{"id":4420,"date":"2021-05-17T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T21:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/?p=4420"},"modified":"2021-05-17T16:09:20","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T21:09:20","slug":"themed-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/themed-gardens\/","title":{"rendered":"Themed Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When choosing garden plants, a theme can help. I\u2019m in the\nplanning stages of a backyard redo. I\u2019ve enjoyed my pandemic vegetable garden\nso much I\u2019ve decided to make it permanent. But before I get a quote on fencing,\nI need to determine how large the garden should be. Making sure I get the most\nout of that space will require several levels of decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"590\" height=\"450\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-590x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4423\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-590x450.jpg 590w, https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-295x225.jpg 295w, https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-768x586.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-1536x1172.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-2048x1562.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/c2tblog-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/peas-1200x915.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 590px) 85vw, 590px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Gardening is a learning process. Last summer, I researched plants for my <a href=\"https:\/\/planthardiness.ars.usda.gov\/PHZMWeb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"growing zone (opens in a new tab)\">growing zone<\/a>, compared that to food I like to eat, and planted a row of summer squash and one of zucchini. Between fights with mildew and squash bugs, my harvest was good, but not great. And they limited the space I had for beans, lettuce, and carrots. This year, I\u2019ve opted for more leafy greens, peas, and green beans. I know they\u2019ll grow well and have a high volume of output for the space they require. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No matter what size your garden, choosing plants to fit the\nclimate and space can be difficult. When dealing with small spaces, one way to\nnarrow your choices is to consider a themed garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Pizza Garden<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you love pizza, meatballs, and moussaka, fill your garden\nwith tomatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, basil,\nand arugula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Latin Garden<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your preferences run to salsa, tacos, fajitas, and\nenchiladas, consider a Latin Garden with some combination of tomatoes, tomatillos,\nonions, garlic, jalape\u00f1os, sweet chili peppers, green bell peppers, cilantro, oregano,\nblack beans, and lettuce. If you have a large garden space, you can also\nconsider heirloom corn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Berry Garden<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I love berries and it\u2019s so hard to get fresh ones. Planting a berry garden makes perfect sense for me. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries all grow well in my growing zone and I have plenty of fencelines to support trailing vines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Salad Garden<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Red lettuce, green lettuce, arugula, endive, escarole, fris\u00e9e,\nspinach, kale, and chard are all great in salads. You can also include my\nfavorite salad green \u2013 m\u00e2che aka corn salad. Yellow squash,\nzucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, carrot tops, radishes, and bell peppers\nmake great toppers. And no salad garden would be complete without green onions.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I only managed to grow one onion in my winter garden, but when I\nput it in a salad earlier this spring it shone! It was my favorite thing about\nthe salad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Herb Garden<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If all you have is inside window or outside balcony space,\nconsider an herb garden. Herbs will thrive in pots making them easy to move\naround and perfect for small spaces. Before I started the vegetable garden, I\ngrew herbs in pots. I choose a combination of my most frequently used herbs\nplus a novelty or two that changes each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My standards are basil, rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme, and mint.\nSome years, I grow dill or chocolate mint, and every year, I try cilantro. This\nyear, I\u2019ve moved the cilantro to the vegetable garden to see if I can keep it\nalive. For some reason, I\u2019ve never been successful with it in pots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I get past all the decisions and the prep, I love the early\ndays of a garden when the weeds are at a minimum and I feel the anticipation of\nwaiting for the seeds to germinate. That soon gives way to the excitement of\nwatching tiny seedlings grow into mature plants. Then comes the sheer pleasure\nof plucking a sugar snap pea and popping it directly into my mouth to enjoy its\nsweet crunchiness! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a harvest carefully chosen to fit both my space and my taste, the pleasure continues for months. Pleasure may be the best theme of all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rareseeds.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.rareseeds.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-wordpress wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-in-thriver-words\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"WZvItkE1Nu\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/how-does-your-garden-grow\/\">How Does Your Garden Grow?<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;How Does Your Garden Grow?&#8221; &#8212; in thriver words\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/how-does-your-garden-grow\/embed\/#?secret=WZvItkE1Nu\" data-secret=\"WZvItkE1Nu\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When choosing garden plants, a theme can help. I\u2019m in the planning stages of a backyard redo. I\u2019ve enjoyed my pandemic vegetable garden so much I\u2019ve decided to make it permanent. But before I get a quote on fencing, I need to determine how large the garden should be. Making sure I get the most &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/themed-gardens\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Themed Gardens&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3041,3039,3040,3038],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4420"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4426,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4420\/revisions\/4426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cooking2thrive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}