The Multi-Vitamin Garden

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The hunter stalked his preythrough the awakening forest. As the early rays of the sun filtered through the branches overhead, he moved noiselessly from tree to tree. Finally halting, he quickly but carefully fitted an arrow to his bowstring, aimed and let, fly. This time he hit his mark; he was glad, because he had not eaten since the previous day. He walked to where his arrow had fallen, carefully removed the chocolate-covered jelly doughnut, and walked away.

Jonathan V. Wright, M.D.

The above fanciful passage from Dr. Wright's Book of Nutritional Therapy (Rodale, 1979) makes the point that, though our bodies and their nutritional requirements haven't changed all that much from the time when we were hunter-gatherers, our eating habits have changed dramatically and recently. The refined foods that most of us subsist on have been around for barely 100 years. That means gardeners don't have to reach so very far back to create a diet superior to that of the average American. Even the act of growing your food provides an essential vitamin - D, from sunshine. And a person can grow enough food to supply the rest of his or her complete nutritional needs for one year in a space of only 1,000 square feet. Yet few of us put any real thought into the nutritional values of the crops we grow. If we did, I imagine we'd be surprised by our discoveries. Indeed, the crops that rate as nutritional "superstars" aren't even raised by most gardeners. To help you boost the health-promoting power of your garden, we've assembled cultivation information on ten of the all-around most healthful plants you can grow.

Sunflowers

If you read through the vitamin and mineral chart, you'll see that sunflower seeds are a nutritional powerhouse. They are amazingly health-promoting, but there's a hitch: The nutritious nuggets are packaged quite well. Some folks dehull their seeds by putting them in a blender with water (the chopped hulls float, while the heavier seeds sink) ...by rubbing them across a screen box made of hardware cloth... by running them through a hand mill ...or by just plain shelling them by hand. In truth, there is no easy way in; build a better home-scale sunflower seed huller and the world will beat a path to your door. Some sources will tell you to plant sunflower seeds in warm weather, but I've seen magnificent volunteers pop up when I was still in long johns. You might try sowing both early and late in the season. Full sun is a sunflower's delight, as is adequately drained soil... though the crop will tolerate less than ideal conditions. With little other care, the golden monarchs will reward you with a burst of colorful bloom and then later with large seed heads. (You may want to tie some sort of netting loosely over these to keep birds from eating your crop.) Sunflowers are a Native American crop - one that was used extensively by the Indians. And based on their food and flavor value, they're still heroes in their own country. Mammoth Russian and Giant Single sunflowers both have particularly high protein contents.