5×5 Challenge: What to Grow?
Last year my choices for the 5×5 Challenge were easy, I was using the Rainbow Kitchen Garden Collection from Renee’s Garden. This year I plan on trying different vegetables. As a beginner, you may wonder how to choose which vegetables to grow when you only have a small space?
First, you have to look at what you like to eat. If you hate zucchini, don’t grow it. If you love using fresh herbs, fill your garden with fresh herbs. If you hate salad, don’t grow lettuce, plant basil instead.
Second, grow vegetables that mature quickly so you can make the most of your space. As a beginner, you’ll enjoy the garden much more if you’re harvesting vegetables often. Lettuces can be a great beginning vegetable, though they can be susceptible to slugs and other pests. Growing something like potatoes that are planted in spring and aren’t harvested until late summer isn’t the best option for your garden space.
Third, grow vegetables that maximize your space. For example, even if you love broccoli, it’s not really the best choice when you only have a small space. It takes a few months to reach harvest and only provides one head. Garden peas are the same, they mature in about 60 days, but it takes a lot of pods to make a bowl of peas. You’re better off growing something like lettuce and herbs that reach maturity faster and will provide more harvest from the same space. Some vegetables and herbs will also grow back after being harvesting, thus allowing two or three harvests from the same space.
Fourth, grow what will save you the most money. If you can buy a head of local broccoli for a few dollars there’s no point in growing it when you can grow a few pounds of lettuce or herbs that would cost you much more to buy. Zucchini is very inexpensive to buy when it’s in season, spinach is much more expensive to purchase. I grow a lot of cilantro because we really enjoy it and it’s expensive to buy. Growing it allows me to save lots of money, I also love that it grows back after cutting and will seed itself down from year to year.
Which vegetables would you recommend to a newbie as quick to mature?
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Love My Job
I always enjoy my job, but twice a year I really love it. February marks the beginning of the school year in Colombia and that means I’m sending out scholarship forms to sponsors. Each year I see these faces on my desk. These are kids that are being sponsored to receive a great education.
They also write heartfelt thank you notes to their sponsors, which I love to read. These kids know how valuable this gift is, not only for them, but for their families as well. With a good education, these kids will be able to bring their families out of the depths of severe poverty. It’s an opportunity that they don’t take lightly. Most of them start in preschool and continue through graduation (which is grade 11 in Colombia).
I’ve been working with this program for 20 years, not only by finding sponsors for them, but also by being involved in other ways. I’ve worked raising funds to buy microscopes, computers and other supplies for the school. I’ve also helped raised funds to build classrooms so they can expand and teach more kids. My parents have been involved with this charity since it’s inception back when I was a kid. It was started by Colombians as a way to help the poor in their community and has make a huge impact!
There’s nothing better than knowing the work you do makes a huge impact in someone’s life! Doing these scholarships are a highlight of my work year.
Are you involved with any charities?
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Sick Day
We took yesterday off from recording a podcast, sorry to all of you who will miss it on your commute or while cleaning your kitchen. Why? It was a sick day, nothing terrible, I was just not feeling well all day.
It’s not a cold or a flu or anything like that, I think mostly sinus pressure from the big snow storm that moved through Saturday night & Sunday morning. I decided it was best to rest up and hopefully feel better on Monday than do too much and risk ending up not feeling well for a few days.
Does the weather ever affect you in this way?
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Quote of the Day: Charles Mingus
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
–Charles Mingus
I came across this quote earlier this week and had to smile. Mr Chiots and I live complicated lives, yet I feel like our lives are very simple. We revel in the process and really relish the little things. We work long hours and yet we somehow we’re accomplish more than most other people. We’re constantly being asked how we find time to do all we do. I truly believe it’s because we appreciate and are content with simplicity.
What simple things are you enjoying this weekend?
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Maximizing the Harvest
I grow most of my own onions, as a result I end up with some smaller onions that can be a bit of a pain to peel if you need lots of onions for a recipe. These smaller onions are perfect for making stock.
Onion peels contain a lot of vitamins/minerals but they’re not very palatable as is. Throwing them in stock is the perfect way to glean some of that nutrition. Some people I know even save all their onion skins in a bag in the freezer along with carrots peels and celery trimmings to use when making stock. I love using them because I can make use of even more of what I grow in the garden.
Do you use your vegetables trimmings for making stock?
