You’ll see Swiss Chard in just about every magazine’s list of the top 10 greens or top 10 superfoods to incorporate into your diet, and for that reason it’s a top fall gardening green to include in your cold crop plans this year. Not only are you saving grocery money by growing your own super-greens, you’re teaching your children about nutrition, or – if your kids are grown and gone from the house – encouraging your spouse to join you in a healthier green salad or side dish.

Swiss Chard is most often made with a light sauté in olive oil and fresh, diced garlic (which you’ve also grown in your garden!) and served as a side dish or within a vegetable wrap. Sautéed Swiss Chard also has a place on homemade pizzas, in calzones and in sausage rolls, sandwich wraps, and in hearty soups and stews.

What gardeners here in our Morris County area have said about their autumn Swiss Chard plantings is that they love the look of Swiss Chard in their gardens before they even get to the good part of eating them. The glossy leaves come in green, or autumn-gorgeous gold, orange and white, as well as purple, pink and red. The leaves may be heart-shaped or arrow-shaped, adding a lush, textural, colorful punch to a pretty fall garden layout.

Swiss Chard’s flavor is best, and less bitter, in cooler weather, making this an ideal green for consumption, although some gardeners prefer to grow it for ornamental use alone. After all, the leaves are multi-hued, and the texture and 30” height and width of this plant make it a space-filler that adds autumn beauty to your gardens.

What Swiss Chard Needs:

Light: Sun, Part Sun

Height: 10 – 30” tall

Width: 10 – 30” wide

Help Your Fall Plantings Thrive By:

• Following seed packet or plant pot directions carefully
• Making sure your garden or container soil has good drainage
• Making sure your garden or container soil has the right pH level
• Adding Dr. Earth fertilizer with probiotics to your soil
• Protecting them from garden pests with regular organic pest control treatments
• Removing weeds in a timely manner

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

The excitement of planting a vegetable garden comes back at you again with this year’s second crop of new choices for your garden space. It’s time for Cold Crops, and this post starts a lengthy series on the top cold-crop vegetables, root veggies, greens and herb that love this cooler weather and deliver their bounty right through til winter.

Your garden is ready to give you its best from your new organic cold crops.

The first we’re starting with is Broccoli, packed with nutrients, a said cancer-fighting cruciferous, and an essential ingredient in hearty fall soups and bisques, not to mention fall veggie stir fries and cocktail party crudités.

Broccoli loves cool weather and is frost tolerant, so plant it in late summer/early fall for a great fall harvest. Bear in mind, though, that you’re not likely to get those enormous broccoli heads that you see at the farmer’s market. You’re likely to get smaller, very tender heads.  And if you leave the greens on the plant after picking your broccoli heads, the plant will give you two or three more broccoli ‘blooms’ this season.

Broccoli needs:

Light: Sun, Part Sun

Height: 18-24” tall

Width: 18-24”

Help Your Fall Plantings Thrive By:

• Following seed packet or plant pot directions carefully
• Making sure your garden or container soil has good drainage
• Making sure your garden or container soil has the right pH level
• Adding Dr. Earth fertilizer with probiotics to your soil
• Protecting them from garden pests with regular organic pest control treatments
• Removing weeds in a timely manner

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

This is a post by Sharon Naylor

Sharon Naylor is the author of over 35 books on family celebrations, including weddings, bridal showers, vow renewals, and more. She is beyond thrilled to be the new guest blogger for The Farm, and she will be posting inspirations and tips for your parties, get-togethers and big family moments throughout the year. Visit her website www.sharonnaylor.net for more on her books and articles.

Organic Vegetable Garden

At this time of year, many people’s New Year’s Resolution to get healthier has taken a green twist: they’re planning to create an organic vegetable garden to feed their families natural, fresh heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, jalapenos, potatoes, cabbage and many other farmer’s market staples. The drive to eat healthier sent many of our local Morris County residents to green food markets, but their complaints about high prices led them to look to their own backyards and dream about growing their own organic vegetables.

The payoff, and driving force behind this trend as a top New Year’s Resolution plan, is healthier foods picked fresh off the plant or vine, at an impressively lower cost, cutting their family grocery bill down substantially. That would certainly help with the other top New Year’s Resolution: improving their financial situation.

Families with kids are especially interested in starting organic vegetable gardens, and they begin with creating a garden plan sketch, drawing up their garden’s layout and IDing where they’ll plant those heirloom tomatoes and string bean vines. Kids learn about healthy eating, and getting involved in the garden design, become more excited about eating the fruits (or veggies) of their labor when it’s harvest time.

If you have limited garden space on your property, or if the sun’s patterns do not support a raised garden bed or in-ground garden, consider the ease of container gardening for your organic vegetables. Here at The Farm, our gardening consultants can help you choose the right containers for your chosen plantings, and advise you on garden soil choices and nutrition, sun exposure, watering plans, and even the proper way to store your vegetables once you pick them.

With your organic vegetable garden plan in place, it’s just a few short months until you can return to us to start loading up on your choices of organic vegetable seeds and seedlings, plus the garden accents and plant identification signs you’ll love to place in your own dream garden.

More and more people are choosing organic gardening in NJ and across the United States, especially with these tight economic times. I first started gardening years ago when money was tight. When I considered the cost of purchasing organic vegetables each week versus the one-time cost of seeds and supplies, the choice was obvious.

Yes, gardening takes time and, let’s face it, hard work. However, gardening is relaxing. It becomes a way to relieve stress from a hard day and costs much less than a trip to the spa. You can enjoy the outdoors and get in some exercise as well.

Working on your organic garden lets you get out in nature, where you might catch a glimpse of a blue bird or perhaps a wild rabbit. You’ll feel the warmth of the sun and breathe in clean, fresh air. That garden that you’re growing is producing greater amounts of oxygen than a lawn would and is reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Your green thumb is also green in that gardening saves energy. If you grow your own veggies, fuel will not be used to transport vegetables from the farm to the store to your table. If more and more of us grow our own crops, or at least purchase from local farmers, we can significantly reduce the amount of fuels used in transporting our food.

Organic farming is also kind to the earth. Using organic materials prevents toxic chemicals from entering the soil. The chemicals in fertilizers are difficult to remove from the soil and can leach into our drinking water and waterways, adversely affecting wildlife.

Composting returns organic material back to the earth, creating a cyclic effect. It also improves aeration and increases the soil’s ability to hold water. These benefits help your garden grow.

Some natural products are just as effective at pest control as the toxic products on the store shelf. For instance, I spray diluted soapy water and then clean water to destroy even the worst aphid infestation. Weeds can be killed by spot-straying with vinegar from the kitchen. Do it on a sunny day and the weeds will wither away, but it won’t hurt the environment.

In the end, the best benefit of organic gardening is the great-tasting, nutritious food that is right in your backyard.

http://personaldividends.com/lifestyle/arohan/10-reasons-to-consider-growing-organic-vegetables-in-your-backyard

http://www.organicgardentips.com/

This is a guest post written by Elizabeth Krause

Elizabeth Krause publisher of an Italian food website featuring simple Italian recipes.

Less than 50 years ago, growing your own food in your backyard or using indoor pots was common practice. As society progressed and much of the food industry became larger and more powerful, we soon found many new stores began to meet all our culinary needs.
Gradually over time more and more homes soon turned into two career households. Less time at home meant less time to garden. Buying your own food was extremely convenient and fully embraced.
But in recent years the 30 and 40 year olds who had previously spent their time focused on their careers and fast paced life, between yoga work outs and kick boxing classes, have begun to cultivate a desire to learn more about this dwindling activity – growing a vegetable garden.
Growing your own food is still very popular in many European countries, for example Italy. Italians belong to a culture where food is very important – not just to live, but to also be enjoyed. Much of their day to day recipes involve the use of fresh ingredients – most of which are grown in their own yards or on their balcony.
Being able to learn the skills of gardening isn’t hard, yet it is not magic either. It takes time, patience and a willingness to learn from mistakes. For example, planting basil too early can cause it to go into shock and die. Understanding that basil is a fragile herb susceptible to the cold weather and therefore must be planted only when it is certain there will be no more frosts is critical.
Learning to manage your own garden whether you choose container gardening or not, holds many advantages. Here are three of them:
1. Vegetables in your back yard are not subject to major price fluctuations caused by troubled economic times, as are retail stores. If tomatoes increase in price to $3.99 a lb, you can get your free right outside your door. You can also recycle your seeds from one year to the next – now that’s efficiency!
2. Understanding how to use organic pesticides (or even making your own), you can grow your own organic vegetables and fruit. This is a lot less expensive than buying organics at the store. Having control over the quality of the soil, seeds, fertilizers and even water is a huge benefit.
3. Convenience is key. Yes, buying your food is convenient, but when making a dish of fresh pasta or when craving your favorite chicken cacciatore recipe which calls for a bell pepper – isn’t it more convenient to just walk out to your garden and pick one fresh off the plant rather than postponing the recipe until you can find time to go to the store?
The old phrase, “You can give a man a fish to eat or you can teach a man to fish…” is very true. Learning to grow your own food will help you in times of plenty as well as in times of need. There are a variety of benefits to this practice, and with some planning and thoughtful preparation you will soon be able to experience them firsthand.