I like to grow my own vegetables during the spring to fall seasons. My primary reasons for this are that they taste and smell a lot fresher and are more healthy and nutritious for you. Given the increasing number of genetically modified foods in our supermarkets and the fact that the nutritional content of food has been decreasing over the last few decades (scientific studies have shown this to be the case), growing your own food in your backyard, on your apartment balcony, condo rooftop or in a communal garden makes a lot of sense. Plus, if you are exercising to stay in shape, into bodybuilding or playing any sports, it is important to eat properly and to eat the foods with the highest nutritional content possible. This is one way to do this, especially during the summer months.
A few other benefits:
- Vegetables can be picked when they are actually ripe because they don’t have to sit for packing and shipping.
- Working in the garden provides a natural total body workout – a change of pace from going to the gym or running or doing any other physical activity.
- It provides a person with various mental benefits, a sense of accomplishment and the opportunity of just being outdoors
- Locally grown food requires no transportation – it’s better for the environment.
- You can share what you have grown with your family, friends and neighbors.
- They are there in the summer when you need them, so it has a huge convenience factor added to it.
- Saves a lot of money.
This year I decided to grow green pole beans vs bush beans. I haven’t grown them for many years but they are very simple to grow. Since I don’t have a lot of space, any plant that can grow vertically, I prefer.
Since I didn’t have time to use the beans that I was growing for cooking, I decided to freeze them just as I have been doing for years with other vegetable primarily peppers and tomatoes. Freezing beans locks in the nutritional content and they still taste almost as good as fresh beans. They can be used whenever you need them in soups, on their own or in any other dish that you wish to create.
Before freezing, I decided to slice them in bite-sized pieces. Although this is very time-consuming, it is worth it. Also, beans are easy to freeze and will last for many months in the freezer. Just make sure you try to remove as much of the air from the freezer bag as possible to lock in the freshness. Nowadays you can find inexpensive machines that can do this for you more efficiently.
The results… Let me tell you, after I opened up this bag of beans and poured them into this bowl, I could smell the beans and they smelled almost as good as the summer day that I froze them!
