Eat This All Winter Long

Eat seasonally, Buy Locally, and grow naturally. Those are three things that we set out at the beginning of this year to do each and every week here on the Grow youw Self podcast and inside the Gardenary community. This year you have made huge strides changing the way you eat, the way you see local food, and the way you grow in your garden. And it has been an incredible year together. Today I'm throwing it back to one of the very first episodes entitled Eat this All Week Winter Long. Because believe it or not, we are just entering the winter solstice this week. In this episode, you'll learn what you can find to eat locally, to eat seasonally, and maybe even to grow a little bit naturally in your particular home and climate. I loved producing this episode for you way back in January of this year, and we've actually had a seasonal episode each and every season. We have Eat this all spring long, all summer long, and all fall long. So enjoy this podcast episode Eat this All winter long so that you can know how to eat seasonally all winter. This episode is brought to you by my Make Garden Magic Challenge. Make Garden Magic is a super fun, easy and free challenge where you'll get 10 super simple easy projects you can do at home right now in the winter, no matter where you live. And each and every project will teach you something magical about the garden. I've created 10 videos and show you how you can grow things from the grocery store inside this winter. Things that will teach you great truths you can use in your garden all 2021 long. So sign up for the Make Garden Magic Challenge on the blog@gardenary.com blog and join the challenge. You can do it during the holidays while you're home with your kids or by yourself. If you just want to get your hands in the dirt a little bit this winter, we're here for you. Take the Make Garden Magic Challenge. But first listen to this episode, Eat this All Winter Long.

Welcome to the Grow youw Self Podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. I'm Nicole Johnsee Burke, your host and the owner of Rooted Garden and Gardenary Incorporated and author of Kitchen Garden Revival. Is it obvious yet? I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen garden. The kitchen garden may just be the answer that you've been looking for on your own journey to health and wholeness in this podcast. It's gonna inspire and enable you to make Garden Magic right in your very own space. If you're someone who wants to eat more good food that's actually good for you, fill your day with great stories you want to text to a friend. If you wanna hear more about inspiring people and do a day better than the way you did it the day before. Grow yourself is what your ears have been waiting for. You won't just learn about gardening here, you'll learn how to make growing as a person a big part of your everyday life. And your life, your community. And your garden, of course, will be all the better for it. So put in your headphones, turn up the volume, and let's take a walk, go on a drive, or just hang out in the kitchen garden together. We'll welcome to Grow youw Self. Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. I'm Nicole Burke, your host and I'm so excited you're here with me. Baby, it's cold outside. This is one of the coldest parts of the year. Brrr. I'm freezing. Honestly, as a girl who grew up on the Gulf coast of the us I have a hard time being in Chicago in January and February. The days are short, the sky is dark and I am freezing. So what to do to survive the cold weather? Or even better, what should we eat in the coldest seasons of the year? That's the topic of discussion for today's episode. If you missed episode one, I want you to head back after this one and listen to it. In it we talk about doing three things, three things this year that could completely change everything for you, your community, and even the planet. The first thing on that list is to eat seasonally and I promised you way back in episode one that I'd give you more tips and tricks and how to's to make that happen. So in today's episode, we're going to dig into what you should eat when it is cold outside. So let's get started. Now, I don't know where you're living. You might be in a more temperate area. You could be in a place that gets a little bit of frost, maybe even a sprinkle of snow every now and then, but for the most part stays warmer. That would be like the climate I was living in and most of my clients live in in Houston, Texas. Or you might be in a very cold climate where your temperatures aren't coming up over say 35 degr Fahrenheit for days and days. You might be covered in snow and ice and not be able to see one green thing on the ground. Or that's what my home looks like here in Chicago some days in January and February, or you might be somewhere in between. And if you're listening to this and you're in the southern hemisphere and it's sunny and warm, then can you please send me a plane ticket, because I'd like to come visit you no matter where you are on the globe. When you face the coldest parts of the year, it can become a little hard to know how to eat fresh food, eat good food, and take care of our bodies, when sometimes all we want to do is, like, climb up on the couch with a big bowl of macaroni and cheese or something. Not that macaroni and cheese is bad, of course not. But let's talk about the fruits and the vegetables that are best for you to eat in the coldest season and which could be considered true to the season of cold weather. So, just for a recap from episode one, when we talk about cold season, we're generally talking about when the weather is below, say, 35 degrees Fahrenheit. So definitely lots of frost, lots of snow even, and really cold temperatures. If you know anything about plants, and it's totally fine if you don't. Not many plants can hang on when the temperatures are that low, especially those plants that we consume as humans. So, of course, you see evergreens and, you know, boxwood bushes and those kinds of plants that can hang on when it's super cold and even stay green, which is amazing. But for the most part, a lot of the foods that we find on our plates are not foods that can hang on when it's that cold and that dark. So evergreens can hang on when the weather's tough like this. But most of the food that we put on our plates as humans doesn't really thrive when it's freezing cold and snowy outdoors. So the foods we're going to talk about today that fit the cold season are one of a few things. First, they might be foods that store well. So these foods were grown in late summer, early or late fall, and they've been harvested and stored in a way that they can maintain their flavor and their freshness, and you can enjoy them through the coldest part of the year. So that's the first category they might store well, the other category is that they might be grown in protected environments. So these things are. They can hold up when the temperatures aren't super great, and they can even continue growing, even if they're just growing slowly or just kind of hanging on under cover. So these are foods where, if there's a frost, cloth or a greenhouse of some sort. Vegetables can keep going or at least just kind of hang tight until they're harvested. So that's the second category of foods that would work in the cold season. And then finally there are foods that are grown in more temperate climates during this coldest part of the year. So in this case, if you're in a colder place, then obviously they're not going to be grown in your area. But the transport is not quite as long as if you're trying to eat say, warm or hot climate foods. For instance, citruswe'll talk about citrus in a second. Citrus is grown in the US in the winter in temperate climates like in Texas or Florida. I could eat citrus here in Chicago. And at least that citrus is coming from North America rather than some kind of fruit that might be traveling all the way from New Zealand or something. So those are the three categories. One, these are foods that store really well and they've been stored from the fall. Two, these are foods that are growing under protected conditions. Or three, these are foods that have been that are growing in temperate climates in their coldest part of the year and thus are shipped the least amount before hitting your plate. All right, now that we've got our categories, let's dig into what we can eat in the cold season. The first category are dark greens. You knew where I was going here, didn't you? So dark greens are those greens that really either store well or might be growing under cover. And they're so good for you during the winter. They've got all that nutrition that your body craves and needs as it's fighting off the flu and the cold and all those germs that are trying to jump onto you every time you're in like closed quarters. I get so nervous when I show up at my kids school that I'm going to get sick. So cabbage is probably the most well known green for the winter. The cabbage head itself stores really well. All those leaves are so compact and tight. And the leaves of the cabbage are savoy. Savoy is another word for bumpy. And so it just gives the leaves a special resilience. One thing you'll find, let's say you buy a bunch of greens from the store or the farmer's market and stick them all in the fridge. Your cabb be the last one to go bad. Let's say if you don't eat any of them for a couple of weeks, when you pull them all out, the cabbage will be the one that still seems like it's edible. At least I think so if you do store your cabbage and you're finding that it doesn't look so great, just start to peel off the layers and you'll find that underneath, say, two or three layers deep, you've got a great, crisp, fresh head of cabbage to enjoy for the winter. Now, cabbages begin to be harvested as early as, say, July, but they are harvested all throughout the cool seasons. And in temperate climates, they're harvested throughout the entire winter. So for my clients in Houston, and when I was gardening in, say, Texas, we could pull cabbages throughout the entirety of the cold season, which was so great. Now, one of the best ways to have cabbage is simply to eat it raw. You're the most nutritional value when you do that. But of course, you can braise it, you can add it to soups and stews. There's a million different ways to use cabbage. My husband's grandmother is Armenian and she made the most amazing cabbage soup. I think it was called Tattoo. I might not be saying that right, but I want to say it was made with fermented cabbage and it was so good. So that's cabbage, the next green that you can enjoy in the cold. Kale. Yeah. So trendy or not trendy, kale is always good for us. So it's full of vitamins A, C, K and E. If you missed the episode about kale, make sure you go back and listen to it to find out how this vegetable became so popular over the last decade. Kale is also savoy, so you'll notice, especially, say, dinosaur kale or Toscano kale. The leaves are super bumpy, and this gives them a great resilience against the cold as well. Kale will keep pretty well in your fridge, and you'll help if you can keep it cold. It'll retain its flavor and its freshness longer because that's kind of the environment that it enjoys growing in. One of the best ways to store your kale is to wrap it up really tightly and then stick it in, like the crisper drawer in your fridge. Kale is great in all kinds of ways with drinks and salads and soups. And one of my favorite things to do with kale is cook it down like southern style greens. Because you guys know I'm from the south, right? Brussels sprouts is another green. It's in the same family, so all of these greens are in the Brassica family, and they just all have an ability to hang on when it's cold. So Brussels sprouts will also do so, and they store really well so generally, Brussels sprouts start being harvested in early fall, and in some climates, they're harvested all the way through February. They're a vegetable that could definitely hold on when the weather starts to dip. In fact, when I was gardening in Houston, we had a very difficult time getting the little cabbage heads on our Brussels sprouts because the weather didn't get cold enough. Crazy, right? So it's actually. It really needs colder weather to fully form those cute little cabbage heads alongside its stem. So brussel sprouts can be eaten throughout the entirety of the winter. You can actually eat the leaves as well. And if the Brussels sprouts start to go bad in your fridge, what you do with the big cabbage head, peel off those outside leaves and then cook them up. The best dish I've ever had of Brussels sprouts was on this path to a ski place in Charlottes, right outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant. I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes. But they cooked these Brussels sprouts down with, like, I think they put a lot of butter in it. There's, like, butter and balsamic vinegar, and they were just so, so good. I also had a great Brussels sprouts dish in Houston at this place called the 401. And they cook theirs more Asian style. So it has, like, soy sauce and a little bit of sweetness to it and some hot pepper flakes. It's so good. There's something about those little Brussels sprouts, all those little crevices and the tiny little cabbage heads that just soaks up all of the juices of those sauce. It's so good. Oh, my gosh, guys, my mouth is, like, watering right now. Is yours? I can't help it. Okay, so those are three greens that are so good to eat during the cold. Cabbages, kales, and Brussels sprouts. You could probably throw in broccoli and cauliflower as well. Those are also in the brassica family. The only challenge with those is they may not hang on through the deep of the winter. But if you see them at the store or you see them at a farmer's market or anywhere in your area, then it is, you know, they are a good bet they're a better vegetable to be eating that's more seasonal than some of the other ones. So that is. That's it for the leafy greens. You could still be eating some sweet lettuces if you're in more temperate climates. So in Houston, I love to tell a story of how our first year gardening there, I grew enough lettuce for my family from October to April and didn't buy a single piece of lettuce from the grocery store. And we actually ate lettuce like every day. It was amazing. So those sweet lettuces that have softer leaves without the savoy to them, they'll do great in temperate climates. They just can't hang on when it's super cold. So if you're lucky enough to be in one of those temperate climates, then you should be taking advantage of all that delicious lettuce. Okay? Another vegetable that you can enjoy during the cold season are gourds. You'll find a lot of these food, foods that store well or can be eaten in the coldest part of the year are generally more fibrous or bumpy or just have a toughness to them. And you can see why, right? I mean, when it's so cold outside and dark, you got to be tough to hang in there. And that's basically what these vegetables are. So if you're checking something out at the store, let's say you're at the grocery and you're overwhelmed with all the varieties. If it doesn't look tough, it probably doesn't grow during the winter. It's probably not a cold season variety. Like, let's talk about a tomato, right? Like, that's the opposite of tough. It's just this soft, soft skin, right? Definitely does not thrive in the winter. But gourds, they look tough, don't they? They're like bumpy. And I mean, like, they're the epitome of. It's almost like they have an armor about them on their outside. And so gourds are great to eat during the win winter. Most of them have been harvested in the fall and they'll store for months on end. So it's often if you see them at the, at the grocery or at the farmer's market, you can guess it's probably been harvested for a while and they just hang on. One time I bought a butternut squash. I think it was like, I don't know, March. And you're gonna hate me for this, but I'm pretty sure it sat in my pantry for three months. Months until I finally came up with a plan to cook it. And when I sliced it open, it looked just as good as any fresh one I'd ever cooked. Not that I've cooked a ton, but anyway, I was pretty impressed. So three months shelf life is not bad. So gourds will Hang on. And you don't even have to really put them in the fridge, although that might help. They do want to be, like, in a cool, mild place, so that's probably not a problem to create in the middle of the winter, Right? Just don't put them by a heating vent. So gourds are full of all kinds of great vitamins, vitamin A, and they have a lot of potassium, actually, which is so good for your body, especially in the winter. My favorite ways to eat the squashes, although I must be honest, this is in a plant family that I have a little hard time eating, is just to slice them up and roast them. So I find when I roast them, the fibrous of them gets a little bit better and it pulls out some of the sweetness, which is what I love. So gourds of almost any type can be eaten during the cold season. They're a perfect fit to eat seasonally when you're freezing. And I think probably one of the best ways to use these gourds is to make soups, right? I mean, soups are just so good, so filling, and make you feel nice and warm when you're freezing. All right, let's move on to the next type of plant. So we covered all the things that would be growing above the ground that either have already been harvested and stored or you could harvest right away. Now, let's talk about a few things that are growing underground or at least were underground at some point. These we're going to call root crops. So the first is the turnip. Now, turnips are actually in the same family, believe it or not, as the brass. It's in the brassica family. So as kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower. But most people see a turnip and they don't honestly know what it is or know what to do with it. So a lot of times, honestly, we just kind of pass them up at the grocery store. My hand is raised. I mean, it's not like the first thing I grab at the grocery is a big turnip, but they're actually so good for you, and they do have a sweetness to them that a lot of those other brassica greens don't have. They've got the same kind of vitamin value, so vitamin C and vitamin K and folate and, of course, a lot of fiber. So as we said, most of these vegetables are going to have a toughness to them, and that's what you'll find in the insect of that turnip is a lot of fiber toughness. So Though it can be sometimes hard to swallow, that fiber is really good for our bodies. Turnips can be kept inside the fridge or like a cool place. So if you have a basement or some, you know, special place where you can keep it in a cooler temperature, they'll last actually for months because of that fibrousness. So pretty much cool. So try to add some turnips to your. To your diet this winter. I'll be so impressed if you do. Another root crop that's super yummy. I actually do love this one is beets. So beets are in a family we haven't talked about yet. They're in the amaranth family, so the same family as Swiss chard and spinach. This is the superfood family, guys. This. This family is. This plant family is so, so super good for your body. So beets have been proven to do pretty much all the awesome stuff in your body, like fight cancer, fight disease, and give you tons of vitamins, especially A, B, and C, as well as potassium and folate. So beets start growing in the early spring, and if they're under, like, a good protective place, they'll actually grow all the way through fall. And then beets store really well. Well, so you can store them in the fridge or even in a cool place, and then you just can eat them. So I love to eat beets just simply roasted with oil and sea salt. And the trick is roasting them until they're soft. So I made beets recently, and my husband Jason was like, oh, these are so good. And so then I thought, I'm going to do that again. So I roasted them again like a few days later. He didn't say a word. So it turned out I hadn't cooked the second batch nearly long enough. So instead of that sweet, nice, deep flavor, they just kind of tasted fibrous, if you know what I mean. Beets are actually a really great natural source of sugar. So if you have a sugar craving and you're trying to stay away from the other kinds of sugar that aren't necessarily going to help you feel great in the middle of winter, beets might be your thing. In fact, I don't know all the background. We'll talk about this one day on the podcast. But our sugar, you know, is often made from sugar beets, so pretty cool. Another root crop to enjoy during the cold season is carrots, probably the best known root crop, I think, don't you? So carrots are so good for our body, of course. Good for your eyes, your skin, all your immunities. So immunities are definitely the things we need to be like, amping up right now. I once went to a conference. I don't know if it was true, but this guy had been diagnosed with colon cancer and proceeded to drink. I don't remember how much, but it was like gallons of carrot juice a day. And anyway, he claimed that the carrot juice saved him, so I'm not sure if that's true. But I was definitely inspired by the conference to drink more carrot juice. So that is a great way actually to enjoy your carrots if you don't want to cook them. Which I do love roasting carrots in the winter, but it's great to just. I love to make a carrot juice with fresh carrots, ginger and lemon juice. And I actually love to make juices just in my blender, my Vitamix, and then strain them in a nut milk bag so I can make the carrot juice for breakfast. And, you know, I always feel pretty impressed with myself if I've had a vegetable before 9am so carrot juice is absolutely a way you can make that happen. Carrots too, have a sweetness. So again, if you're finding yourself like with that sweet tooth and you're really wanting to eat your kid's chocolate bar or something, just grab a carrot and I'm sure it'll satisfy you. Another root crop to eat in the cold season is parsnips. So I read a book, it's by the great guy Mel Bartholomew, who wrote the book Square Foot Gardening. And he actually wrote, wrote this book called High Value Veggies. And would you believe it or not, but he named the parsnip as one of the most valuable vegetables to grow from the garden. I think maybe because it's so rare or it takes so long for it to form its roots, but basically it's one of the best paybacks, if you will, that you'll get from growing in the garden. I had no idea. So if you want to grow parsnips, you can feel like you're growing something super valuable. Parsnips look like carrots, but they're white. And again, they're of nutrition, of course, lots of vitamin C and folate. And they do have a little bit of a sweet flavor like carrots, although in my personal opinion, they're not quite as sweet. They do have somewhat of like a earthy flavor, like you can almost taste the. The earth where it was sitting. I don't know if I'm making that up or not, but parsnips are great for you, and you will get lots of vitamin C. And. And, yeah, they're a fun thing to throw into your plate for the winter because you can know they're tough, they're fibrous, they held on, or they store well. And you will be the absolute queen of eating in season when you eat parsnips. Okay, so moving on from root crops, or there's one more root crop to talk about is fennel. So fennel is in the carrot family, too. So we've got carrots, parsnips, and fennel. They're all in. I believe the Latin term is paci. I don't know if I'm saying that right. I used to call them the umbellifer family. That's another way to say it. So fennel, you're going to see lots of green above the earth. But it's also, you know, technically called a root crop because it's got a lot of stuff happening under the ground as well. I don't know if you've ever tasted fennel. It has, like, a licorice flavor to it. It's a little bizarre. I think, personally, when I traveled in India, I would have. They would serve things with fennel seed, and it was a crazy flavor. It does some wild in your mouth, but fennel can add some special flavors and a freshness to your dishes because it does have kind of this special spiciness. So it might be fun to throw some fennel in more of a fresh salad. You could use carrots and parsnips and maybe some celery and throw some fennel on there to add that little bit of kick if you're into the licorice kind of flavor. Fennel, of course, is good for you, too, and lots of vitamin C, just like the carrots and parsley. Now, let's talk about another thing growing underground, and that's tubers. So there's two kinds of tubers. We're going to talk about the potato and the sweet potato. So potatoes, like the potatoes, you know, like french fries and baked potatoes that we commonly use, Those are actually in the same family as tomatoes, which only grow in the summer. Right. Or the warm season. But potatoes, the cool thing about them. So same family, so they can grow all through the spring and summer, but they keep for a really long time. So they're just one of those vegetables that can just hang on and hang on, and it's awesome. So I don't know why, but everybody's kind of given potatoes a bad rap because they are starchy and maybe have too much sugar or whatever. But actually, potatoes are really great for you, especially if you eat the skins and especially if you eat potatoes that are other colors other than white. So there's purple potatoes and red potatoes and yellow potatoes. So mix it up this winter and have a potato party. And I say throw on the butter if you're so inclined. I absolutely do. My kids love potatoes, and I always feel good about serving them to them. One thing to note about potatoes that my good friend Joyce taught me is that it's one of those vegetables you want to be sure you're really buying organic, because the skin of the potato is literally sitting right there in the soil, and it's hard to get whatever was sprayed or put on those plants. It's hard to get that off of that root or off of that skin of the potato. So actually, this probably applies to everything thing we're talking about today, obviously. But for the potato, I think it really matters because that whatever's been going on in that soil, the potatoes absolutely absorbed it all. So when you're dishing up some potatoes this winter, make sure they're organic. Okay, then. The other tuber, like I mentioned, is sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are so fun. They're actually in their own little category, their own family. It has a special name, but I'm going to call it the Morning Glory for family. And sweet potatoes grow in the hot, hot, hot summer. In fact, in Houston, a lot of times for our clients, we literally cover the gardens in sweet potatoes. They just produce tons and tons of green vines, and they hang on even when it's humid and, like, 105 degrees. It's crazy. But the neat thing about their sweet potatoes is they keep going and kind of protect themselves deep into the winter. So. So it's this beautiful thing where they grow all summer, but then they'll store all winter. So you can see how some civilizations literally survive off of these tubers because they're so nutrient rich and they grow so well under the ground, and then they'll just kind of hang out until you're ready to eat them. So I'm pretty impressed with the sweet potato. When I was in grad school, I pretty much ate sweet potatoes and cabbage, like, almost every night, and I felt pretty good about myself. It was, like, the cheapest, and it was still good for me. So, hey, so definitely make sweet potatoes a constant thing on your plate this winter. They'll make you feel so good. They fill you up, and they have that starchy kind of Sweet feeling, I think, but not as the calorie count and the sugar count isn't nearly as high as for the regular potatoes. So be sure to eat all the sweet potatoes that you can this winter. And if you're in a temperate climate, you definitely should be growing sweet potatoes in the summer. Some of my clients, it's been so fun. They'll grow the sweet potatoes and then go out and dig them right around, say, Thanksgiving or the holidays and have a celebration with them during the holidays. I just think that's super cool. Okay, we're almost done here. So another. Another type of food to enjoy throughout the cold season are the plants in the onion family. So the fancy name is, like, I'm not even going to try, but I like to call them the alliums. So we've got garlic, onion, shallots, chives. All those oniony type things can usually hold on throughout the cold part of the year. So if you have picked onions or garlic in the fall or the late summer, those store really well. So you want to keep them in a dry, cool place. And, I mean, I know some gardeners that grow so much garlic, they store it up at the end of the summer, and they're literally eating that garlic until the end of the next summer when they pick the next year's garlic. It's amazing. So the plants inside the onion family are totally worth growing because the flavor is amazing when you get to have it that fresh. And it really can spice up and make a kind of dull winter meal. Tastes so much better, don't you think? So in the oils and the flavors in the onions are so good for you. They've been shown to lower your cholesterol level and raise your good cholesterol, whatever that means. I love to saute onions and brown onions, and honestly, I can have a pretty plain dish for dinner and then throw some sauteed onions on them on the dish. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Gosh, who cares what's under here? Because these onions are so good. So that's about it for all the vegetables. So we've got the leafy greens, we've got the root crops, and we've got the onions. So those are the things that hang. Oh, and the gourds. I forgot the gourds. Sorry, gourds. So gourds, root crops, leafy greens, and the onions. So these are all the vegetables that can hang on. They're super tough, and they're fibrous, they're bumpy. They've got their armor up and they can hold on and hang tight when it's cold outside. So they're the perfect vegetables to cover your plate with this winter, to build up your immunity to take care of yourself and to eat seasonally. You're not only going to be doing good for your body, but you're doing good for your community and the planet because you're cutting down on food miles and you're most likely going to be putting money in your local farmers pockets, which is awesome. Just real quick, I'll touch on the two fruits that grow in temperate climates during the cold season and that's citrus and pomegranate. So in the, in the temperate climates, like when I lived in Houston. Hello Houston, I miss you. Citrus grew from like October all the way till February. It was amazing. My first year I went to the farmer's market and bought a 10 pound bag of freshly harvested satsumas. And I think we ate the entire bag within like three, three days. Those things tasted like candy. Much better than candy, actually. So it starts with satsumas and oranges. The lemons come out around December. Grapefruits go all the way through January, February, it's just amazing. So if you're in a temperate climate, you should absolutely grow citrus if you can. And if you can't, you should support your local farmers and buy as much of their citrus as possible. You will not regret it. And you can also have pomegranates. So I did try my hand at growing a pomegranate tree and I have to admit I wasn't successful. But pomegranates do grow in temperate climates during the winter as well. So that's the other grapefruit to enjoy during the colder months of the year. As you know, pomegranates are so good for you. They are so hard to peel with their little seed pods. But I have found the secret, so I'll see if I can include that for you in the show notes. Pomegranates, each of those little seed pods that you eat are just full of nutrients for you. And they actually grow from October through January and they can store really long. So they've got that tough outer skin resemblance of what we're talking about here, right? The winter plants are the ones that are the toughest, so they've got that tough outer skin and they'll be able to store for some several months, even into say, February, March, which is pretty great. So citrus and pomegranate, when you're wanting the sweet fruits, those are the two fruits that you can eat and say I'm definitely eating seasonally when you have those throughout the cold season. Okay, that is a wrap. What do you think? Can you limit yourself to eating most of these things this cold season? It is a little challenging, right? Because every now and then you just want to have a a of bit banana or, I don't know, cherries, strawberries. Or maybe you just want to have a cucumber, I don't know. But a lot of us in our culture, we've become very accustomed to having anything at any time. But I really have experienced the true beauty of enjoying what's available in one season to its fullest. Eating every single last bite of it that I can, filling up to the brim on the good stuff and then waiting until the next next season arrives before I enjoy what grows best and does best in that season. I'd love to challenge you to try this out too. I'd love to challenge you actually for at least one day to eat seasonally so you could plan your whole day around eating the things that are either growing outside in covered conditions or if you're in a temperate climate or just growing outdoors or things that at least have only been growing own on your continent and not someone else. So this week I want to challenge you to eat seasonally one day. You'll find all about the challenge on our podcast page on the show Notes for this exact episode. It's@gardenary.com podcast so check it out. Take the Gardenary challenge to eat seasonally for one day. You've now got your full menu of what you can eat and I know you're going to find it's super delicious and that it's. It feels so good to fill up on the good stuff. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. I hope that you feel like you've grown a little bit in this episode. I know it's a total stretch for me to start to learn a little bit more about my seasons and I hope that this opened your eyes to new things about your food and your seasons that you never knew before. Or if nothing else, I at least made your mouth water about those Brussels sprouts else, right? All right, have a great week and I will see you back here next time. Well, thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast all year long.

You are amazing. You have made this year so special by spending time with me here, popping me into your earbuds, your AirPods, your.

Whatever you're using to listen in your.

Car, on your runs out in the garden. It has been an incredible year together with you.

Stay tuned because we have some awesome.

Material lined up for you in 2021. And coming next week, you're going to.

Get an introduction to the theme of.

2021 for Gardenary and I know you're.

Going to love it. Don't forget that this episode is brought.

To you by the Make Garden Magic Challenge. It's free, it's fun and it's going to get your hands in the dirt this winter and can you teaching you all kinds of incredible gardening lessons that you can bring into the real garden, the outdoors garden. I guess they're all real gardens. You can bring it into the outdoors in 2021. So go check it out@gardenary.com blog, read today's episode show notes and sign up for the Make Garden Magic Challenge. I'll be with you all 10 lessons long, showing you the magic of the garden. We'll have so much fun together. Thanks again for listening and you. I hope I will see you next time.