Grow your own "Mediterranean diet" garden

Mediterranean herbs chives, savory, and thyme

Saturday, August 31, 2013

The Mediterranean diet has been shown to be great for your health.  It is also fun and easy to grow!

What is in a Mediterranean garden?

Fruits, vegetables, and nuts

Artichokes

Asparagus

Beets and turnips

Broccoli raab

Carrots

Celery

Cucumber

Dates (needs to winter indoors)

Eggplant

Beans-chickpeas, fava beans, green, navy beans

Fennel

Figs

Grapes and grape leaves

Oranges, Lemons & Limes (need to winter indoors)

Lettuce, radicchio, spinach and other greens

Melons

Mushrooms

Nectarines

Nuts-almonds, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts

Okra

Olives (needs to winter indoors)

Onions, shallots & leeks

Peaches

Peas

Peppers-sweet and spicy

Potatoes

Radishes

Tomatoes

Zucchini and other squashes

Herbs

Basil

Bay

Chervil

Chives

Cilantro

Dill

Garlic

Marjoram & Oregano

Mint

Parsley

Rosemary 

Saffron (stamen from a crocus flower)

Sage

Tarragon

Thyme

Dates, olives, pistachios, and citrus are the only things on this lengthy list that cannot be grown outdoors in our zone.

The key to Mediterranean eating is eating lots of vegetables, to plan around what produce is in season, the liberal use of fresh herbs, cooking with olive oil, and very little red meat.

So what could a compact Mediterranean garden include if you only have a small space?

Herbs (1 each)-thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, and flat leaf parsley

3 basil plants (for pesto and seasoning)

2 tomatoes-1 Roma type for sauces and 1 slicer type for salads

2 sweet pepper plants

1 zucchini

1 eggplant

8 red onions

8 garlic plants

Arugula, spinach and lettuce scatter sowed

If you also have room for pots on the patio, you could grow the spicy peppers, zucchini, eggplant, and cucumber in pots  (only 1 plant in each pot) and add 3 bush or 6 pole bean plants in the garden bed.  Traditional bush beans would be lentils, Romano, Capitano, Cannellini, fava; pole beans-Roma, Helda, Supermarconi.  Personally, I would stick with the beans you eat whole as shelled beans you do not get as much food per plant.

If you have more room, you can add almonds (yes, they survive Midwest winters), beets, chard, fennel, chickpeas, figs (grows well in a pot), asparagus, cardoon, chicories, radicchio, endives, broccoli, cauliflower, or annual artichokes.