I'm very excited.
I'm especially excited now that I received these seeds in the mail today....for FREE!
I received them after writing to the Dinner Garden people about 2 weeks ago. I'd honestly forgotten all about it until I received my wonderful package today! The Dinner Garden is a fantastic organization that has an awesome mission:
The Dinner Garden provides seeds, gardening supplies, and gardening advice free of charge to all people in the United States of America. We assist those in need in establishing food security for their families. Our goal is for people to plant home, neighborhood, and container gardens so they can use the vegetables they grow for food and income.
They only began this program in 2009 and have already provided seeds for more than 40,000 families and 100 community gardens! How awesome is that?
This is what I received:
- Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard
- Arugula
- Blue Curled Scotch Kale
- Fenugreek
- Mustard Greens
- Onions
- Snowball Cauliflower
- Harris Early Model Parsnips
- Wando Peas
- Organic Bloomdale Spinach
- Red Cabbage
- Daikon Radish
How exciting are those names? I love them. I love the little packages and the little labels. I love that I got the variety that I did. I would have never been so courageous in a store to pick these out! I'm especially excited about the arugula. Giada always uses arugula and when I try to make her recipes I can never find good, fresh arugula. The fenugreek is a complete surprise. I know when I was concerned with my supply when I was exclusively nursing my son, fenugreek was an herb that came up again and again as a supplement to encourage breastmilk production. Not sure what I'll do with it now, but I'm going to grow it anyway!
So, where am I growing all of this? Those of you who have been to our house in Savannah know that we have a tiny yard. Our entire lot is only .13 of an acre. Yep, not even a quarter acre!
Well, I plan on trying a variety of things.
Things such as vertical gardening. This link has several gardens we'll try. The first picture is so beautiful that I must try it at least! What a great way to fill blank fence space! The gutter system is also a must for me. I'll probably do this to grow herbs.
We'll also do container gardening. I found this blog and tutorial on making your own self-watering container. I know we can get the 5-gallon buckets for free, so the cost should be pretty similar to the ones the guy builds in the video.
Another thing I'm super excited about is the possibility of having a plot in a community garden in downtown Savannah! I've heard about community gardens in other cities and decided to search for one in Savannah and found one! We've applied for a plot and hope to be lucky enough to be granted one!
Hopefully between my container gardening in our yard and our small plot (hopefully!) in the community garden, we'll be able to provide fresh, organic produce for our family to eat all summer and fall! We will also donate some of our excess to the local food bank as thanks to the Dinner Garden for supplying us with our starter set of seeds!
Awesome! Too bad I've already bought more than enough seeds for the year. If they sprout well, I'll hook you up with some of the extras. Also, I had a lot of gardening flops last year, but arugula was one of the things that actually did well, so it must be pretty sturdy stuff.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout out! Let us know how your garden turns out. Fenugreek is excellent when mixed with lettuce in salads. It is also one of the main ingredients in curry.
ReplyDeleteBe sure to save some seeds from what you grow for planting next year. You can also donate seeds you harvest to The Dinner Garden and we will find them good homes.
There's another plus to Dinner Garden. It's the wonderful community service work they do. Such programs as sending seeds to school children to take home and grow for the summer so their family might eat. Community, church and school gardens. We've even been contacted for involvement with gardening for wounded warriors at a local base. I'm blessed to be involved with this org.
ReplyDeleteThanks again Holly! I will definitely be harvesting all the seeds I can find...plus I will start saving the seeds from the produce we buy at the store. I can't believe I haven't done that before :)
ReplyDelete