When the Grocery Bill Gets Too High...part 3 of 4

   This week, stretching your dollars gets easier by getting the kids involved in gardening! Growing your own "kid friendly" fruits and veggies will not only save on the grocery bill, it is a fun way to get your children active outdoors and to introduce to them the concept of agricultural sustainability. Where the list of choices for easy to grow, low maintenance produce for our area is immense, I have narrowed down the line-up to a few of the foods my own kids love to grow and eat. 

1) Crucifers - Broccoli and Cauliflower

 Well its true: sometimes what you don't know won't hurt you. I have this great children's CD that I used to play in the car when my kids were younger called "Cats Night Out" by Graham Walker. In it, Walker sings about a hungry pig named Priscilla who has so much of an affinity for flowers that she eats them "all the time." Our kids would squirm and squeal in uproarious laughter at the notion of anyone eating flowers. I never had the heart to tell them that the crowns of their favorite veggies - broccoli and cauliflower - were precisely that (I think I was just glad they would eat them!)

Very nutritious and easy to grow, both cauliflower and broccoli can be seeded directly into the garden or started indoors in April and then moved out when the threat of frost has passed. Coronado Crown and Green Magic are the most popular varieties of broccoli for serving fresh or freezing. Growing 18-24in high, they boast large, uniform flower heads that mature approximately 60 days from seeding. Early Snowball is the most sought after Cauliflower variety. Very vigorous and reliable, Early Snowball produces clusters of dense white flower heads approximately 50 days from seeding. This variety is also very tolerant of cool weather and is delicious served raw or cooked; blanche lightly before freezing.

2) Legumes - Beans and Peas
 Not only good for you, beans and peas are good for the earth, too. Belonging to the legume family, these fruits (yes they are acually fruit, as the seed is stored inside the pod) have the interesting ability to absorb nitrogen gas out of the air and then, with the help of beneficial soil bacteria, convert it to a form the plant can use, storing the nitrogen in their root nodules. Legumes are widely recognized for their soil-rejuvenating properties; cyclically planting legumes in your garden will help to revitalize soil health; always use a soil innoculant when seeding as your output (i.e. fruit produced) will be greatly enhanced.
  Kids love growing peas and beans because the seed is relatively large and easy for small hands to manipulate, plants grow quickly and in vines, the flowers tend to be delicate and lightly scented, and the fruit is delicious and ready to eat off of the vine. The most popular variety of beans for kids is Scarlet Runner. Think Jack in the Beanstalk with these plants: quickly growing 2m tall and higher, Scarlet Runner beans will produce huge 20-25cm long bean pods that are quite delicious. Wax beans are also easy to grow and quite sweet when eaten fresh. Typically maturing in 50-55 days, wax beans produce several stringless, meaty pods that "snap" when you bend them.
  There are a myriad of pea varieties that are great for our area, such as Green Arrow (heavy producing, super sweet, 55-60 days to maturity, vigorous and disease resistant) and Lincoln Homesteader (very productive, sweet, heat tolerant, disease resistant, 60-70 days to maturity, great for cooking). The most popular pea varieties for young apprentice gardeners, however, are the edible pod series, particularly the Sugar Snap variety, which grows vigorously, is disease resistant, and matures in 70-75 days. Featuring crisp, delicious pods that can be eaten in their entirety, kids love to spend hours out in the garden, eating these fruits right off of the vine. If any of the pods actually make it into the house, they are also wonderful cooked and freeze well.   

3) Carrots - Arguably the easiest vegetable to convince a child to eat, carrots are very easy to grow as well! Where traditional varieties such as Red Cored Danvers (65-80 days to maturity, long and sweet roots, great for cooking and freezing) and Scarlet Nantes (60-70 days to maturity, succulent bright orange French variety, great fresh or cooked) are the top picks for adult gardeners, kids really love Chantenay carrots. Also known as "baby" carrots, Chantenays are quick to mature (50-55 days), are uniformly textured (i.e. don't have as much of a differentiated core as other varieties do), and are quick to prepare: just rinse with cold water and enjoy!

4) Lettuce - The four most popular types of lettuce are butterhead, crisphead, loose leaf, and romaine. Whereas butterhead and crisphead form crunchy, spherical heads, Romaine (also known as Cos lettuce) and leaf lettuce form elongated and smaller hearts.  Iceberg is the most popular choice for crisphead lettuce: crunchy and mildly sweet, it is great served fresh in salads, sandwiches, tacos, wraps, etc. Butterhead features softer leaves with more texture and density than crisphead; Buttercrunch variety is the favorite among prairie gardeners as it is more tolerant of poor soil. Romaine is the piece de resistance of ceasar salad chefs worldwide. Boasting the highest nutrient content, romaine lettuce has relatively good shelf life. For those that like a leafy lettuce but would prefer a milder taste than traditional Romaine, try the Grand Rapids loose leaf variety; along with a sweeter finish, it is quick to mature and produces heavily.

5) Watermelon - When we ask our kids what they would like to grow in the garden, their first response is watermelons! Easy to grow, watermelons should be started indoors in early April and then set out when the threat of frost has passed. Moon and Stars is a great variety for kids, as it grows quickly, producing large 4kg fruit in less than three months from seeding.  Kids may also be interested to know that Moon and Stars is one of the oldest watermelon varieties; so old in fact, that it has been flagged as an heirloom plant. Flesh is deliciously sweet and red. I keep wondering if there is a way to grow napkins...

   Kids - the world is just full of them. The United Nations estimate that the global population under 15 is now approaching 26.3%, or 2.1 billion. Issues ranging from overcrowding, hunger, and poverty, to environmental degradation, non-renewable resource depletion, and power imbalances all face the world's youngsters. But all is not lost; as the global population explosion plateaus, opportunities that are present for the world's kids are also improving, due largely to the technological advances that have taken a canonic position in our time. Better education, advanced agricultural practices, freer flow of information...the list of pluses for our kids just goes on and on; this coming-of-age population is positioned to become a powerhouse of the world, and in all spheres - economically, socially, politically, and culturally. With such an important future ahead of them, and with so much to learn, why not take a few minutes out of your week to help train these young minds about the living world around us? Playing in the dirt and discovering the wonderful worlds of horticulture and biology are perfect learning opportunities; development of our youth is arguably the single-most important task our world societies face. As Walt Disney once said, "Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children"!