du b l i n d i s h es by Maisie Fitzmaurice Photo courtesy of Shannon Mauer
Homegrown Recipes Make the most of the gardening season
As spring arrives, gardening can be a fun activity that’s good for your mental and physical health in addition to contributing to delicious meals. “Gardening, whether it’s a little raised garden bed in someone’s backyard, or planters on their patio, or if they have an actual garden plot, really gets people in touch with nature directly,” says Barbara Ray, nature education coordinator for the City of Dublin. “People like to get their hands in the soil.” Produce such as kale, cabbage and basil are relatively low maintenance to grow, Ray says. Other great vegetables to include in your garden are beets, eggplant, leeks and onions, parsley, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, and leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and Swiss chard. Some vegetables, such as onions and radishes, can be harvested and replanted a couple times through the year. Matt Guthrie, assistant horticulturist for the City of Dublin, has a few tips for improving garden results: • Wait until the last expected frost date to start planting vegetables – that’s around May 11-20 here in Dublin. • Use a layer of wood mulch or straw to help control weeds. • Consider companion gardening: For example, lettuce grows well with carrots but not with celery or parsley. Cabbage grows well with cucumber, dill or potatoes but not with beans, peppers or tomatoes. 36 • April/May 2022
Gardeners in the City of Dublin’s Community Garden.
There are plenty of ways to get creative after bringing garden produce into the kitchen. One relatively easy family-friendly recipe you could make with your produce is a garden vegetable pizza, Ray says. “You could just use your marinara or maybe pesto sauce, and then slice or dice your produce, might be tomato, yellow squash, green squash, zucchini, spinach, all those kinds of things that cook up really well on a pizza,” she says. Salads and salsas can make use of many vegetables. Squash and corn go well in soups. “You might not be a five-star chef, but you can make basic foods taste like a fivestar chef made them,” she says. Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com. www.dublinlifemagazine.com
