Mediterranean diet-healthiest and easy to grow anywhere

Garden on Amalfi coast in Italy, overlooking the sea

Sunday, January 5, 2025

The Mediterranean diet was rated as the healthiest diet again this year.  It comes out number one year after year as the best way to eat for health, a healthy weight, and longevity.  It is also yummy and easy to grow anywhere in the US.  You can grow a Mediterranean diet garden in your own small space.  Eating fresh from the garden is convenient, has the highest nutrition and saves money.  I have found that having a garden makes me plan our meals around what is ready to be picked or what I have put up for the winter.   

You may think you can't grow what they do in the Mediterranean region here in the Midwest, but you can grow everything they do outside except for citrus and dates.  Both can be grown in pots and brought indoors in the winter.  I have a Meyer lemon tree that does great spending the spring, summer and fall outdoors and winters indoors.  It is in bloom right now in my living room.  It does just as well overwintering in a well lit unheated garage or basement.

The healthiest food is the one that is "closest to the root".  Fresh produce is teaming with live nutrition and enzymes.  As soon as a fruit or vegetable is picked, it begins to die and lose nutritional value.  Eating as much fresh, organic and unprocessed is the way to maximize the nutrition you get.  Organic foods don't have GMO's, pesticides and herbicides that have less nutritional value and the toxins of the chemicals used on conventional fruit and vegetables.  What do the terms GMO, natural, heirloom, organic, hybrid really mean?  

Here are Mediterranean garden plants that you can grow in your own backyard.  A space as small as 6' x 6' can give you all you can eat spring, summer and fall.

Fruits, vegetables and nuts

Artichokes

Asparagus

Beans-chickpeas, fava beans, snap beans, navy beans

Beets and turnips

Carrots

Celery

Cucumber

Dates (needs to winter indoors or heated greenhouse)

Eggplant

Fennel

Figs

Grapes and grape leaves

Citrus (winter indoors or heated greenhouse)

Greens-lettuce, radicchio, spinach, chard, arugula and others

Mushrooms

Nectarines

Nuts-almonds, pine nuts, pistachio (Zone 7-10), walnuts

Olives (varieties available to Zone 7)

Onions, shallots and leeks

Peaches

Peas

Peppers-sweet and spicy

Potatoes

Radishes

Tomatoes

Zucchini and other squash

Herbs

Basil

Bay

Chervil

Chives

Cilantro

Dill

Fennel

Garlic

Marjoram and Oregano

Mint

Parsley

Rosemary

Saffron (stamen from crocus flower)

Sage

Tarragon

Thyme

Dates and citrus are the only things on this long list that cannot be grown in our zone outdoors year round.  You can get varieties that can be brought into an unheated garage/basement or grown in a heated greenhouse outdoors.

Here in the US, we can grow the high antioxidant berries like raspberries, blackberries and blueberries without any special winter handling since they are native here.  

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 or processed foods.

What could a small space Mediterranean garden include?  

Below is a plan for a 6' x 6' space.  Feel free to substitute for the veggies that you prefer to eat.  All below can also be grown in pots as well.  Edibles that love pots

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

3 basil plants (for pesto and season)

2 tomato plants-1 Roma type for sauces and 1 slicer or cherry type for salads

2 sweet pepper plants

1 bush zucchini plant

1 eggplant

8 red onions

8 garlic plants

Arugula, spinach and lettuce scatter sown

For more info on growing herbs and a kitchen garden:

Grow a Sicilian/Italian kitchen garden in as little as 6' x 6'

Small space French kitchen garden

Start a kitchen herb garden!

Easy kitchen garden

What to plant for the January 2025 edible garden

Starting seeds in peat pods and Aerogarden

Saturday, January 4, 2025

For most of us, seeds started outdoors at this time of year will either become bird food or will stay dormant until it gets warm enough to germinate, unless started under some sort of cover.  If you have a greenhouse or hotbed, you CAN plant winter hardy plant's seeds under cover and they will germinate.  For most, January is the time to lay out 2025's garden plan, order seeds and start sowing seeds indoors for a head start on spring and summer harvests.  

For those that want to really get a head start on the spring garden, outdoor hot beds are a great way to get sturdy edibles ready to transplant.  Hot beds have been around for hundreds of years.  Before there was electricity, hot beds were heated by 18" of fresh and dried horse manure, covered by 12" of soil.  A pit was dug down so that the manure and soil were below ground level to keep the heat in.  It was covered by a wooden box with a glass angled to the sun.  Today, the same can be done.  You can also use a light bulb or heating pad to keep the temperature above freezing and below 55 degrees F.

There are cole crops that can be placed in hot beds and seeds sown even at this time of year.  Winter gardening in hot beds is successful even in Zone 4.  For Zones 6 and higher, you can sow things like spinach, kale and mustard greens in greenhouses and they will germinate, although slowly.  Be sure to keep the seedlings close to the ground for more consistent warmth.  For the edibles you have been overwintering in your greenhouse, come January 17th at my latitude in Kentucky, growth will really start picking up.  10 hours of daylight signals to most plants that spring is coming and it is time to start growing.

If you are transplanting seedlings from indoors to outdoors, be sure to harden them to the conditions they will be transplanted to.  If in a greenhouse, cold frame or hot bed, you can take outdoors when temperatures are warm or maybe an unheated garage if the temps are close to the covered location you will be placing them.  "Hardening off" seedlings 

For more on cold season gardening, see Cold season crops for your edible garden and Winter edible garden.

January outdoor hot beds
Winter hardy lettuce transplants

Cauliflower transplants

Strawberry transplants

Cold hardy lettuce, kale, mustard seeds

Carrot seeds

Radish seeds

Spinach seeds

Austrian winter pea seeds

January yard, garden bed

Bare root fruit trees and bushes

For more on edible gardening in cold weather, How to extend the garden season.  

More popular is to start seeds indoors in January.  There are many seeds that can be started this time of year.  Take a look at your frost date and seed packet for the best time to plant for the variety you have seeds for.  Earlier is not always better!  If left indoors too long, the seedlings just get spindly and weak.  The seed packets share the earliest to start your seeds.  It is fine to wait until later.  In our Zone 7, the last spring frost date is forecasted to be April 12, which is 14.5 weeks from now.   Frost date look up

January edible plants-indoor seed starting

12-16 weeks before last frost

(Our last frost is April 12 so this would be Dec 21-Jan 18 in our area)

Cabbage

Celery and Celeriac

Corn Salad (Mache)

Onions

12 weeks before last frost (Jan 18 in our area)

Artichokes

Parsley

Peas

10-12 weeks before last frost (Jan 18-Feb 1)

Endive

Escarole

Leeks

8-12 weeks before last frost (Jan 18-Feb 15)

Eggplant

Kale

Kohlrabi

Mustard

Spinach

Sprouting broccoli

There are many flower seeds that can be started in January as well.  Butterfly weed, Chinese lanterns, Drumstick flower, Angel's trumpet, Delphinium, Sweet William, Foxglove, Eucalyptus, Blanket flower, Helianthus maximilliani, Hollyhock, Lisianthus, Lupine, Pansy, Petunia, Prince's feather, Black-eyed Susan, Snapdragon, Stock, Verbana, Yarrow are a few that can be started indoors in January. 

I find this planting calculator helpful Planting calculator  to see what crops and flowers to start seeds indoors, outdoors and when to transplant.  You just plug in your last frost date and it will calculate the dates for you.

You can also grow sprouts and wheat grass indoors to keep yourself in fresh greens if you don't have a greenhouse going.   Grow super nutritious sprouts indoors