Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too: Eating to Be Sexy, Fit, and Fabulous! by Melissa Kelly Page A
Authors: Melissa Kelly
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vegetables and fruits fresh.
I think this is what hooks one on gardening: it is
the closest one can come to being present at the
Creation.
—Phyllis Theroux, American essayist
Here are some tips from Lucy to help make your own home-gardening efforts a blossoming success:
1. Make compost. Composting is easy, even though some people have the impression it is difficult. Find a place in your yard for a pile. You can surround it with chicken wire or not. Compost all of your food scraps and mix them with your yard waste. Lucy says, “Most people have a pretty good balance on hand between their kitchen scraps and their yard waste, creating the perfect To the Market and in the Garden
~ 99 ~
blend for compost.” Turn it occasionally, mixing it up with a shovel. Water it occasionally, and voilà—black gold for your garden. Layer the compost over your garden whenever it is ready.
“Compost is really the most natural process in the world. Nature does it all the time,” says Lucy. You can even make small amounts of compost for container gardens in a bucket on your porch or deck. Alternate thin layers of grass clippings and dried leaves with food scraps. In just a few weeks, you’ll have compost.
2. Prepare the soil. Lucy prefers not to disturb the natural soil layers by deep digging. Instead, she aerates the soil with a fork, then mixes compost into the first few inches of soil—the nutrients from the compost filter down into the soil around the roots of the plants, creating an instant and completely natural fertilizer. That’s all Lucy uses. She also gives each plant the soil it needs. Any state agricultural extension will test your soil for a nominal fee, then tell you just what you need to add if you are growing organic vegetables (or anything else). When the soil is aerated, fed, and the right chemical composition, your plants will have the best possible chance at strength and health.
3. Don’t get discouraged. Crop failure happens all the time, even to the most experienced gardeners. Just this year, Lucy lost a crop of artichokes. She says she put them out too soon. Artichokes are a hot-weather vegetable and they need to be managed just so. This year, it didn’t work. But will Lucy quit?
Certainly not. Lucy told me that if she had a graveyard for the plants she’s killed over the years, it would take up the whole town of Rockland! “But failures are how you learn, not a reason to quit,” says Lucy. “I know just how frustrating it can be when a plant or a row or the whole garden doesn’t work the way you planned, and that can be compounded when you have a small garden. I garden for a living, so I have to keep going no matter Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too
~ 100 ~
what happens—no matter what has died or isn’t coming on or gets eaten by bugs. I get very frustrated when I have to tell Melissa we don’t have this or that because it all went bad at the same time, and I have to keep being positive, but when you are working in your own home garden and nobody is paying you to do it, you can get very frustrated.”
Lucy believes that gardeners’ failures are often due to poorly prepared soil and to planting too early. “Gardens tend to catch up if you plant them later than you think you can. You might feel like oh, it’s too late, I didn’t get my garden in on time, but try it. Better a little late than too early, and the garden will benefit from the longer days.”
4. Be with your garden. “Slow down, be there, put aside what you’ve been told about gardening and just be there. There are so many books and opinions about gardening, but it is really something instinctual that most people already know how to do, even if they don’t realize it,” says Lucy. Spending time pulling weeds, assessing plant health, spreading compost, watering, harvesting, and observing all the garden’s stages really puts you in touch with the Mediterranean way.
√ Your Guide to Farmers’ Markets
Much of what we
I think this is what hooks one on gardening: it is
the closest one can come to being present at the
Creation.
—Phyllis Theroux, American essayist
Here are some tips from Lucy to help make your own home-gardening efforts a blossoming success:
1. Make compost. Composting is easy, even though some people have the impression it is difficult. Find a place in your yard for a pile. You can surround it with chicken wire or not. Compost all of your food scraps and mix them with your yard waste. Lucy says, “Most people have a pretty good balance on hand between their kitchen scraps and their yard waste, creating the perfect To the Market and in the Garden
~ 99 ~
blend for compost.” Turn it occasionally, mixing it up with a shovel. Water it occasionally, and voilà—black gold for your garden. Layer the compost over your garden whenever it is ready.
“Compost is really the most natural process in the world. Nature does it all the time,” says Lucy. You can even make small amounts of compost for container gardens in a bucket on your porch or deck. Alternate thin layers of grass clippings and dried leaves with food scraps. In just a few weeks, you’ll have compost.
2. Prepare the soil. Lucy prefers not to disturb the natural soil layers by deep digging. Instead, she aerates the soil with a fork, then mixes compost into the first few inches of soil—the nutrients from the compost filter down into the soil around the roots of the plants, creating an instant and completely natural fertilizer. That’s all Lucy uses. She also gives each plant the soil it needs. Any state agricultural extension will test your soil for a nominal fee, then tell you just what you need to add if you are growing organic vegetables (or anything else). When the soil is aerated, fed, and the right chemical composition, your plants will have the best possible chance at strength and health.
3. Don’t get discouraged. Crop failure happens all the time, even to the most experienced gardeners. Just this year, Lucy lost a crop of artichokes. She says she put them out too soon. Artichokes are a hot-weather vegetable and they need to be managed just so. This year, it didn’t work. But will Lucy quit?
Certainly not. Lucy told me that if she had a graveyard for the plants she’s killed over the years, it would take up the whole town of Rockland! “But failures are how you learn, not a reason to quit,” says Lucy. “I know just how frustrating it can be when a plant or a row or the whole garden doesn’t work the way you planned, and that can be compounded when you have a small garden. I garden for a living, so I have to keep going no matter Mediterranean Women Stay Slim, Too
~ 100 ~
what happens—no matter what has died or isn’t coming on or gets eaten by bugs. I get very frustrated when I have to tell Melissa we don’t have this or that because it all went bad at the same time, and I have to keep being positive, but when you are working in your own home garden and nobody is paying you to do it, you can get very frustrated.”
Lucy believes that gardeners’ failures are often due to poorly prepared soil and to planting too early. “Gardens tend to catch up if you plant them later than you think you can. You might feel like oh, it’s too late, I didn’t get my garden in on time, but try it. Better a little late than too early, and the garden will benefit from the longer days.”
4. Be with your garden. “Slow down, be there, put aside what you’ve been told about gardening and just be there. There are so many books and opinions about gardening, but it is really something instinctual that most people already know how to do, even if they don’t realize it,” says Lucy. Spending time pulling weeds, assessing plant health, spreading compost, watering, harvesting, and observing all the garden’s stages really puts you in touch with the Mediterranean way.
√ Your Guide to Farmers’ Markets
Much of what we
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