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June 9, 2005
Prairie Fare: Growing More than Plants
“Are you teaching me how to plant things so someday I can teach my little girl?” my 7-year-old daughter asked. We were planting flowers and tomato and pepper plants. “That’s the idea,” I remarked. Being a grandmother was an interesting future concept, too. “Then she can teach her little kids and they can teach their little kids and on and on,” my daughter continued. I was growing older by the minute. “Yes, that’s true. Gardening is pretty fun, isn’t it? Hopefully, we’ll get lots of tomatoes and peppers,” I remarked, changing the subject before we hit the 22nd century. “It’s kind of a lot of work,” she noted with a dramatic sigh as she lugged a bucket of compost to the garden plot. “Can we take a break?” As we visited, we met our new neighbor for the first time. He was trimming shrubs. We became acquainted, and I got some rhubarb in the process. Gardening is beneficial on many levels. All that digging, lifting and bending is good for your health and it’s relaxing at the same time. Depending on what you choose to plant, flowers and plants can beautify your landscape, herbs can flavor your recipes and fruits and vegetables can color your recipes. Children who help grow fruits and vegetables are more apt to eat them, too. If gardening is your preferred form of exercise, consider the research results of Barbara Ainsworth and colleagues published in the Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. She examined the effort expended in a variety of activities and assigned “exertion value” numbers. Lower numbers correspond to less exertion and fewer calories burned. Here are some relative exertion values (not in calories burned) for typical activities:
Here’s how gardening activities fit in this system:
I’m not sure where gathering rhubarb stalks would fall, but the activity has enjoyable consequences in the kitchen. One of the earliest “fruits” of the season, rhubarb, or pieplant, is technically a vegetable, but it’s used as a fruit in pies, cakes, sauces and jams. Look for firm, glossy stalks that aren’t large. Don’t nibble on the leaves because they are toxic. Store fresh rhubarb in the crisper of your refrigerator, wash and use within a few days. Rhubarb easily is frozen by cutting and placing it in freezer bags in recipe-size portions. Heating rhubarb in boiling water for a minute and cooling promptly in cold water helps retain color and flavor. Before freezing, you also can add sugar or sugar syrup if desired. Here’s a tasty way to enjoy rhubarb. You can substitute frozen rhubarb that has been thawed and drained, too. For more information about food, nutrition and gardening, visit the NDSU Web site www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/.
Source:
Julie Garden-Robinson, (701) 231-7187, jgardenr@ndsuext.nodak.edu |
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North Dakota State University |
