Basic Vegetable Gardening Is Elementary

When it comes to learning about and appreciating the benefits of basic vegetable gardening, you can't start too early. I was happy to read this short piece about 2'nd graders growing their vegetables from seeds and then eating them for lunch once they were harvested. What better way to understand where your food comes from. This article by Brian McCauley appeared in The Miami County Republic.

Basic Vegetable Gardening Is Elementary

Photo by Sergiy Bykhunenko c/o Photos.Com.

Second-grade science teacher Susie Atkins wanted to find a way to teach her students about gardening and get them outside for some fresh air at the same time. The result was the creation of a vegetable garden at Cottonwood Elementary, and the students are eating up the project — literally.
“The kids have loved doing it,” Atkins said. “They get so excited.”

Original article here at republic-online.com:

Once anyone learns basic vegetable gardening skills and can witness a seed they've planted grow into something that gives nourishment, then is the miracle of life truly appreciated. Let's get our children interested in vegetable gardening and they'll develop a better understanding of where their food comes from. It's a life skill that everyone should know how to do and benefit from.

Share your opinion by leaving a comment below. You are also hereby encouraged to click the like button and share this with someone you know who has kids and is thinking about starting to garden with them.

To create a garden is to search for a better world. In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise. Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch, it is based on the expectation of a glorious future. This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening.                                    --  Marina Schinz

Secrets to Growing Tomatoes With Incredible Flavor - NPR

I really am looking forward to the enjoyment of growing tomatoes in my backyard this summer. For about the last three years I've been experimenting with various ways to grow tomatoes. I've decided this year to try out raising several different heirloom varieties. They have some interesting names, including Bloody Butcher, Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, and Burpee's Jubilee.

I'm using some raised bed containers, about 3 x 3 feet square, that also have built in water reservoirs under them. My soil is very amended with organic material, including lots of peat moss and cow manure (organic of course) and a slow release fertilizer all mixed in. I started my plants from seeds beginning in late March under some grow lights I had set up in the basement. I then transplanted them to 3 inch peat pots and put them under grow lighting around mid April out in the garage. When they were about 6 inches or so high, I went ahead and planted them in the raised containers.

Now, I grow tomatoes because I've found that while most store bought tomatoes may look great, they can't really deliver in the flavor department. The following is an excerpt from a National Public Radio article by Eliza Barclay that highlights for us just what is and also what isn't that important in growing a tomato that possesses a lot of intense, dramatic flavor.

Secrets to Growing Tomatoes With Incredible Flavor - NPR

Summer is the time to enjoy growing flavorful tomatoes in your yard.

One scientist who's hot on the trail of what makes a fresh tomato shimmer in your mouth is Harold Klee at the University of Florida. Klee's inspiration to map real tomato flavor began with those pale waxy supermarket tomatoes. You know the ones — they've been bred to travel well and resist pests, but they sure need some help in the flavor department.
According to Klee, good tomato flavor is a complex panorama of sugars, acids, and mysterious gassy chemicals that we experience as smell. Klee and his colleagues are still identifying those "aroma volatiles," and have pinpointed more than 3,000 of them across more than 152 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

You can read the complete original article here:

As the summer forges on, I'm fully expecting that all of my growing tomatoes will produce about twice the harvest I produced last year. I mean, really, you just can't have too many delicious ripe tomatoes. I will be posting here regularly about every week or so and I'll be sure to include some photos of my progress.

If you happen to have found the article or this post useful and enjoyable, go ahead and leave a comment. I'd like to hear about what you might be growing in your garden.


It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.
                                                                                            --  Lewis Grizzard