1) Strawberries
Since Strawberries are so sweet. Bugs love them! Strawberries are known to carry very high amounts of pesticide to keep those pesky little suckers away. In addition, strawberries have softer skin and they can be very difficult to wash thoroughly, scrubbing will most likely damage the fruit. Most folks run some water over them in a strainer but that does not come close to removing the heavy amount of pesticide.
Strawberries are one of the easiest fruits to grow on your own. If you plant them in a traditional garden they lay in the dirt and are subject to all the same problems that commercial farmers have with insects and other pest. They also happen to be one of the easiest fruits to grow in a container, aquaponic or hydroponic garden.
As you will see throughout the article I absolutely love aquaponic gardening and that is the simple and easiest method to grow strawberries as well as the other fruits and veggies we will be discussing.
2) Spinach, Lettuce and other Leafy Produce
The biggest problems with the Leafy produce is the way it is commercially grown. This is a very broad group of plants. This can be head lettuce, cabbage, greens, spinach, or just about any other type of lettuce you might put in a salad. These are typically grown in huge commercial fields. These fields are flooded in cow or pig manure to act as a fertilizer. This fecal matter gets all over the lettuce when it rains and splashes up from the ground. Vast amounts of harmful and even deadly bacteria can make its way all throughout the many nooks and crannies of these leafy delights. There have been many e coli and salmonella outbreaks recently as a result of contaminated lettuce.
Lettuce is very easy to grow at home. Best of all if you take care of the plants most types of lettuce will regenerate more leaves. Once again my favorite way to grow lettuce is in an aquaponic garden. The fertilizer in an aquaponic garden contains nothing harmful since it does not come from a farm animal. Containers may be a little more tricky to grow lettuce in and the traditional garden tends to get the plants muddy when it rains. One little trick with a traditional dirt garden is to throw organic mulch around the plants to keep mud from splashing during heavy rain storms or watering.
3) Tomatoes
The first genetically altered food was the tomato it received FDA approval in 1994. The name was the Flavr Savr tomato. This paved the way for produce of all kinds to be genetically altered. This was done to create better flavor, make crops pest resistant, drought resistant and yield bigger and better harvest.
Sounds great at first. Science can be used to fix many of the problems farmers have had for thousands of years. Now it turns out that Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs are the center of much controversy. Studies are popping up that show GMOs may be responsible for all kinds of terrible health problems including claims of cancer, allergies and antibiotic resistance. Unfortunately for produce there are not any labeling requirements so you really don't know if you are eating fruits and veggies with GMOs or not.
Want to avoid GMOs? Tomatoes are very easy to grow. They also come in many shapes and varieties. They can be grown in containers, hanging baskets, and gardens of all types. These plants are great to grow in an aquaponic garden because you are able to avoid many pest and diseases that hang out in the soil. Especially blight which is a highly contagious fungus that will wipe out a tomato crop very quickly.
4) Peppers
Peppers are in a lot of food items. They can also make a great snack. My kids love red bell peppers. I prefer the hotter variety. These grow easily in a traditional and Aquaponic garden. I love to plant them in an aquaponic garden because they grow quickly and take up very little space. Red, orange, yellow, purple and green bell peppers are usually pretty expensive in a grocery store. I have seen them for over $2.00 a piece. Not to mention they have pesticides and other chemicals on them. This can be a real cost saver if you grow them at home. Also, it is fun to experiment with many different varieties.
5) Celery
Celery ranks at the top of the list for a great snack. Throw some peanut butter on it and it becomes a super nutritious snack that kids absolutely love. You can even set up a celery bar and have sunflower seeds, raisins, granola or just about anything you can imagine to sprinkle on top of a slice of celery with peanut butter.
Unfortunately, Better Housekeeping ranks celery as the second worse produce item in terms of the amounts of pesticide when purchased from a grocery store. Also, if you ever look at home grown celery you will typically notice a much darker color of green. The greener the stalks the more nutrition the celery has. When you go the grocery store the celery can appear light green almost white. That is because commercially grown celery can be very nutrient deficient.
Celery is easy to grow at home and once again makes a great plant for an aquaponic garden. Celery needs a lot of water and nutrients to grow properly. An aquaponic garden is ideal because of the way it provides water and nutrients directly to plant roots.
Here is a great resource for plans to make an easy to build aquaponics garden. It is great for a beginner or experienced gardener! You can grow almost any type of plant 3 times faster and stronger. It is very simple to make and can be done in almost any space. Check out the website for more info: http://www.ezaquaponics.org/?page_id=33
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