by.

To Garden or not To Garden?
Have you thought about starting a gardening project, but maybe you are concerned it would interfere with yours or your child’s already busy schedule? If so, consider this: A 2005 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that eating foods rich in B vitamins could protect against age-related decline. The study showed women who ate green leafy vegetables, a rich source of B vitamins, preserved more cognitive abilities in their seventies, compared to women who did not eat the nutrient dense vegetables. Sited in the study were turnip greens, swiss chard, spinach and collard greens; all easy to grow, cool weather crops. Any of these would make a great starting place. Young children also like to grow climbing peas, which grow well on fences.

At harvest time, introduce your greens raw or lightly steamed. Last season, a mother sent us a picture of her eight months old, sitting happily with his spoon and face smeared with green baby food, made from Organic Farm spinach. I asked her permission to use the picture on the farm website, explaining that when he is twenty he might object to having his little green face on our website. She wrote back, giving permission, saying that she expects that he will still love spinach when he is twenty. (August, 2007, Farm Notes)

Seeds
Buy Organic or untreated seeds. Why start a new, healthy adventure using seeds known to be coated with fungicides? Organic seeds are available, in limited supply and varieties, at most garden centres. Most will offer one or two packages of mixed lettuce varieties. The Organic Farm Website provides a list of organic seed suppliers. We also have many varieties of lettuces for transplanting as well as small family packages of seeds for many of the crops we grow.
Soil
The potting soil Pisces (in the blue bag), is a healthy soil mixture developed with local peat and fish offal. It is the one we recommend and can be found in most gardening centres and at The Organic Farm Store. Of course, if you expect this to be a long-term endeavour, save your grass cuttings, leaves and kitchen scraps for a compost. MUN Botanical Gardens offers workshops on building compost bins, composting and natural gardening. You can also find some wonderful short video clips on backyard composting on the Internet.

Resources
Once you have decided where and how you want to begin, there are many resources. Local garden centres such as Gaze seeds, Traverse Gardens, Murray’s Gardens and the Organic Farm all have websites and folks who are knowledgeable about organic soil additives. The larger chain stores may have plants that appear healthy but they are sometimes not suitable for our short growing season and the sales staff may or may not have horticultural training. The Organic Farm does supply a local store with organic basil plants and Latah tomatoes because we know the plants are well looked after by trained personnel. You can check this out by calling or emailing us.
If you need any more help or inspiration, we welcome you and your family for a visit to our farm where you can see, feel and taste the miracle of creation and hear Mike and Louis, explain, “We did it ourselves.”
This year, we also hope to work with a local day care centre to develop a children’s demonstration garden of traditional Newfoundland vegetables. Exciting progress is being made in organic gardening – and you can be a part of it. Happy Gardening!

Melba Rabinowitz, M.Sc., Home Economics
Co-Owner, Organic Farm
42 Churchill Road, Portugal Cove. Phone: 709-895-2884
Website: www.theorganicfarm.net
Email: organicfarm@nl.rogers.com

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