This week’s freebie is a gardener’s bonanza that comes just in time for spring, sunshine and a sizable outdoor to-do list! I don’t know about you, but I’m jonesing to play in the dirt. I can’t wait to build a couple of raised beds for salad greens, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers. I’m also going to hang some baskets of nasturtiums and strawberries from the front porch. Oh, and I can’t forget my herb and cut flower garden.
We’ve partnered with the organic seed company Seeds of Change, a staff favorite, to hook-up a winner with all of the trappings of a multi-family or community garden. Seeds of Change is giving away 250 of the highest-quality organic seed packets (a mix of veggies, herbs and flowers), five bags to tote your seeds and other gardening essentials, as well as five custom bowls to display your hard work come harvest time. This is enough loot for your and four green-thumb friends to create joint gardens and share in the spoils. Answer this week’s question before 12/11c Monday, March 21, to be entered for a chance to win.
This week’s question: There’s nothing like enjoying the fruits of your labor. What’s your favorite veggie or fruit to eat fresh from the garden? Heirloom tomatoes? Juicy strawberries? Or are you all about fresh cut flowers?
Learn more about organic seeds and gardening at www.seedsofchange.com and www.seedsofchangefoods.com. And join HGTV’s Family Gardening Club and dig in the dirt with your kids!
Watermelon! My grandfather always had a garden, and I have fond memories of harvesting his fruits & vegetables. We would sit at his picnic table and cut watermelon just harvested!
I am the only one in my household that loves fresh leaf lettuce, that is something that I would love to plant again and enjoy almost everyday of the growing /harvesting season.
I enjoy nothing more than tomatoes. My 7 year old daughter and I grow tomatoes, amoung other things. We enjoy tending our garden, spending time together and laughing at the first time we grew them together. When she was a preschooler we grew tomatoes, we found out that year our weenie dog loved to eat tomatoes and would come in the house smelling of tomatoe bushes. We have matured as gardeners growing tomatoes, onions, peppers and herbs; basil rosemarry, thyme. It is now a family affair, picking veggies and herbs, then canning them into tomatoe sauces and salsa. Grandpa is now our partner in our expanding organic garden.
Most recently, even through our rough winter, I've enjoyed fresh broccoli and rape. I planted these veggies late and realized the broccoli was not going to do well. We've had snow and freezing temps, but once the sun popped out and it warmed up, the broccoli started producing small florets. I snapped them off, leaves and all, through them in boiling water, then sauteed it in garlic and olive oil. Delicious! Similar to broccoli rabe. And the tops of the rape greens, when they start to bolt. Omgoodness! I just tried them in a "leftovers in the fridge" soup. May just be my new favorite.
I would have to say I love my fresh potatoes and green beans from the garden and the beauty of all the flowers. The flowers make me happy!!!! MILES OF SMILES…
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I have wonderful memories of picking peas from the garden and eating them right out of the pod!!! I am an aspiring gardener.
I like cucumbers and tomatoes the best. However, the past couple of years, I have been putting many more flowers in the garden!
Always tomatoes with jalepenos, onions and herbs!! The less I have to buy at the grocery market the better!! Nothing better than knowing the food you grow is feeding your family and your freinds!! And gardening is so relaxing!! Would love to win this one!! Thanks for the chance….
Fresh Herbs! Especially Basil. I love some fresh tomatoes to go along with!
Definitely cherry tomatoes!
Hands down I give it to tomatoes. It doesn't matter which particular type, any home-grown tomatoes top all the rest of the veggies by far!!!
I love planting an herb box–I just go out the back door with a pair of scissors anytime I want fresh parsley or cilantro. I agree that tomatoes are also a great choice, but I like to try unique "crops" too. My favorite success was with snow peas–I could pick them while they were young and tender–and I had some fun thinking up a creative trellis for them to grow on.
Looking forward to fresh brocolli!
My grandfather used to have a great big garden with all kinds of vegetables and fruit and I remember going out and just picking fresh strawberries and the biggest carrots I have ever seen. Now that I have my own garden I'm hoping to grow some of my own. Winning this would greatly help get me started.
Tomatoes…fresh from the garden…oh my goodness!!!…there is nothing as good as a fresh, juicy tomato that you just picked…doesn't even matter what kind it is…yellow plum, roma, beef eaters, …now i am making myself hungry just thinking about 'em!!!
I love the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers fresh off the vine. I also like to mix fresh raw squash, zucchini, several kinds of peppers with them, pour a little oil and vinegar over all and enjoy a wonderful lunch. When I got married, my new husband was a type 2 diabetic. I fed him lots of fresh vegetables from the garden, and his blood sugar lowered and he rarely has to take the medication now. Fresh veggies are wonderful!!!!!
Just about ANY fruit! Which is one of the downsides of living in Maine.
You just can't grow them all up here! XD
Definately fresh homegrown tomatoes…juicy — so much better that the store bought ones. Perfect for tomato sandwiches or to put into a fresh summer salad. I love all kinds: the big beefsteak down to cherry and grape tomoatoes. Last year, it was so pretty to have the red grape tomatoes and orange pear shaped tomatoes in hanging baskets on my deck!
The veggie I eat straight from the garden are cherry tomatoes. With the bigger tomato varieties and lettuce, I take it a step further and wash them first!
Love a good juicy tomato fresh from the vine!!! Also love green beans, bell peppers, banana peppers, green onions and strawberries. Mmmm Mmmmm GOOD!
Spring is here !!!!!!!!!!!!
Can I just say all of the above? If I was forced, at maybe gunpoint or something, to choose only one, I would probably say tomatoes. But then if you wanted to know my favorite kind of tomato I would just have to say, shoot me! They are all so good and so very yummy!
I love gardening! Tomatoes and strawberries are my family's favorites
One of my favorite memories is of visiting my grandfather who was a country preacher in a rural section of VA. I was a child in the 1960s and recall riding in my mother's black bubble-looking Buick with no air conditioning over crooked dirt roads to get to my grandparents' house and always getting car sick in the process! That part was never fun! Grandpa built their home as well as the church where he preached; the house had a root cellar beneath it where grandmother kept her canned fresh vegetables; no matter how hot the weather outside, the root cellar was always damp and cool. Out back of the house was a two-seater outhouse! I was always afraid of hornets' nests in the outhouse plus the smell was not the most pleasant. But my favorite memory is of my grandfather giving me a tin salt shaker and going out back of grandpa's house to his huge vegetable garden, sitting in the dirt, pulling tomatoes off the vine and eating them right there! Nothing compares to that taste and to this day whenever I smell a freshly picked, homegrown tomato I am transported back to my childhood days at grandpa's house.
Tomatoes.
Definitely tiny little grape tomatoes fresh off the vine! Warm and juicy in my mouth, don't even stop to wash them because they've been grown organically! MMMMMMMM!!!!
Love to can tomatoes out of the garden to have that fresh taste all year.
I hope I have better luck with my tomatoes this year only got a few but the plants looked good all summer?
I love my rasberries. I will be eating them all day as I garden and even when I take my dog out, he picks the ones on the lower branches.
I really like eating anything right out of the garden. But for me the absolute best is a sun-warmed tomato right off the plant. Last year I grew my own Blueberries and they were so awesome fresh off the vine. Sad thing is the plant did not produce as many as I wanted and the plant died during our odd South Texas winter. But I plan on planting again.
I can never decide! I love all fresh vegetables, especially the tomatoes! Then comes the next veggie and I'm all about that! The freshness is wonderful! Love the flowers too and can never decide which is my favorite!
I'm all about using fresh herbs from my garden when I cook, but I also love eating home-grown green onions. They are so versatile; you can use them to flavor dishes, put them in a salad, or just eat them whole.
Strawberries are my favorite fresh from the garden. I LOVE everything about gardening…from veggies to fruits to flowers…I LOVE it all :0) !!! Hope everyone has an AWESOME season!!!
Love a sweet juicy carrot straight out of the ground and washed off with the water hose… brings back great memories of being in my Papaw's garden as a little girl!
I love when my yummy peppers are ready to be eaten! Nothing beats that crunch and burst of flavor, in my opinion. mm. now I'm hungry!
I like tomatoes out of the garden, but chilled first. Then slice them and make a sandwich. Delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!
Garden peas.
I've gotta say I love fresh zucchini! This year I have some new recipes to try out.
Tomatoes!
There is nothing better then the smell of fresh onions and bell peppers!!!! I love having our own veggie garden and being able to swap veggies through out the year with my family & their gardens!!!
I have to say I love to pick cucumbers and make a fresh salad out of them. creamy delicious, mouth watering. I can't wait till spring !!!!!!
Love tomatoes…..tomatoe sandwich is my favorite!!!!
Nothing like the first smell of a freshly picked & chopped cucumber! It seems to overwhelm the whole room & at the moment is when I feel Spring has completely arrived!! I can sit & eat it all by itself or either enjoy it in a fresh chopped salad
I couldn't wait I started my seeds a couple of weeks ago and my husband compland for weeks about how the house smelled like dirt.Gee I wonder why it would smell like dirt I'm sure it wasn't all thoose trays of dirt with seeds in them lol.
I always get excited about kohlrabis!! Its nice to grow them because they are pretty hard to find in the stores. I eat them raw with my 4 year old daughter, we just peel them and sprinkle with salt. "yummy"
Fresh peas rarely make it into the kitchen, we eat them straight off the vine. Strawberries too!
There is nothing more delicious than a big, fresh, warm, juicy homegrown tomato, plucked right off the vine!
it is all about enjoying the cherry tomatoes right off the vine! nothing tastes as good as a sun-warmed ripe red cherry tomato in your mouth! and when my boyfriend isn't looking, i might sneak an extra one or two.
i also used to love one of the houses we lived in that had a crab apple tree in our backyard… i never knew how good apples were straight from the tree until we lived there! makes me want to plant an apple tree…and wait years to enjoy its fruit.
I remember picking small tomatoes, sugar snap peas and green chillis from my aunt's garden sit on the porch and eat that mixed with fresh puffed rice on top of a newspaper back in India. I so miss those days.
Tomatoes are most definitely my favorite! Just LOVE picking some tomatoes and slicing them up to eat. I can make a meal of it! I also like picking cherry tomatoes and eating them right there in the garden. So sweet and juicy. A friend also turned me on to the ground cherries last year. Looking forward to getting some seeds to plant some of my own. What a unique little treat they are!