Grow Your Own Groceries & Eat Your Greens: Vegetable Gardening for Everyone

Grow Your Health: Vegetable Gardening for a Tastier, More Nutritious Life!
Learn How to Cultivate Fresh Produce and Reap the Rewards of Homegrown Goodness!

Join us for this webinar and discover how vegetable gardening can transform your health and well-being.

In this informative session, our gardening experts will show you:

The health benefits of homegrown vegetables: Uncover the superior nutritional value and potential health advantages of fresh, homegrown produce.
Getting started with vegetable gardening: Learn the essential steps to planting and caring for a thriving vegetable garden, even for beginners.
Choosing the right vegetables for your health and taste: Discover the best vegetables to grow based on their nutritional content and your dietary needs.
Organic gardening practices for a healthy harvest: Explore eco-friendly methods to keep your garden healthy and your vegetables free of harmful chemicals.
This webinar is perfect for:

Anyone interested in improving their diet and overall health
Aspiring vegetable gardeners of all experience levels
Individuals seeking to connect with nature and enjoy the satisfaction of homegrown food
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn how to cultivate a healthier lifestyle through the joy of vegetable gardening!
#webinar #VegetableGardening #HealthyEating #HomegrownFood #gardeningforhealth

Our expert panelists:
Chelsey from Bejo Seeds https://www.bejoseeds.com/
Kirsten from Pure Line Seeds https://purelineseed.com/
Shaina from Vitalis Organic Seeds https://usa.vitalisorganic.com/

Learn more:
Top 10 Reasons to Garden https://ngb.org/top-ten-reasons-to-garden/
Homegrown Vegetables in Two Months or Less! https://all-americaselections.org/quick-homegrown-vegetables/
Grow Your Own Stir-Fry Garden https://all-americaselections.org/grow_a_stirfry_garden/
Simple Ways to Extend the Autumn Harvest https://all-americaselections.org/simple-ways-to-extend-the-autumn-harvest/

Chapters:
Introductions
3:27 Why is gardening healthy?
12:19 Burgundy Broccoli
14:30 Cabbage Sweet Lettuce
15:42 Purple Haze Carrot
16:57 Konan Kohlrabi F1*
18:27 Cabbage Gunma
20:03 Beau Seychelles*
21:57 Candy Crush Kale*
23:45 Pea Parsley
25:00 Peas N Pod Bernard*
26:00 Tomato Tiny Temptations Orange
26:50 Tomato Rugby
29:17 Lettuce Bauer
31:20 Benefine Frisee Endive
33:02 Mexican Zucchini
34:43 Pozzano Tomato
35:20 Divergent Melon
36:18 Evi Italian Basil
37:48 Physical Challenges and Gardening
45:55 Fertilizer
50:25 Soil Testing
51:19 Potasium
55:09 Closing Expert Tips

we are here today ask the experts about gardening for Better Health and so it’s kind of going twofold it’s what you garden with and it’s the fact that you are gardening um so I’m Diane blazic I am the executive director for National Garden Bureau I have with me Gail papst and you are going to see her posting a lot of links in the chat which by the way we will also save the chat and send that out what I want to do now is do a quick introduction of our panelist and after I do the quick introduction I will toss it back to them and they can do their own little introduction so we have Kirsten from Pure Line seeds we have Chelsea from beo seeds and we have Shaina from do you do you usually go by inan or Vitalis or both both okay so we will let you introduce yourself and your dual named company sure yeah so sha bronstein I live in Oregon and I work for enzza zadin Vitalis organic seeds we’re a Dutch breeding company we breed vegetable seeds and Vitalis is our organic brand so everything under the Vitalis brand is 100% organically produced seed and those varieties that we produce organically are the ones we find are best adapted for organic agriculture or lowi input agriculture and we breed breed and produce seed all over the world uh mostly herbs and small vegetables so no beans and no corn but uh a wide range of everything else great we we are going to see the the diversity the international aspect uh the many different varieties from all three of our panelists so uh Chelsea let’s go to you hi I’m Chelsea lensic I’m with beo seeds Inc which is a uh us base of beo Zaden we’re a conventional and organic vegetable breeding company and we focus on um cabbage carrots onions red beets and then a whole Litany of other vegetables that you can grow in your garden and um out in the field as well I’m based in Pennsylvania but I uh travel around uh doing product development and as the organic lead for North America great thank you okay and Ken hi I’m Kirsten dong um I am with Pure Line seeds we’re a family-owned and operated company based in Warden Washington and we just celebrated our 75th Anniversary last year so we’re pretty excited about that um we are also just like everybody else we breed and we produce seed that’s our name to the game so um we mainly focus on peas and beans but over the last 15 years have expanded into a lot of other sorts of crops and it’s been a lot of fun um I’ve been with the company about nine years working in product development and managing our trials excellent okay so I think we have three vegetable experts on here and you guys look healthy so you must be following your own tips it looks like so um why don’t we talk about that uh we’re we’re going to get into specifics on varieties in just a bit um you see that I do have my presentation up on screen but uh first how does vegetable gardening um help help you stay healthy how does it help your health so does anybody want to tackle a couple of those points yes I’m sure we’ll be a very polite panel so you can poke us if you want us to start speaking sooner Nam okay I’ll be the teacher that calls Nam so you you spoke up first let’s let’s hear some of your thoughts yeah I mean for sure you know being being outside and getting fresh air is always great in my opinion um when you can add gardening into it which is you know a mix of uh calisthetics and you know movement and stretching I think there’s a lot of um physical benefits for your body that you get just from being out there and and staying active and staying moving and then um I’ll answer this a little bit more fully at the end too but definitely the me mental health benefits of just connecting with the soil and watching something grow uh and and raising something raising a crop I think is um you know kind of Irreplaceable okay I’m gonna poke you Kiren okay um yeah I definitely agree with that I think something that I’ve really realized too within the past couple of years but you know there’s a whole thing with like sunlight Accord you know something like is so good um but it’s also good for you know like your seating Rhythm getting out there you and there’s this whole thing about like grounding and that sort of thing but um I find too when I can get out early in the morning and be out in the garden early in the morning it it’s what I’ve learned not that I’m an expert in necessarily like circadian rhythms but that sunlight really resets your circadium Rhythm because I have always struggled with sleeping you know I’m kind of just like a wired person and that really helps me to sleep really good and I have two little kids and they come out with me um they’re just you know right at them early in the morning too so they come out and um it’s just really nice because they sleep better too so it’s just really good for the whole family you know that sunlight aspect you know not only just for like you know just the nutrients we get from the Sun but also when we’re out there you know through our eyes and resetting our clock internal clock awesome okay Shaya and you yeah absolutely what everyone else has said um already I totally agree with also just when you’re growing your own food of course you’re eating healthy stuff right out of the garden and it helps you really appreciate how much work it takes to produce that wonderful healthy food so it really I think Builds an appreciation for those healthy nutritious vegetables that we all want to have more of in our diet so and then when you go to the farmers market or the supermarket and you see that beautiful head of cauliflower you really appreciate how much work it takes and so it becomes even more of a treat to enjoy a fresh vegetable like that so I think that really helps with that connection of where your food is coming from and why you want to be putting those good nutritious vegetables into your body um and then of course there’s also like um Kiren kind of started to talk about was that social connection whether it’s with your family your community your friends um gardening can be a great way to interact with your community as well and I think I mean you know there is a a whole organization called kids gardening which we are very wholeheartedly in support of and I know this is one that I’ve witnessed and and I’m sure all of you have and read up on it but kids when you get your children involved in gardening and they’re able to pull a carrot out of the ground and eat it they’re able to pick a berry and eat it suddenly they’re much more willing to try a wider variety of vegetables so to me you know just getting over that hump of oh it’s ugly or oh I don’t think I like it you know and we all know that when you grow something more more often than not it tastes better than what you can buy in the store so yet another Advantage for kids and nutrition and the diversity of things that they will eat also so that’s great um let’s um are there certain plant well you know I’m probably I I’ll ruin the presentation if I ask that question so I’m going to skip that one the question was which plants are best for nutrition and so I think those are the ones you guys picked for your presentation so why not um oh there is a very good question and I want you guys to answer that right now so we have one of our uh viewers is from Oklahoma City she is a new Gardener is it too late to grow or start growing now so this is what mid to late April in Oklahoma um let’s let’s help her out and tell her that it’s never too late to start but let’s give recommendations on maybe what she could try in Oklahoma yeah I mean it isn’t too late at all for sure I mean it’s you know you it always comes down to your crop and you know even varieties and not to be like overwhelming because it’s not overwhelming when you think of um there’s so much room to play even within certain crops there might be crops that you’re like oh well that’s a spring crop and sometimes those crops you can get away with it with certain varieties so you can really play around with it um you know try for things that you know you could even start beans now like faster maturing crops squashes summer squashes especially if you’re new to gardening and I’m sure everybody else could test to do stuff that yeah may be more on the easier scale because it’s just you get that like success and you it just like really pumps you you know you want to do more and I mean I have to say that for myself too you know like house plants is a newer thing for me so then I stick to things that are a little I know are a little easier then it’s like ah it’s a win and then you build from there but that’s some of my initial recommendations yeah I would say leafy greens is always a great place to start because they’re fast you plant successions so if you um have a mistake or something doesn’t work that first time you can go back and plant another succession um and leafy greens is something you can play with all year long you might change the varieties you grow or the typ to grow but that’s always a really nice one and pretty pretty quickly you get the reward of some fresh vegetables yeah yeah and then I mean if you are dying to try tomatoes and peppers you know there’s a ton of great plants that are available out right now you know even if it’s a little too late to start your seedlings inside box stores have plants right now a lot of the great gardening we com companies we work with right now are running plant sales so it’s a really good time to get plants um and I would start maybe with like a determinate tomato which means it’s going to come on in a shorter amount of time and you’re going to get all of your fruit at once it’s going to be more compact plant you can try starting in a container um but yeah I agree definitely still time you have a lot of options still and if I can add something to Chelsea just because it made me think of this when um even when I first started in the industry you know feels like a lifetime ago but I remember um you know there are obviously recommendations online how to grow and there’re so so helpful but don’t be afraid to try things you know just direct seeding it like Chelsea saying either you know get some plants or even if you have some tomato seeds you know just try throwing them in the garden they’ll they’ll grow um you just might get a really late crop but you are in Oklahoma so um I’m in Wisconsin or up in the northern part of the country so you know you get that Frost aspect but in Oklahoma you have a longer growing window so you know you could just even start some of those direct um or get some plants like Chelsea saying and yeah just play with it and um you’ll be probably pretty surprised what will come from it you know seeds are pretty vigorous that’s that’s our job as seed companies you know we try to get some really good varieties out there so you have success great great tips and Linda one other thing um Oklahoma State University in Stillwater they put out a wonderful in um public television show very very helpful very precise to your location so I would highly encourage you to to um find that watch some of their um episodes especially on vegetable gardening so great okay love helping a newbie and I love when you can admit you’re a newbie because then you’re going to get all kinds of advice so okay let’s move over to our presentation and Chelsea I believe you are up first so we are going to let you get started here woohoo all right well we’ll start with burgundy broccoli this is a purple sprouting broccoli uh if this is is new to you it’s because this is a new development for the market um previously a lot of purple sprouting broccoli could only be grown in a certain part of the country up in the Pacific Northwest because the other varieties of old needed a cooling period so like a fall period to get it to flower and get that purple color to come on Broccoli um this burgundy uh you can grow in all over the US and uh sew it multiple times throughout the season so we work from New York Down to Georgia um out to the Pacific Northwest and even down the California coast so you can grow it um all season long spring summer fall you can succession plant it so you’ll get um get a harvest every like 60 to 75 days you can cut it three or four times and then um what you get from that are a bunch of kind of button-sized florets on a long stem so it’s a multic cut you’ll get a whole bunch of those when you cut them um and then we recommend using it for a fresh application or like a very quick steaming um because you still want to retain that purple color and the sweet tender crunch that comes along with the variety we always get the question you know if I steam it or if I cook it longer will you lose the purple color indeed you will but to me like that is what your standard headed broccoli is for if you want a broccoli that you’re going to steam for 20 minutes go with your standard broccoli if you want something that you’re going to you know top a pizza with or top a salad with or finish a stir fry with that’s like a flash fry you know five minutes something like that uh or fresh use then burgundy is really the best variety for that and I like here because what we hear is the more colorful you vegetables the healthy healthier they are so I think we’ve got a good purple broccoli here that’s healthy that’s right okay so caraflex uh the other name that we have called This is sweetheart Lage which is a lettuce by cabbage cross and what I want you to hear from that is it’s uh sweet enough to eat like a lettuce but with the more tender suppleness of a Cabbage so this is a really uniform variety it comes out with these really beautiful little pointed heads you can grow them as a mini so you know something in a 6in tall um really like one pound range or you can let it grow more fully um to the two two and a half pound range and what you can do with this is uh well a bunch of different things but when you split it it comes out with these beautiful heart-shaped boats that you can fill with things you can steam with things and again you can even just peel off those leaves and like use it as a super uh healthy replacement for something like an iceberg lettuce but again versatile um salad slaws and then of course sometimes you just end up with a little too much cabbage at the end of the day so you can still use it for your regular um you know cooking and soups and stews of as well this variety Purple Haze is an as winner um so you can see a very distinct coloration here it has the purple exterior and then a really bright orange interior this is longer carry it’s seven to eight inch tapered Roots the good thing is it means it has some power so if you have soil it’s a bit studier or maybe a bit more clay like we have in the Northeast this is going to have a little bit more power behind it with a nice strong top too um which helps you be able to pull the root easier very very sweet just absolutely packed with vitamins and minerals having both the orange uh and the purple um uh colors in there um again if you cook this a long amount of time you’ll start or or peel it of course you’ll lose out on that beautiful purple color so more for um you know uh carrot quarters or you know cubing it or something more in a um raw fashion because you know it you eat with your eyes first and so the coloration on this um helps with that Conan kabi another as winner uh a lot of people are not familiar with kabi um they look like little planets sitting on the soil when they’re growing out there it’s like a little Jupiter with this like fun leafy top on it uh they are so superb um col Robbie by and large is sweet it’s crisp it’s tender it’s refreshing it’s dense Super Vitamin packed as well um it’s a lot of fun to have with it so because of that kind of dense structure you can use it uh as a a canoodle or you know a noodle where you would uh twist it or Julien it up into something that you would cover with uh sauce or butter or whatever you’re going to use your noodle for but you can also use it as snack sticks um this this has some Traction in some of the school um Garden to school lunch programs they’re using more col Robie to to um get kids some nutrient alternatives to chips and fries and and that sort of thing during the day um and then don’t miss out on the tops either you know if if um if you take it at the right time you can take those tops and take the stems and just as easily you know throw them into a stir fry or soup or a c Verde or or something like that that um you can use it basically root to tip and then I think this is my last one so this is a flae headed cabbage called GMA the dimensions on it are pretty wild so it’s about 8 in deep and 13 inches wide and what you do with that is you you harvest this beautiful flat cabbage you take the sides off so you’re effectively left with a a square pallet of uh cabbage leaves then you just start peeling those leaves off and you use them you can use them as a wrap you can use them as a taco alternative um basically a vessel you know very nice healthy uh straight from the garden vessel that is just again packed with fighter fiber packed with um macro micronutrients to just Infuse your dish um with another hit of healthfulness um very very sweet uh very tender does beautifully in uh slaws as well and then has enough density that you can get a little bit of storage out of it you know um a few weeks of storage and then also use it um in krauts and kimch and a little kimchi and a little bit later down the line uh if you don’t want to use all of your Harvest out ones excellent thank you and it just dawned on me I’ll have Gail post a link to um shop our members because your varieties are carried by a lot of the major online retailers and seed companies so we’ll post that because I’m pretty sure that’s a question that people have is how do I find these so that that is what we will do and now we’re going to move on to yet another as winner thank you Chelsea and Kon you’re up with an as winning bean from from recent years so tell us about SE shells yes so SE shells is by far one of my most favorite beans and just varieties to grow and we grow a lot of varities so this is a p Bean um and most people don’t really typically think to grow pole beans they are usually used to bush beans but the nice thing about pole beans they really are so easy if you have something for them to grow up you know even construct a super super simple you know tralis anything it’ll just climb it by itself you don’t need to train it um and this thing you can see this picture this my cooworker Kelsey she’s picking a whole handful I mean they’ll have six long trusses so there’ll be six pods on a truss that you can pick um the the pods themselves are pretty long so they’re about six inches long and they’re tender as well so they don’t have some beans are quite fibrous um but these are tender A lot of people that don’t really care for green beans um prefer SE shells because it does have more that sweet taste to it and it’s just a heavy producer so you can go in there and just keep you know harvesting it’s a great snacking one um or even it’s something that you don’t want to necessarily can but you want to have fresh beans basically all summer long um this is a great option for that because you’ll just keep harvesting up that vine and it does grow pretty tall so it can grow um seven to nine feet tall depending on your conditions so if you don’t want it to get so tall just trim the top and it’ll allow for more flowers at the lower part of the vines so then you can Harvest more lower instead of having to go up and up and up um but this is a great and easy one that I highly suggest to anybody especially if you’re starting out in gardening um then this is our rainbow Candy Crush it’s a edible kale so we get if anybody’s familiar with ornamentals it has that ornamental peel of like an ornamental kale but it’s edible as well um it’s actually pretty tender and does have a sweet taste to it for being a kale and then back to like what Diane was saying with you know the antioxidants and the purpling in this kale it’s called anthy and that’s really healthy it’s really good to eat um you know a lot that deep colors so with this variety it has a really nice mounded habit um it it almost and you can kind of see it in these pictures it almost looks like somebody came and took a Shear to them and you know sheared them that way a lot of kale is really upward growing um sometimes it can get pretty wild but this one stays this beautiful Bush habit so it would work great in your Landscaping too you wouldn’t even have to put it you know in your garden um or you could put it in a pot this works great in a pot as well you could put it in like an 8 in or even bigger with a combo of things so super versatile it’s beautiful so in the summer it’ll be more of a green color with a um hot pink Center and then as the nights get cooler it turns a beautiful Deep Purple the you know outer leaves get purple the inner leaves get more of a magenta color um and then the beautiful thing with this it can over winter I have it in my raised beds um those raised beds are actually in my house and they’re growing back and they’re just you know beautiful so this is definitely one of my favorites um it does great in heat a lot of times cabbages or you know KES brasas they don’t love necessarily the Heat and so that’s the bolting tolerant so it doesn’t um bolt in the heat so is bread to not bolt and so that means you know you can keep enjoying it even in the heat um so parsley pee is um honestly one that we’ve had in our program for a little while and this picture Almost Doesn’t Do It full justice but so with peas they have these beautiful Vines and typically your standard peas um they need to be trellised and varieties that we’ve bred um over the years are called the filines that means they almost have velcro Vines to them so they don’t need a trellis they can grow on each other like Velcro so they’ll grow to the next onto the next plant next to them um so parsley pea is unique because you can see those tendrils they’re really really frilly they’re extra frilly and they make a great garnish um if you pick them young enough you can just eat them they like throw them in a salad and you get that really great tea taste and then an added bonus you also get the pods too so you can um it’s an English piece that means you want to Shell the berries out and you eat the berries so you don’t eat the Pod but the berries on this um at purine peas is one of our top crops so we you know we look at you know 200 plus varieties a year but this one is actually one of my favorites for just snacking on it’s a very sweet pee um and yeah once again you have that beautiful frilly Vine to it so can also eat the tendrils or the vines as well and then another pee U this is a a brand new one from us it’s called peas and aod Bernard uh this is also a dual purpose one you can see this is in a pot um we typically like let’s say you have a six inch or maybe an 8 inch pot throw in at least eight to 10 plants I know that sounds like a lot but peas love to be really compacted in there so throw a bunch of seed in there you know maybe have an inch or two spacing between the seeds and just let it grow and then this is an a fil of Vine as well so it’ll velcro together itself so it doesn’t need a trellis and then they’ll put these beautiful little tiny cute petite pods on them so once again this is an English pee so you want to Shell it you can kind of see in the picture too there’s those little berries so you want to eat the berries um but just a fun one for little kids too because it’s a quick crop so you could start it now basically pretty much anywhere you are in the state start it now um and then you’ll be harvesting before Fourth of July on these ones then another container one that we have that’s brand new from us is Tiny Temptations Orange um as you can see it’s a tomato it’s what we’d consider like a determinant but it’s a we call it a dwarf so it’s super small in this pot it’s about a 10 inch container and there’s actually three plants in there um and it grows in this beautiful mounded habit um and just loaded with fruit it’s a high yielder and it’s our sweetest variety so uh it’s upwards of 15 bricks um on such a small plant so this would be a really fun one for a patio as well like you could take maybe a kale um or a pee or anything like that you know throw it together in a nice container and it’ll show really nice um yeah it’s one of my favorites for sure and then bendita is another tomato from us this is one that you’d want to grow in the field or in the garden um this is what we call a semi determinate so it’s not quite the indeterminate those really tall ones and it’s not like the dwarf that we just saw so it’s like right happy medium um so you don’t need to necessarily trellis this if you didn’t want to I typically do trellis it just because it just keeps it cleaner um but it puts on nice big beef steak type Tomatoes they’re about 200 gram so they’re pretty hefty and you can see even in this picture they’re great for slicing and put putting on like a hamburger or putting in a salad and that color is just abolutely vibrant it’s a super super orange color which there’s a lot of health benefits to that orange color as well the same thing You’ get in carrots um those orange carrots so um and also a lot of people really like this variety because it has low acidity um so people that might have a lot of like you know you eat a tomato and you get you know your acid reflux or just a lot of like burping and stuff like that this one people come to we in our trial to people come and like hey can we pick the bandita because they know that um they don’t get the negative side effects of that high acid content and it’s also just very beautiful too and then another tomato is rugby this is an indeterminate so it is a taller one and you’d want to uh trellis this this is a pink tomato and it’s actually one it’s almost you could use it like Aroma type so you can see how much flesh meat is in that tomato when it’s sliced open so this is actually my favorite variety for saucing um just because it has so much flesh content my grandma does too my mom we all pick rugby and we like to can this one up um it’s great for Salsas you know spaghetti sauce that sort of thing and it will have a slightly different color just because it is a pink tomato but it’s just fun too because it’s so unique it has that beautiful heart shape so also it would be fun one for kids as well um and you can see the immature color too is fun as well just a vibrant almost neon green so this one is a good one and with this one and that bendido is talking about that orange one they’re both really nice for um just you know throwing out in the open field they’re really low maintenance uh varieties so excellent well thank you so much and now it’s shaya’s turn and there’s another AAS winner here yeah this is our AAS winner bow lettuce it’s um it’s a really really unique variety it’s not um doesn’t grow quite as large as a full-sized head of lettuce it gets to be about what we call Mid or midi size um but it is an oak leaf so it’s got a really nice combination of a bit of a thicker Leaf but also a soft buttery texture so it’s just got this nice crunch to it but also very sweet um so very different than a Roma or an iceberg or just a loose leaf lettuce that you might grow it works great for something like cutand come again or also just for single head Harvest whichever way you like to grow your lettuce um and it does have really great mildew resistance which I know can be a challenge for a lot of gardeners around the country so it is a variety you can grow pretty much anywhere uh it does have decent heat tolerance to go go through the summer so we really love this variety and of course lettuce is really hydrating for you it’s good source of vitamin A which is good for your vision and your skin um and of course all the good toppings that we put on our salads as well uh makes lettuce just a really nice healthy vegetable to grow in the garden and also pretty fast growing um and fairly easy to grow so this is a variety that I grow in my own garden and just love so one of the things Chelsea had mentioned it with the broccoli um I can’t remember if Kiren had but you mentioned cut and come again so that is nice there are certain vegetables that you can plant and harvest as a baby stage or as smaller sometimes with a broccoli if you cut out the Center St you get the side shoots so um I’ve just heard that terminology quite a bit and wanted to make sure that everybody understood what cut and come again means so okay yeah yeah and so on the lettuce or even on something like an endi what you can do is go and take the outside leaves leave the inner heart and then that will regrow that will continue to grow uh for a couple times and then eventually the plant will decide it’s done and it will send up a stock and start to bolt and that changes the flavor profile and everything like that as well but yes uh the next variety that I’m um wanted to talk about was benine Endive it’s a fris type which is very trendy these days we see it in a lot of restaurants on the menus uh it it is an end dive so it has a more bitter profile than a lettuce but that that bitter profile those bitter compounds um are actually really helpful for you they aid in digestion um I like to eat my FR with like a nice H honey mustard something a little bit sweet to complement the bitterness of the varieties but um this variety I love again because it’s very adaptable meaning it can grow in a lot of different conditions and a lot of different places in the country um it’s one of the most resistant varieties I’ve seen to the Heat so it doesn’t bolt too fast and it doesn’t get any kind of tip burn or yellowing of the leaves so this is a really really nice if you’ve tried growing F before and not been successful I would recommend trying it again with this variety because it is really easy to grow um and good for warm conditions in the summer so and also it adds a really nice Loft to your plate it’s got that nice frilly Leaf um it’s a fun vegetable to grow yeah Mexicana is one of my personal favorites it’s um what we call a gray zucchini sometimes referred to as a Mexican zucchini sometimes um similar type would be a Lebanese type um but as you can see it’s got that nice bulbous shape which makes it really great for stuffing for grilling I really like to hollow these out and stuff them with a little bit of meat and rice some Tomatoes um it’s a great vehicle for other vegetables um and it does one thing I really like about Mexicana zucchini is that it has a very open plant and a pretty compact plant so instead of the vines growing kind of trailing All Over the Garden they grow very upright and the leaves stay very open which makes it easier to get in there and harvest it makes it easier to see the fruit on the plant and um yeah it just helps when you get in there you’re not scratching your your hands on the on the spines because the spines are pretty minimal and they’re well spaced apart uh and one tip I’d like to give with zucchini is don’t let that first or second zucchini sit on your plant waiting for it to get big go ahead and pick those zucchini that that will promote the plant that it says oh I need to keep producing more fruits and it’ll keep going I see a lot of people they’ll have that one Sad Little Giant zucchini hanging on their plant and that that says to the plant hey I’m making seed my job is done done I don’t need to keep producing fruits so please do pick those first early zucchini the plant will keep producing keep them coming and then if you like larger ones later in the season you can get some of those off your plant so that’s my tip for for growing zucchini uh Pizano tomato another one uh that I really love it’s a San Marzano type and if you’ve ever tried to grow these types they can be challenging the fruit can be pretty small um and also it’s pretty notorious for getting that Bloss some end rot also a lot of the traditional varieties have a very pronounced green shoulder on the top which is fine but um aesthetically Pano is just really striking because you get these fully red shiny fruit that are very resistant to Blossom and rot this is an indeterminate tomato so definitely something you’d want a steak or trellis um but makes great sauces it’s really that nice traditional Italian type tomato and of course tomatoes high in lycopene really good anti oxidant for fighting all kinds of diseases uh another another vegetable that has great antioxidants is melon of course and cantaloupe is one of those Divergent melon is one of my favorites because it’s um Divergent it’s different it’s a cross between a cantaloupe and a Gallia melon so it’s got the outside netting is more like what you would see of a Galia but the inside is a nice sweet orange flesh uh really kind of an old-fashioned cantaloupe flavor we say so it’s got that musk to it it’s not all just pure sugar um it’s got a really nice flavor profile and again this variety is really early to mature so really great um for growing in short growing Seasons um you’re going to get some nice melons before it frosts and I think the last one I have on my list is EV basil which is one of our uh new dowy mildew resistant varieties so if you do get that black uh spores growing on your leaves that’s likely mildew it’s something that’s become a problem in the US over the last five to 10 years and so it’s likely especially towards the end of the season that you will see that in your garden this variety is resistant to it not 100% resistant but um it can hold its own against the disease and so that’s why we really love this variety it’s got a traditional basil flavor it’s slow to bolt um yeah and again of course there’s lots of compounds phytochemicals in basil that are great for your health and when you add basil to something it makes it taste even better at least at least that’s my opinion yeah so I’m gonna take the presentation down and and I don’t know about everybody else but I’m salivating and I’m ready for lunch now after seeing all that which uh that’s part of what we want to do we want to entice everybody with the appealing look and flavor of these vegetables so yeah it worked on me but maybe I’m just a big fan of vegetable gardening so um let’s go through and talk about gardening for Better Health a little bit more um one of the questions that we got was what about people with physical challenges you know either Mobility or or flexibility I think somebody was mentioning uh some of the things about gardening earlier and boy depending on what you’re gardening in it it requires flexibility I’m sure we’ve all come back in with uh thighs and arms and shoulders but uh any kind of tips um I’m sure you each have several tips so if you are limited in any way physically um what are some favorite tips on how you can continue to Garden well I would highly recommend raised beds for sure um my husband actually bought built Bunch for the company I work for and they’re man I was asking last night how tall are they but basically up to your thigh I mean I recommend not doomed to low that’s one of the things that I see is a lot of race beds are too low and it’s almost like what’s the point at that rate because then like rabbits can get in there and then also it is just hard to um work in it and then also if they’re too high I’ve seen ones that are also much too high you know I’m kind of just an average gal as far as height but you know up to hip and higher you know then it’s hard to if you got maybe some taller crops in there to work with them so if you get kind of that sweet spot but something taller you know you can easily just reach in even to the middle of the bed um you know plant your items or even if you start getting something taller you can still reach it and harvest from it so that’s probably one of my biggest is raised beds I love them I mean I didn’t think I’d love them as much as I do but um yeah just have series of raised beds everywhere and you know life would be so much better excellent yeah I would add to that to bed diameter they you know you don’t really want something that you have to reach reach over into so if you’re custom building that’s excellent you know think about what your arm reach is from like a nice upstanding position which is probably two feet and that’s the max Center of your bed if you can work around the whole side of it or if it’s going up against the fence or something like that you know you want it to just be something that you can easily reach into um and I guess I would add um access you know depending on how able-bodied you are you want something um you know if that you can get to easily and so a lot of that is evening the ground putting a nice base in if you can um something that’s going to be a firm uh standing platform for you that you can feel very comfortable and secure in um and then you know um being being cognizant of your body you know it’s it’s okay I think gardening is wonderful because it’s a slow hobby or it can be a slow hobby just do what you can for the day don’t bite off more than you can chew and think about what it is that you’re using if you’re bending are you able to support you know that bend with your core or your back muscles or if you’re picking something up you know you don’t lift with your back of course you know you lift with your knees um uh and and and having the right ergonomic tools you know we’re a panel of women here there’s a great assortment now of tools that are smaller diameter handles for a woman’s hand and also a bit on the lighter side you know they’re made of lighter materials and so getting and and then you can take that even further if there’s other um ability or disability limitations that you’re working with there’s a variety of tools out there that are made for various aspects um I think to work with in um yeah within uh a way to get you out into the garden and doing it comfortably yeah I think that’s that’s so true Chelsea um the long-handled tools things that you can can really use your ergonomically are so important and I would add to that you know if you’re limited in Mobility or low energy even consider taking a chair out to the garden and working working from the chair uh working on a stool bringing a a kneeling pillow or having knee guards if you’re doing some kneeling to protect your knees um and really also switching up the tasks right like don’t do a hard task for too long take a break do something that you um can rest your body like harvesting or um just enjoying the garden for a little while because um yeah you don’t want to over fatigue your body and there’s so much to do in the garden that you can bring break up those tasks if you need to um so I think just like like everyone has said being really conscious of your body uh even consider stretching before you go out in the garden to help you so that you’re not injuring yourself when you get there also the other thing I wanted to say is if you can’t set up your own garden due to physical limitations there are a lot of Community Gardens School Gardens places where you can get involved that are accessible to a wide range of people and um I’m sure they would love to have some help so that’s always an option as well yeah can I add something to that as well because you know when you’re talking um I was thinking too so last year I was pregnant very pregnant throughout the summer and so one of the things I found really helpful for me because there was some you know Mobility things there with a large belly and that sort of thing but uh I’ve have found even just over the years is having things on me so um I’ve over the years bought like pouches that I just snap to my waist and I I just keep everything in my pouch so like the hand tools and my seed um anything it’s all in my pouch so I don’t have to keep like walking back and forth and getting stuff or um or even just bending over it’s all right there or even if you’re trellising something up you know putting Clips you know in your pouch that you can trellis um and also with that you know there’s a lot of container varieties out there too so really consider containers uh they’re I think they’re they’re they’ve grown in popularity over the years but I I think there’s still so much out there that people don’t even realize like as far as varieties um and options there so yeah just have a lot of fun with playing with different things you know throwing something in something you would typically not think should be in there maybe somewhere you typically put flowers maybe try putting some of your vegetables there you know because it’s closer to your house or um so yeah hopefully those are helpful very very helpful and I was going to add into I mean I know that hanging baskets have some challenges with how they dry out but there may be certain vegetables or fruits that you could grow in hanging baskets and then you don’t even have to bend over you can just reach up and and pluck a few berries or beans or peas or whatever it might be off of a hanging basket would be another way um one of the things that I wanted to bring up um which is related in a little bit is um our support of therapeutic Gardens so we’ve been talking about how Garden is good for you there are a very large number of therapeutic Gardens throughout North America and we actually have a grant program and we’ve just opened up applications so if anyone um listening is involved with a horiculture therapy Garden you could go to our website Gail can post a link to that because the grants will be the deadline is in July and then we actually award the grants this fall so we are very much supporters of how gardening can help you mentally physically and everything in this grant is one of the ways we do that so thank you everybody for your tips um so now let’s let’s talk about some general garden growing and Care um is there like let’s talk about fertilizer first is there something you should be using shouldn’t be using does what you feed your plants affect the how it feeds you um so what what are your tips along those lines yep so I uh I personally am a big fan of compost so where I’m at I can usually get some composted manure but I also love I think it’s okay to say there’s the Black Cow brand which is carried at Home Depot which is my local Box Store um which I think is really reliable um and then also I make my own compost and use King Neptune’s fish and SE kelp fertilizer it’s a bit stinky but it’s really really um great in um in organic matter um yeah I mean generally uh the healthier plant is the more successful you’re going to be so something that’s planted at the right time of year generally in full sun when we’re talking about vegetables and that is well fed is going to better be able to fend off pests and diseases you know collect that sunlight for photosynthesis and turn that into fruit for your Harvest so yeah generally um a nice uh even um feeding is is good and then what comes along with that is timing types of feeding for the vegetable it’s a it’s more to get into now but I’m sure Diane and Gail have a bunch of great resources that can suggest to you um best times of year to plant but yeah I would say you know if you can incorporate feeding into the cycle you know typically when your vegetabl start flowering and then again at Mid Harvest it’s both the times where they’re using a lot of energy you know plants put a lot of energy into flowering going into that reproductive stage they can use little boost then and then after you’ve starting to take some Harvest off and perhaps they’re fatiguing or maybe you’ve missed that first zucchini pick and you know they’re getting closer to setting seed than you want them to if you can give them um a little feeding then you’ll be able to extend your growing season yeah and something I’ve found too is it’s really simple that I didn’t realize was so simple but doing soil samples so it depends on how big you’re trying to go you know how big you’re Endeavor is how big your garden is but soil samples um you can do you can order online soil samples too like you can do you know Amazon has some stuff or you can even go through a local lab um so I’ve gone through in Wisconsin here egg Source Laboratories and it’s honestly pretty cheap um as far as I thought you know it can range from like $8 to $30 depending on what you’re wanting for your analysis but for me I would just do like the basic analysis and even so where I’m growing um when I would get that soil sample back it told me what my soil was lacking and actually I thought my soil was lacking so much you know I was going to have to pump so much on my plants and then I found that my soil was actually kind of hot it was too there’s too much nutrients in it and so um which made sense because the year before I was just you know fertilizing um and then I saw a lot of like over production like the it got too leafy or things like that so that’s a great way to like if you have no even Baseline especially for just your you know Garden if you have a large Garden or something I really recommend it because then that will last you quite a while if you’re doing the same thing or if you’re doing crop rotations and that sort of thing but it gives you kind of a a baseline idea and like I said it’s not too expensive to do some sort of um soil test yeah um those are all great tips I would I would add to that if you’re using organic fertilizers or natural fertilizers those tend to break down more slowly in the soil so considering adding fertility to your Gard in maybe in the fall so that it can have time to uh break down and be available for you the next season um I really do love the fish Emulsion fertilizers the liquid fertilizers like Chelsea said they can be a little stinky you don’t want to put them on something you’re just about to eat but um they’re really fast acting and you can spray them right on the leaves uh or right into the soil and it can make a pretty big um impact in a short amount of time so if you see something struggling that’s a great kind of quick pickme up for plants yes I’m so glad you brought up soil testing because that’s that’s one of probably the first things you should first you need to decide to Garden um but then definitely you need to know what is in your soil and I see um there’s a lot of comments here about Cooperative extensions USDA offices will be doing soil testing some looks like North Carolina is doing it free and then then once you get your soil tested I’m assuming that they will give you the recommendations on what to do if anything for your soil we had somebody say that their soil was low in potassium do you have any recommendations on how to add potassium to your soil yeah so if you’re going to take something off the shelf for a fertilizer typically you’ll see three numbers on it it’s a number Dash number Dash number and that stands for nitrogen phosphorus and potassium NP and which are the three kind of Baseline nutrients that you want in your soil and to be available to your plant they make all the other micro and macronutrients more readily available to the plant so if you find that you’re low in potassium you could look for something that’s like a005 which means no nitrogen no phosphorus but it has the potassium really um or you could go for something that is like a straight potassium additive which um which will be available you know from a box store shelf um you can make like a banana uh uh extract if you soak some banana peels and some water and so there’s definitely some like at home things that you can do that for uh do do that with also but you know I like reading a good label I like getting a good organic fertilizer or compost because you know it’s going to be well mixed you know that you’re getting a pretty straightforward um uh application and just going with that so I would pay attention to that third number on an off-the-shelf um feed yeah and like I said um organic fertilizers can be a little bit slower to act in your soil but things like seaweed kelp um greens sand those are all natural sources of pottassium as well as I think potassium sulfate is available as well so those are all things that are high high potassium that you can add but they may take a little while to break down in your soil and there’s another question here about biochar have you used it I’m I’m hearing a lot of talk about that in fact we have um sunro has a new mix called black black bear I believe and it has biochair I personally don’t have any experience have you guys used any biochar yeah I have uh anybody else so the the way um we yeah in my past life we had done a lot of Trials on on various biochars the way I more think of it is it’s like an insurance policy um if you need uh a boost and some better accessibility to the nutrients in a a saggier soil I think that you’re more bound to see the results from the product if you already have a beautiful loose well draining soil that’s even in nitrogen phosphorus and potassium I think that you’re not going to as readily see that um that uptick in your yield or plant performance again that’s that’s just from my point of view of Trials though and so I know there’s always new products hitting the Shelf every day and um you know what I would say is experiment with it you know that’s that’s one of the most fun things in the garden have a container of two of the exact same things put biochar in one soil not in the other soil and see what that does for you your own home trial excellent just say make sure you know where your biochar is coming from make sure it’s it’s something clean that you want to put into your soil um but yeah it can help with water retention I think it can help maybe with the um the micronutrient um sorry the microbes in the soil the soil diversity can help with some of that but um like Chelsea said it’s going to depend on how your soil is to start with yeah excellent okay um wow when we get down to the three minute Mark here’s what I like to do to close out our webinars is I ask each panelist one of your favorite tips so today is what is your favorite way to improve your health those of your friends and family by vegetable gardening I mean and the tips can be very broad ranging but uh who wants to go first who has their tip prepared you know Wonderful preparers [Laughter] Diane yeah I’ll go first um so I guess for mine might be a little too fold but so it might not be just one thing but overall I will say just have fun with it like that the more you have fun with it you’re gonna just enjoy it to it’s I think that’s what I see a lot in people they’ll get too stressed out about it or like oh it’s not growing right like you know maybe try doing even what Chelsea is saying like do your own little trial like throw things out there I mean that’s how you know we do our work is we’re testing things and you know in one sense you can’t really go wrong so just throw things out there and see how it’s going to happen even if like they say well you’re supposed to start it inside you never know you know um and of course there could be limitations there with space or timing um and also with that just plan on things that you know especially if you want to like preserve something or keep it like something you know you’re G to love eating that you’re G to like want to go to all the time so for for our family for instance this past year um I found a really cool way to store carrots and and we’ve just been like eating carrots like crazy and it’s lasted all winter and it’s this huge sense of accomplishment too it’s like wow this so cool like I’ve was able to store all these carrots so you know maybe try to pick like one crop that you can really hone in on and just like kind of make it your baby type of thing um that’s probably one of my biggest things even working in the industry for so many years there’s still so many like Feats and hurdles to jump over and things to learn and um so yeah just yeah have fun with it for sure awesome I love that tip okay who’s next I can go next um it just plays it plays on Kirsten’s which is yeah don’t stress about it try to make it uh as fun as possible for me that means picking the things that I know are going to grow well in my garden uh and that we’re going to really enjoy and the things that I struggle with I I let go of those and I um enjoy them from uh a neighbor’s Garden or from the farmers market uh but I try not to stress about it too much and the things we do grow we grow a lot of herbs we grow a lot of garlic and we use those in almost every single meal so it’s very satisfying so we found things that work and grow very easily in our garden and those for me are the most rewarding uh and there there’s no stress there so that’s you know gardening is meant to be meditative it’s meant to be relaxing uh if it’s stressing you out uh find a different way to do something I love it yes okay Chelsea yours yeah I mean right on the back of um stress relief I would say visit your garden every day you know whether that’s first thing in the morning like Kirsten does I tend to do it after the dinner rush is over in my house and you know maybe the kids or husband will come out with me but I’ll take my wine or a tea you know and just I walk my garden and I take it in and it’s a great way to see what has happened throughout the day because always something has happened throughout the day um it’s a good way to just like pull a couple weeds at dusk you know so you end your day like with a wind you know you’ve done something it takes one less burden off for the next day and um and just that General clearing it like lets all the chatter of the day fade away because you are just taking in the sights and and sounds of the garden and if you can do that once a day lunch break whatever part of the day like I guarantee you it’s going to be a win and and something you look forward to I love that I’ve heard people say I’m a coffee Gardener I’m a lunch Gardener I’m a I’m a wine Gardener so it’s like is the amount of time it takes them to consume whatever it is they’re carrying out in the garden that’s that’s their daily fix and it makes them feel so much better and and I’m just going to add in why my little tip um a lot of times I talk about this is grow something that’s unique um and I and I’m not dis dispar disparaging green peppers at all but you know green peppers they’re pretty cheap in the grocery store and we buy them almost by the dozens we eat so many but I also like growing the unique things you know like The Bishop’s hat pepper and and the red and yellow peppers the small ones and things like that just because then you’re growing the unique and it’s even more fun so um okay I think we whoops we are two minutes over so sorry about that but I think it was well worth it and with that I am just going to profusely thank all three of you for sharing your knowledge and your tips and showing us some wonderfully delicious looking varieties and with that I think it’s time for us to wrap things up so we can go get in our vegetable gardens