Is Planting a Garden Worth It?
(yes and maybe)
Hi friends and Happy Friday! It’s been a beautiful sunshine-y week here in Southern California and I’m just about done with the cough I’ve had, so yay for that.
February is whizzing by and I want to give you a heads up for what will be happening in March. I think you are going to LOVE it! We will be cooking together, you and me. I’m calling it the 4 Week Cooking Habit and I will share all the details next Friday.
We’ve spent the last few weeks learning some key takeaways about how to save money on groceries and get organized in the kitchen. This week and next are a little different and some of you might not like what I have to say.
Today we are talking about growing your food.
Before you hit the BACK button and leave, please hear me out. We’re talking about easy-to-grow produce. Not everyone likes to grow things and I get it. The convenience of buying what you need at the grocery store is just so, well, convenient. However, you can save some shekels by growing a few things.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that we are saving massive amounts of money. We’ve all seen the memes where you spend hundreds of dollars on water to grow a handful of cherry tomatoes, which of course is an exaggeration. Sort of. But I want to be upfront about this. The savings will not buy you a first-class ticket to Tahiti or a weeklong stay in an overwater bungalow.
Why grow fruits, veggies, and herbs? Here are some of the best reasons I can think of.
Taste. There is nothing like the taste of a homegrown tomato. The end. Maybe things taste better because you know that you grew them, but I think it is because the harvest-to-mouth time frame is shortened. It is seconds and minutes compared to days or weeks of what you buy at the grocery store.
Satisfaction. There is a certain amount of pride in knowing that you’ve grown enough produce to compose a salad or salsa or sauce from your garden. And somehow, it’s fun.
Savings. Depending on what you are growing and what your garden yields, the savings could be small or smaller. My biggest savings come from growing herbs. If you’ve ever purchased fresh herbs at the grocery store, you know what I mean. My local store charges anywhere from $1.98 to $3.99 for a package of fresh herbs that is the size of my index and middle fingers together. You could buy an entire plant for that and have herbs all season. People say, “Oh I don’t really use a lot of fresh herbs.” I wonder if they don’t use them because they are so pricey. Once I started growing herbs I used them more liberally in my cooking not only as an ingredient but also as a garnish. It adds a fresh pop of flavor and color to everything. If you have it, you’ll use it.
Ease. I’m sensing eye rolls right now. But really, friends. It is easy. I have killed every ficus, pothos, ivy, and fiddleleaf fig that has had the misfortune to come into my home either as a gift or a purchase. If I can grow fruits, veggies, and herbs, so can you.
Space. You don’t need 40 acres and a mule. Or even a backyard. Fresh homegrown produce is attainable whether you have a planter on the patio or a pot on the window sill. Small is beautiful and manageable.
Let’s start with the easiest thing to grow: herbs.
Herbs
Herbs are low commitment, low cost, and high yield. Plus, you don’t have to grow every herb, all the time. Pick one and use it in everything until the plant dies or you get sick of it, whatever comes first. Sometimes the two will coincide.
What are the best herbs to grow? The ones you will use. Rosemary, oregano, sage, and mint are what I use a lot and they have all done well in my garden. Summer is a great time to grow basil. I also use parsley, cilantro, and dill in my cooking but have not had any luck growing them. Maybe you will. I love growing herbs because I just plant them and leave them alone except for the occasional watering.
Herbs are kind of like teenagers. The more you fuss over them, the less happy they are. So I leave them alone and they do fine. The herbs, I mean.
A step up in commitment: growing vegetables.
Vegetables
Let’s look at two ends of the veggie growing spectrum. First, my mother-in-law. She lives on a farm and grows all sorts of fresh vegetables. Her home and the surrounding 100-ish acres are in Oregon. She sharecrops out most of the acreage to other farmers but has a plot about three times the size of my backyard where she grows things “for fun.” Things like tomatoes, beets, rhubarb, corn, and other veggies that are good for canning. The last time I was there, she and my brother-in-law canned 40 pounds of beets and an equal amount of tomatoes. Plus made buckets of fresh salsa.
I’m not in the same growing-harvesting-canning stratosphere as my mother-in-law. I don’t have the room or ambition, honestly. But I grew tomatoes for the first time ever last summer in a raised container on my patio. It took some diligence to scour the leaves for tomato worms and cover the plants with netting to keep the birds away. But the result was red, ripe, and deliciously tomato-y tomatoes. They were so good that my husband was eating them for breakfast (previously unheard of). I also managed to grow tiny bell peppers, crunchy cucumbers, and way too many jalapenos. I imagine my mother-in-law might chortle at my tiny raised planter. Actually, she’s too nice to do that. But I was so proud that I had finally grown vegetables that we could eat.
Since I was garden-inebriated from the success I’d had in the summer I decided to plant some winter produce: broccoli, dill, and rainbow chard. The dill died and the chard pooped out but the broccoli plants did give me two or three fistfuls of florets that made for a nice side dish one evening. Winter was not a stellar growing season for me, but I have high hopes for spring.
I’ve saved the hardest for last. Growing fruits is kind of a next-level commitment.
Fruits
Not everyone has a backyard or the space for fruit trees, and honestly, trees are more work because they require regular irrigation, pruning, and feeding. So I think fruit is a little harder to grow and if you are new to gardening, I wouldn’t start here. I am fortunate that my husband planted citrus trees several years ago in our backyard. Like anything, the yield varies from year to year. But we consistently get lemons, limes, and pink grapefruits all winter long. This has been a banner winter for our grapefruit!
Other fruits are great for container gardening. Things like strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and dwarf citrus trees can be grown in pots on the patio. I’m going to give strawberries a try in spring.
Recipes
Since anyone and everyone can grow herbs, I’m sharing two recipes that use them by the handfuls. These are two sauces with very different flavor profiles. One is zippy and the other is mild. Spoon them over everything from eggs to fish to grilled meats to salads.
Zhoug
Yield: ⅔ cup
If you haven’t had zhoug, prepare to become addicted. Yemenite in origin and served in some form all over the Middle East, this green dynamo is the chili paste of the East. Normally zhoug has some kick to it. My middle-aged tummy says one jalapeno is enough but you might need more. The key here is to taste it once everything is mixed and make adjustments until you like it.
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup of cilantro, leaves and stems
½ to ⅔ cup flat-leaf parsley, leaves and stems
1 jalapeno, stemmed and seeded
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp granulated sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 garlic clove
¼ to ⅓ cup olive oil
Directions:
Dump all the ingredients into a blender or food processor. Blitz for 5 or so pulses. You want it to be a little coarse, not completely smooth so don’t over-blend. Scrape down the sides and blitz again just a couple of times. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
Add more salt, jalapeno, or garlic until it is to your liking. If you like a looser consistency, add a little more oil by the tablespoon. Serve with any meat dish, as a dipping sauce for bread/pita, or drizzle over soups. Keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge.
Dairy-free Green Goddess Dressing
Yield: 2 cups
Mild and herby, this dressing has been a favorite of mine for a long time. But now that several of my peeps cannot do anything cow’s milk related, I’ve had to make adjustments. This creamy dressing is great for anyone, but especially for the DF and vegan folks in your life. It uses silken tofu, which comes in a range of package sizes but the most common is 14 or 16 ounces. Either one works here. If you don’t have and aren’t about to purchase nutritional yeast (I like Bragg’s), leave it out. It adds some umami savoriness but you can replace it with some caper brine if you want.
Ingredients:
14 to 16 oz silken (very soft) tofu
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
2 tsp capers
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 or 2 green onions, white and green parts
1 to 1 ½ cups fresh herbs (a combo of whatever you have parsley, dill, oregano, basil)
Directions:
Tip everything EXCEPT the green onions and herbs into a blender or food processor. Blitz for 20 seconds.
Add the green onions and herbs, then blitz again until everything is smooth. Scrape down the sides. Taste and adjust for seasonings. Serve over salads or as a dip for veggies. Keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge.
Tell Me
Did this week’s topic interest, bore, or completely frighten you? If you are growing anything other than weeds in your backyard I’d love to hear about it!
Next Friday’s newsletter will be another out-of-the-box way to save some money. We will talk about making easy extracts and syrups. Bonus: alcohol is involved! See you next week and please share this with a friend.