Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! by Melissa Kelly
Authors: Melissa Kelly
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wonderful feeling that Mediterranean women have enjoyed for centuries.
Our gardens are all organic. Our gardener, Lucy Yanz, tends to everything, nurturing vegetables and fruits that grow easily in Maine and many that wouldn’t normally thrive in this colder coastal climate with its rocky soil, such as tomatoes, eggplant, cardoons, and artichokes. Lucy’s crops thrive because of her care and skill, her natural methods, and her intuitive way of
“listening” to the garden and understanding what the plants need.
Lucy says that what keeps her gardening is the trust that develops between herself and Nature through the process. She finds herself continually amazed at the way things grow and how gardens continue to change, evolve, and reinvent themselves with so little intervention. Lucy’s one priority is to keep the soil healthy. She uses her intuition about what the plants To the Market and in the Garden
~ 97 ~
need. Lucy spends a lot of time in the Primo gardens, observing and thinking and pondering. She is an excellent example of someone who lives a Mediterranean-spirited life, even though she is not of Mediterranean heritage. She works very hard, but she also understands that work is not about speed. It can be about slowing down, waking up, paying attention, and really being present with your work and yourself. When Lucy stands in the garden, she is really in the garden, and the garden speaks to her. Lucy’s work becomes part of who she is, and who she is becomes a part of the earth she tends.
Lucy’s approach to gardening is really very simple. Rather than focusing on what is wrong in the garden, she focuses on what is right. She works to keep the plants healthy because healthy plants tend to resist bugs and disease. She tries to understand just what the plants need at the most basic level, staying away from treating problems (unless they are crucial, and always organically) because Lucy believes quick fixes such as chemical sprays quickly become an addiction. Tuning in to what is really going on is time-consuming but more effective and natural. Lucy would rather step back and look at the big picture.
We have two greenhouses that provide us with greens year-round. One greenhouse is heated just above freezing to grow frost-hardy greens. The other is solar, and stays warm in winter purely by the heat of the sun—the greenhouse effect, working for us all through the Maine winter!
You don’t need acreage to grow a garden. You don’t even need a yard! If you have a yard, that’s great. Dig a plot just large enough for what you are able to keep well watered, weeded, and tended. Grow some dependable vegetables for your area, but also experiment with a few that might be harder to grow. And don’t get discouraged when things don’t work.
Nature is cyclical. You always have another growing season to try something new if you learn from your mistakes.
Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too
~ 98 ~
I hope you won’t let lack of space dissuade you from plumb-ing the earth’s bounty. For those who love to garden or love the idea, a backyard garden, whether extensive or small, can be a tremendously satisfying hobby. Maybe you would like to grow corn and beans, peas and lettuce, or big beefy tomatoes. Maybe a small herb garden appeals to you, or a tea garden like we have here at Primo. If you are lucky enough to have fruit trees, you probably already harvest some of your own produce, but you can also grow grape vines, plant a strawberry patch, or nurture blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, or even gooseberry bushes.
You can grow vegetables and fruits in containers on a deck, or herb gardens in a sunny window.
Growing your own food adds a whole new dimension to understanding where your food comes from. You not only know your food’s history, but you make it happen, nurturing the plants until they produce rewards. Gardening can become an almost spiritual pursuit if you let it, and there is no better way to eat your
Our gardens are all organic. Our gardener, Lucy Yanz, tends to everything, nurturing vegetables and fruits that grow easily in Maine and many that wouldn’t normally thrive in this colder coastal climate with its rocky soil, such as tomatoes, eggplant, cardoons, and artichokes. Lucy’s crops thrive because of her care and skill, her natural methods, and her intuitive way of
“listening” to the garden and understanding what the plants need.
Lucy says that what keeps her gardening is the trust that develops between herself and Nature through the process. She finds herself continually amazed at the way things grow and how gardens continue to change, evolve, and reinvent themselves with so little intervention. Lucy’s one priority is to keep the soil healthy. She uses her intuition about what the plants To the Market and in the Garden
~ 97 ~
need. Lucy spends a lot of time in the Primo gardens, observing and thinking and pondering. She is an excellent example of someone who lives a Mediterranean-spirited life, even though she is not of Mediterranean heritage. She works very hard, but she also understands that work is not about speed. It can be about slowing down, waking up, paying attention, and really being present with your work and yourself. When Lucy stands in the garden, she is really in the garden, and the garden speaks to her. Lucy’s work becomes part of who she is, and who she is becomes a part of the earth she tends.
Lucy’s approach to gardening is really very simple. Rather than focusing on what is wrong in the garden, she focuses on what is right. She works to keep the plants healthy because healthy plants tend to resist bugs and disease. She tries to understand just what the plants need at the most basic level, staying away from treating problems (unless they are crucial, and always organically) because Lucy believes quick fixes such as chemical sprays quickly become an addiction. Tuning in to what is really going on is time-consuming but more effective and natural. Lucy would rather step back and look at the big picture.
We have two greenhouses that provide us with greens year-round. One greenhouse is heated just above freezing to grow frost-hardy greens. The other is solar, and stays warm in winter purely by the heat of the sun—the greenhouse effect, working for us all through the Maine winter!
You don’t need acreage to grow a garden. You don’t even need a yard! If you have a yard, that’s great. Dig a plot just large enough for what you are able to keep well watered, weeded, and tended. Grow some dependable vegetables for your area, but also experiment with a few that might be harder to grow. And don’t get discouraged when things don’t work.
Nature is cyclical. You always have another growing season to try something new if you learn from your mistakes.
Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too
~ 98 ~
I hope you won’t let lack of space dissuade you from plumb-ing the earth’s bounty. For those who love to garden or love the idea, a backyard garden, whether extensive or small, can be a tremendously satisfying hobby. Maybe you would like to grow corn and beans, peas and lettuce, or big beefy tomatoes. Maybe a small herb garden appeals to you, or a tea garden like we have here at Primo. If you are lucky enough to have fruit trees, you probably already harvest some of your own produce, but you can also grow grape vines, plant a strawberry patch, or nurture blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, or even gooseberry bushes.
You can grow vegetables and fruits in containers on a deck, or herb gardens in a sunny window.
Growing your own food adds a whole new dimension to understanding where your food comes from. You not only know your food’s history, but you make it happen, nurturing the plants until they produce rewards. Gardening can become an almost spiritual pursuit if you let it, and there is no better way to eat your
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