GROW YOUR MINDSET!

THE BEST THINGS YOU CAN GROW IS YOUR MINDSET!

A new year is here and one of our favorite tasks for the years is getting to plan our vegetable gardens! I can’t think of anything more hopeful (and fun!) than that.  

Rather than thinking of my vegetable garden simply as a food source, I’m approaching each row I grow with more intention. For instance, one of my gardening goals includes planting to attract beneficial insects. This will keep predatorial insects at bay, plus I absolutely love seeing bees and butterflies at work. Also growing vegetables that will nourish me and my team in the fall and winter (fun fact – I make fresh soup for the Shelmerdine team every Tuesday). I plan to focus on organically growing the foods that I eat the most of – in succession – so that I don’t run out and can rely on my own supply.

Here’s what I’m excited to grow this year, and why. Hopefully it will spark a new gardening mindset for you as well!

Tricolour Bush Bean Blend – I love colourful foods! This beautiful blend of green, yellow and purple bush beans have been combined in one package to offer a rainbow of colours and a long harvest window. I like to freeze fresh beans and toss them into hearty soups.

Purple Peacock Pole Beans – It makes a fast-growing privacy screen, even if you don’t intend to eat the beans. A beautiful plant with dark purple leaves and light purple flowers. Give it a trellis and a try if you need some privacy quickly. The beans turn green when cooked.

Nutri-Red Carrots – These flavourful, striking red carrots are meant to be cooked rather than eaten raw. Their colour intensifies when cooked and the properties of the antioxidant lycopene become more accessible to the body.

Rainbow Blend – A blend of premium carrots varieties purple, white, orange, red, yellow. Packed with vitamins C, E and K, plus folate and the antioxidant lutein. I guess I just love colourful, healthy veggies!

Alfresco Salad Blend – A mix that has a Mediterranean flavour, so I’ll get my travel ‘fix’ through my food. Why grow one lettuce variety when you can grow a mix of red and green lettuce, arugula, endive, and radicchio?

Apache Scallions – This award-winning green onion features deep red skin on the bulbs, and I’m all about colourful salads! It has a mild flavour and crisp texture, and is also great as a topping for baked potatoes.

Yukon Spinach – Ready in just 38 days, it grows so fast that I plan to seed in succession so that I don’t have to buy spinach all season long. It grows especially well in cooler temps like early spring and early fall, which adds shoulder seasons to my lettuce crops.

Sweet Million Cherry Tomato – Simply the sweetest, most vigorous producing cherry tomato that has excellent disease resistance. It needs lots of space but it’s worth the square footage in my garden!

Starbor Kale – I like to freeze my kale so it’s ready to enjoy come soup season as it adds so much nutritional value. This award-winning variety is uniform and compact with densely curled leaves.

Touchstone Gold Beets – The ultimate golden beet! I plan to roast them to add vibrant color to my summer salads, and then pickle them in the fall as a garnish.

Yellowfin Zucchini – I always seem to end up with enough green zucchini from friends and family, so I’ll grow these small, vibrant yellow fruits for soups and salads. This variety is highly resistant to powdery mildew.

Tadorna Leek – I love leeks! Either sauteed as a side dish or in soups, their flavour is so delicate, like an elevated onion. This will be my first time growing leeks, but my dad uses 6” sections of plumbing pipe around each stock to keep soil out of the stalks and to keep them growing upright.

Wasabi Radish – This one is just for fun and is a Shelmerdine bestseller! A Japanese heirloom variety has a strong heat, but you can soak the radish in salted water to reduce the heat.

Pink Popcorn – I plan to grow and dry these to pop the biggest bowls of fluffy white popcorn come winter and Netflix season! I’ll also use the corn stalks at my front door to decorate for fall.

Black Beauty Mini Watermelon – Personal sized, sweet, and juicy watermelons! These compact plants can be container grown so you don’t need a large garden to grow sweet, delicious watermelon.

Selma Fino Fennel – I love to shave fennel finely into a citrus salad or to grill it whole on the barbeque. Either way it’s a delicious treat to the summer meal, with a delicate licorice flavour.

Mammoth Sweet Pea – I’m excited to trellis this climber and cut the flowers into sweet-scented bouquets, as well as to attract more pollinators to my garden.

Dill Bouquet – Perfect for planting in between rows to attract predatory insects away from your other vegetables. It’s great for pickling and canning and goes well in summer bouquets.

Wild Bergamot – Intensely attractive to pollinators and beneficial insects, as well as to enjoy as an herbal tea and to experiment with its numerous medicinal properties.

Sunrich Orange Sunflower – Sunflowers don’t take up any real estate in the garden, so they’re great to plant on the outskirts. Bees will flock to them, and I can enjoy them as cut flowers in the late fall. The blooms are 4” – 6”.

Butterfly Wildflower Blend – After hearing how happy our customers have been with the success for this blend, and how many butterflies they attract, I can’t help myself. Made of twenty species, I plan to sprinkle it everywhere I can find a free corner.

WHAT WILL YOUR GARDENING MINDSET BE THIS YEAR?

Read on for some further thought provocations to guide your gardening mindset!

THIS YEAR I WILL . . . .

• ‘Spend as much time in my garden as possible, as my me time and my solace from .’
• ‘Reduce my grocery bill as much as I can so that I can save more money for experiences and things that are meaningful to me.’
• ‘Grow for others and donate my bounty to those in need’
• ‘Help the pollinators as much as I can and want to see my garden abuzz with bees and butterflies’.
• ‘Connect with nature more’
• ‘Never buy lettuce again!’
• ‘Grow my own herbs, dry them, and create a winter filled with soothing, delicious, organic herbal teas’
• ‘Incorporate cut flowers like zinnias, sweetpeas and give myself a weekly bouquet of flowers, or give them to someone who needs a smile.’
• ‘Grow a fall and winter’s worth of nutritious and delicious frozen soups.’
• ‘Use my garden as a way to learn from and spend time with my parents and grandparents.’
• ‘Teach my kids to grow their own vegetables – which they will learn to love to eat.’