How to Grow a Rainbow of Fruits and Veggies in Your Garden

Having a healthy diet isn’t just about eating greens, don’t you know? It’s about eating the reds, purples, and yellows, too.

It is the various nutrient contents of fruits and vegetables that give them their glorious colors. Vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and other antioxidants show up in different amounts in different veggies and also impart a range of pigments.

As a result, eating a bunch of different fruits and vegetables of different colors every day will help to make sure that you get a really good range of nutrients. In turn, you can help protect every part of your body from a number of diseases, ailments, and conditions as serious as cancer and diabetes to dull hair, and zits.

The concept of eating a rainbow‘s spectrum of colorful veggies isn’t a new one. You might already be on the bandwagon. But, how about stepping it up a notch and trying your hand at growing a rainbow of veggies in your own garden?

Red

Beets, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelon, and raspberries are members of the red camp. These are all reasonably easy to grow in your backyard or even in containers if you just don’t have too much space.

Source: GrowVeg/YouTube

Grow Beets (Beta vulgaris)– It is best to sow beet seeds directly into the ground. Since they are a root veg, they do not love to be transplanted. Choose a sunny spot in your garden with loose soil. Keep the soil moist but not soaked.

Sow your seeds in mid-spring and grow them in succession throughout the growing season for a continuous crop. Beet seeds are actually clumps of seeds, so you will likely notice more than one shoot growing from where you planted. Just carefully thin these out leaving one shoot in place.

Harvest your beets once they are at least the size of a golf ball but no bigger than a tennis ball. Don’t forget to keep the delicious and nutritious greens, too.

Orange and Yellow

Bell peppers, carrots, and sweet potatoes are powerhouses of antioxidants and can become a feature in your garden as well as on your plate.

Source: Toward Garden/YouTube

Grow Yellow Bell Peppers (Capsicum annuum)– Peppers are pretty easy to grow and are really rewarding. You can start seeds indoors in a warm spot about 6-8 weeks before the last frost. Then, you can transplant the seedlings outdoors once nighttime temperatures are safely above 50°F.

Plant your peppers in a sunny spot in your garden in well-draining soil.  Peppers enjoy moist soil, but don’t let them get waterlogged. Once they start to fruit, you might need to give them a cane or cage to grow up as those heavy peppers can pull the plants over.

Green

Lettuce, kale, collards, broccoli, and peas are just a few of the nutrient-dense superstars in the green camp. Growing a few greens for yourself is really easy can doesn’t require a ton of space.

Source: MIgardener/YouTube

Grow Kale (Brassica oleracea)– It is really easy to have yourself a great crop of kale. It is simple to grow from seed or plant starts. You can harvest kale very young as ‘baby kale’, or wait for the leaves to mature for a more substantial veg.

Plant your kale in a sunny spot in your garden that gets at least 4 hours of sun a day. Kale is a heavy feeder, so give it lots of good organic compost. You don’t have to harvest the whole plant. Just take the amount you need and leave the rest to grow.  Harvest from the outside of the plant in.

Blue and Purple

Blueberries, figs, eggplant, black grapes, purple cabbage, elderberries, and blackberries should definitely make up a portion of your daily rainbow on a plate.

Source: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni /YouTube

Grow Eggplant (Solanum melongena)– One purple food that you can start growing for yourself is eggplant. A member of the nightshade family, eggplants are a heat-loving fruit that can be grown from seed or bought at nurseries as starts.

If growing from seed, start your seeds indoors about 6-8 weeks before the last frost date and transplant them outdoors after the last frost date. Don’t plant young plants out until the soil has reached consistent temperatures of 70°F or higher.

Give your plants about 10-24 inches of room. Your fruits will be ready for harvest when they have taught, shiny, firm skin that doesn’t pucker when pressed.

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