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Gardening on a Budget · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FAC, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS, where we share information you can use
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  to strengthen your family, your community, and our state.
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  As an avid flower gardener, I love to get my hands in the dirt and watch the
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  seeds or bulbs that I have planted in the fall or late winter start popping
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  through the soil in early spring.
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  Today, my guest, Bethany Pratt, the Food System Specialist with the Nutrition
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  Education Program, is going to share with us about gardening on a budget,
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  and we're talking about vegetable gardening. Welcome, Bethany.
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  Hi, thanks for having me. So gardening really can be a fun way to get out and
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  get some physical activity and some vitamin D and also improve your diet.
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  Absolutely, yeah. And gardening is really as big or as little as you want it.
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  That's what I love about it. It's a very flexible hobby.
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  And right, same with the money involved too. Also very flexible.
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  I love that because whether you have a whole acre or only a patio, you can garden, right?
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  Yeah, absolutely. And for our folks out there who are living in apartments or
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  maybe have limited mobility or limited time, right?
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  If you're working a couple jobs or have kids like I do, looking at container
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  gardening is a really great way to both decrease your expense,
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  but also get the most out of the space and the time that you have too.
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  So for those who have never grown a garden before, who can they talk to for
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  advice to learn how to get started and how to get this going?
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  Yeah. So we have the amazing University of Kentucky and Kentucky State University
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  Cooperative Extension System.
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  So in your county, there are an agriculture natural resources agent for sure,
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  a 4-H agent if you're somebody who's wanting to garden with youth,
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  maybe a horticulture agent.
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  And those are all folks who are great ways if you want to talk to a human being
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  to get something started. We also have great resources on the Nutrition Education website.
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  So if you go to planateatmove.com and click on the Get Moving section,
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  that is where all of our reading is about growing your own garden.
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  Depending on what you want to do, right? If you want to just talk to a person,
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  if you want to read or do a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B, you can do all of it.
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  And we will link in our show notes how to find the county extension offices
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  and also the Planning Move website.
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  So that will make it easy for our listeners to find either option.
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  Perfect. So what are some easy vegetables to start with if our listeners have
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  never grown a garden before?
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  Yes. So my favorite advice to that is start with first the things that you like to eat.
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  Because there are lots of vegetables out there that are easy to grow.
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  I think lettuce is super easy to grow. But if you're maybe not into salads,
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  why would you grow some lettuce, right? Exactly.
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  So that's really our first piece. is think about what are the things that you want to grow.
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  If you're gardening, to think about both increasing your diet quality, right?
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  So increasing the number of vegetables that you're eating in a day or in a week.
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  And you're looking to save money.
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  I personally like to do that kind of hybrid of what do I like to eat?
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  And what do I hate spending money on at the grocery store?
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  And doing that. So some really fun ones.
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  Growing to get a lot of bang for your buck are green beans.
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  They're a really high producer. You can get bush varieties that grow great in pots on a patio,
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  or you can get climbing ones and you can make beautiful trellises with them
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  out of anything or grow them up the railing or along your chain link fence in your yard.
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  Tomatoes are always a popular one. And tomatoes grow great in five gallon buckets.
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  So you don't even need a whole much. And we all know that a homegrown tomato just tastes the best.
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  And then if you're checking out the PlanEatMove website, we have tips broken
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  down by vegetable and fruit on how to grow each and everything.
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  So you can really pick and choose.
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  So if you're saying, I just really want to focus on those tomatoes,
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  we have step-by-step instructions for you there for both containers and then
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  in-ground gardening, depending on what you want to do.
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  And I know that if you are trying to get your kids to eat more vegetables,
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  if you can get them involved in choosing what you put in those containers or
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  what you put in your garden,
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  then that will, of course, encourage them to eat more fruits and vegetables. Oh, absolutely.
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  Yeah, there's so much power in the pick it and try it. And even for grown-ups too, right? Exactly.
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  The best way to challenge yourself to eat more fruits and vegetables is to grow
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  something that, you know, you think maybe might be fun to grow or easy to grow
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  based on your situation and the space that you have.
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  But maybe it's an okay vegetable for you and not a favorite one.
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  So this is a good way to do that with pretty low cost, right?
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  A packet of seeds is a couple dollars.
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  Maybe you're recycling a five-gallon bucket. Exactly. And then you're good to go.
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  That is such great advice. So when should I start my garden?
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  The coolest thing about where we live Kentucky is that you can grow food almost
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  year-round here outdoors.
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  So, you can get started in mid to late February.
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  The most scientific way to do this is to actually test your soil temperature.
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  If you are maybe not as excited about doing soil temperature monitoring,
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  late February to early March, depending on if you're east, west or central,
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  are times where you can start planting some of our cold hardy crops.
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  So spinach is a really great early starter.
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  Peas, that's one of my favorite things to get going. And peas come in all kinds
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  of colors. So I don't know if you've ever tried purple peas before, but that's a fun one.
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  I know my kids love eating the funny colored vegetables. Exactly.
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  So that's what we do is we try to plant all the interesting colors.
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  And so those are two things that we can get just right in the ground outdoors.
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  No special containers needed are two really good ones.
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  If you're someone who's really into those summer crops, like your tomatoes or
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  your zucchini and other squashes and green beans, So those guys,
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  you can have some options.
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  So if you want to start your plants, your summer crops from seed,
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  you're going to start planting them indoors in a little seed tray around the beginning of March.
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  And that's going to be your tomatoes and your peppers in particular.
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  Other things that are also what we call a warm season crops,
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  right, that don't like frost.
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  Those will go outdoors in late, mid to late May, depending on.
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  Where you live in Kentucky.
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  Again, like those planetmove.com has all of these great planting calendars available for you. Okay.
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  Because where you live matters on when you can plant.
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  So just something to think about, right? And that's why it's so important to
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  spend that time to do a little planning and thinking about it.
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  And honestly, right now, if you're not sure, it's a great time to start planning
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  because we have a whole window of time from about mid-February to the end of
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  March to plant kind of our cool season spring crops.
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  So you can take the rest of February to really sit down, talk with your family,
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  talk with your friends, talk with your local extension agent about what you
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  want to grow and when you should plant it.
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  Extension agents love to review garden plans.
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  So if you show up with your garden plan, Mindy, they will be so happy to help
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  you make sure that you are doing it right.
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  Oh, I think that is exactly right. And I love the fact that,
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  You can plant a garden for a specific food that you like to eat,
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  like a pizza garden or something.
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  And so you can plant your basil and you can plant your tomatoes and your peppers and your onions.
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  And then you can use it for other things as well. Oh, absolutely.
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  Yeah, and that's another really great way to think about it is maybe you've
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  got a favorite like food or dish, family dish.
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  You could plant your garden to really focus on that.
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  There's just lots of there's lots of right ways to garden. I think the biggest
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  thing, especially with produce, is that you're growing things that you want
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  to eat or that you're excited to try.
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  Because the whole goal with all of that vegetable gardening is coming back to
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  improving your health, right?
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  As long as you're eating the things that you're growing, you're going to be
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  healthier because you're just eating more fruits and vegetables.
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  And then if you are gardening, whether it's in ground or in a container,
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  you're outside getting fresh air and exercise and moving your body.
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  And those two things are really, really good keys for good health for everyone.
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  I love all of these things put together. And I really appreciate that you have
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  come and talked to us about how to make gardening a regular part of your life.
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  Yeah, I am so excited to see everyone's garden pictures.
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  Because that's the other fun thing right about gardening is
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  it's cool to take photos like now Mindy
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  you were talking about flowers exactly and vegetables have flowers too I know
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  isn't that fun right yeah so like you don't even have to have one or the other
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  you can do a true both or you can know that every one of your vegetable plants
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  will also have a flower with it which is really cool, too.
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  Yes, yes, because that's how we make seeds, so we have to have that. Exactly, exactly.
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  So that's another piece that you can do with your children. Know it's science as well.
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  Oh, yeah, and then there's edible flowers, right? We haven't even talked about
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  those. We haven't. Maybe we'll have to have you back for another show.
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  Yes, yes, edible flowers are super fun. Yes, indeed.
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  Thank you, Bethany, for your time. Yeah, I'm so happy to be here and excited
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  to hear about everyone's gardens this year.
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  Yeah, I think that they're going to be beautiful and we're just going to have
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  a patchwork of lovely vegetable gardens all across the state.
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  If you are just tuning in, you're listening to Talking FACs and you can find
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  Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition,
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