Bloom into the New Year with a Family Garden

It’s National Family Fit Lifestyle Month! Throughout January, we’ll be highlighting healthful lifestyle and eating habits that you can encourage your family to try together. Make this month, and every month, a chance for the whole family to make healthy choices that turn into healthy routines.

This week’s topic is about starting a family garden. Growing your own fruits and vegetables could help make your family more excited about eating fruits and vegetables and help you meet your health goals. Small changes now can lead to lifelong healthy habits! Here are suggestions how to get the whole family involved when growing a garden:

• Grow Below the Ground: Growing tuber and root vegetables can be like digging for buried treasure. Vegetables like carrots, beets, potatoes, and radishes require little maintenance after their seeds are planted and can be fun to dig or pull out when it’s time to harvest.
• Make a Theme to Your Garden: Keep the family excited by coming up with an overarching theme for your garden. Topics should focus on what you and your family will both get the most use from and find exciting. Examples can include a winter, summer, alphabet, salad, herb, vegetable, or pizza garden.
• Harvest All Year Long: Make growing fruits and vegetables a year-round adventure for the family. Look in magazines, online, or seed catalogs to help you and your family pick out produce that you want to eat throughout the seasons. This will take some planning, so be sure to think about what season fruits and vegetables grow and when they can be harvested. Check out your local master gardener program for tips on what grows well in your region and when! To find your local program and garden resources, visit the UC Master Gardener website: http://mg.ucanr.edu/

For more ideas on “Healthy Family Challenges” you can make throughout the month, visit CNS’s SHCP Newsletter – Healthy Choices at Home – webpage: https://cns.ucdavis.edu/programs/shcp/newsletter