Introduction Growing your own food is great fun It’s fascinating to watch the tiny seeds that you have sown turn into delicious fruits and vegetables After weeks of weeding and watering you will be proud of your tasty home grown produce Get Planting Get Cooking In this book you’ll find out about how plants grow and you can follow instructions for how to grow a range of vegetables Once you have your crops follow the recipes for delicious meals snacks and desserts From pesto pasta with a twist to a chocolate cake with a hidden vegetable ingredient the recipes will show you some of the easy yummy ways you can use fruits and vegetables in all your meals But they are just a starting point Use your imagination to come up with your own recipes Your Own Patch Growing fruits and vegetables doesn’t mean that you have to have a large garden You don’t even need to have a garden at all Walls balconies window ledges and fences are all suitable for growing crops Just fill some window boxes or hanging baskets You’ll soon have some tasty vegetables to eat Having a small garden also means you won’t need to do so much weeding or watering Be sure to check the best times for sowing planting and harvesting in your region because climates vary widely It’s time to get planting cooking and eating with your friends and family 6 PLANT COOK EAT
What Parts of a Plant Do We Eat Let’s think about how many different parts of a plant we eat What’s your favorite vegetable Can you tell if it’s a root a leaf or a flower Roots Plant roots come in different shapes and sizes Some roots are long and get food from the soil to the plant others are thick and store food and nutrients Carrots parsnips turnips radishes and beets are all root vegetables Stems We also eat the stems of many plants such as asparagus and rhubarb Although potatoes grow underground they are actually part of the plant’s stem Leaves We eat some plant leaves such as lettuce raw Others such as cabbage we usually cook Leaves such as Swiss chard or spinach can be eaten either raw or cooked 8 PLANT COOK EAT
Flowers Can you think of any edible flowers Cauliflower and broccoli are actually tiny flower buds and when they are left to grow they turn into small yellow flowers Seeds Seeds are often contained in a case called a pod Sometimes we eat the seeds from these pods such as peas And sometimes we eat the pod and the seeds such as green beans or sugar snap peas Fruits We eat the fruit produced by many plants such as apples and oranges But did you know that zucchini tomatoes eggplant and pumpkins are all fruits too Next time you cut open a piece of fruit have a look at the seeds inside it All fruits contain seeds Bulbs We also eat bulbs such as onions and garlic A bulb is another part of the plant used to store energy When a bulb is left to grow it eventually produces leaves and flowers PLANT COOK EAT 9
