With continuing recalls of food due to cyclospora cayetanensis and salmonella, now’s a great time to consider container vegetables. You don’t have to be an avid gardener or have tons of space to grow vegetables. If you have a patio, porch, deck, yard, flowerbed, or sunny room in your home, you can grow a number of herbs and vegetables. Growing your own gives you the ability to make sure contaminants don’t reach your food.
All you need are pots or planters, soil, and plants or seeds. Pots and planters are often available for free through community gifting groups or at low cost from thrift stores and flea markets. Soil can be purchased from dollar stores, hardware stores, big box retailers, and garden centers. Many of these will deliver to your porch allowing you to avoid carrying heavy bags up steps.
Plants or seeds may be available from gifting groups, neighbors, hardware stores, big box retailers, and garden centers. To choose the most appropriate plants for your space, time of year, and growing zone, visit a seed company website and search by container vegetables then look for recommendations for your growing zone.
If you think you’ll be limited to tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You can grow those in containers, but you can also grow lettuce, kale, arugula, celery, scallions, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, baby okra, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and corn. And that’s not all, radishes, potatoes, and garlic are possible, even inside.
I gardened with my grandmother as a child and once when my children were little. In 2020 when I learned how fragile our supply chain was, I started gardening again. Currently in my garden are cucumbers, peppers, green beans, bok choi, and the end of romaine lettuce and arugula for the season. My blackberry bush is beginning to flower a second time, and I have a blueberry bush in a pot on my back porch.
That means I have a lot of a few things to consume. If you’re used to grocery store produce, you may not be familiar with seasonal substitutions. Yesterday, I used some of my abundance of cucumbers to make gluten-free muffins. They’re not that different from zucchini or kiwi muffins. I just substituted what’s in season from my garden and changed the flavor profile a little.
This is how I grew up eating so it’s not a stretch to try a new way to prepare something I might otherwise tire of. With seasonal substitutions you get the full flavor of fresh vegetables or fruit that haven’t been trucked around plus variety of taste and texture.
As some plants become prolific, you’ll understand why great-grandmothers made pickles, jam or jelly, tomato juice, cider, and canned vegetables and why many people dry or freeze food. Once you’ve invested the labor to plant, water, and weed, you don’t want anything to go to waste.
But you don’t have to go big to avoid recalled foods. A planter of lettuce may give you the salad base you’re missing. A pot of jalapeno peppers can bring the heat you miss to your nachos. Once you’ve made the initial investment, you will most likely save money as well.
I’m not happy with the lack of food safety we’re currently experiencing. But it is a reality. Growing container vegetables and fruit is a way to continue to enjoy fresh produce with an added layer of safety. Now’s a great time to try it out!
