Thanksgiving Meal Ideas from Your Garden

First things first: Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Bella Giardino Landscape and Garden Design! We hope you, your family and your friends all enjoy the precious time you share together this year, whether it is in person or over a video call. We all still have so much to be thankful for this year, so don’t forget that!

Now, as we all probably agree, 2020 has gone by in a flash, so it’s no surprise that none of us feel like it’s really Thanksgiving time. But we are here, so let’s pull out or festive hats and get some delicious Thanksgiving meal ideas ready! Although Thanksgiving is a little late in the gardening season, and most of us are most likely not thinking about our garden at this point in time, it may help to plan your garden now for next year’s Thanksgiving Day meal! We have some easy yet fun vegetable ideas to add to your garden that you can plant and incorporate into your Thanksgiving dinner for 2021. There is nothing more fulfilling that eating a meal that came from what you harvested yourself.

Side Dishes

There are so many delicious side dishes that was can add to our Thanksgiving feasts, but we often have too many to choose from and fit on our plates. We thought we would provide you with some yummy yet healthier ideas that can come directly from your own backyard to add to your side dish options next year. Below are some incredible side dish ingredients that can be grown in your garden and frozen or stored for use next November:

• Sweet Corn
• Green Beans
• Sweet Potatoes
• Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Brussel Sprouts

The corn and green beans should be canned or frozen just after they are harvested in the summer months, but the rest of these items can then be harvested right before the holiday time frame. Potatoes do need to be cured in a warmer, humid location but then they can be stored at a cooler temperature for multiple months. Brussels sprouts are typically harvested in the Fall and can withstand below freezing temperatures, so they can be grown through the season and harvested fresh on Thanksgiving Day as well. All the other veggies above can be stored and saved as needed to ensure they are kept fresh for everyone’s favorite family feast. Regardless of your taste buds, any of the above vegetables can act as perfect side dishes that everyone will love!

Desserts

The most popular, staple desserts for Thanksgiving are typically pumpkin or apple pie. Either seem to always be present on the dinner table for this family feast, so how perfect is it that you can grow the ingredients yourself! Just like the side dishes, the main portion of these delicious desserts can be grown in your very own garden.

Pumpkins are perfect harvest options for Fall since they are great for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. Of course there are many different types of pumpkins for both holidays, so choosing the proper species of pumpkin for your pumpkin pie is very important. Processing pumpkins are the perfect type for making pies since they work better for baking purposes and are more manageable in size. These pie pumpkins are usually smaller, sweeter, and less watery than a jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin, which makes them much easier to bake with. So just make sure the type of pumpkin seed you plant next Spring is the type that you’ll need for baking.

Apples can also be picked from your own tree in your backyard and can be preserved in multiple ways. People often use them to make their infamous apple pie filling, so these fruits make it very easy to freeze or can for storage until Thanksgiving Day. Fresh apples store fairly well under home storage conditions for up to 6 months, so they can just be harvested and stored indoors for use in your holiday pies until you need them. Interestingly, apples store best around 32 degrees, so we all know how simply living in Colorado makes that stipulation much easier for us!

Although you may not be able to grow all ingredients needed to make your Thanksgiving dinners from your backyard gardens, a good portion of your dishes can come from your homegrown fruits and vegetables. Colorado does limit us to growing specific items, but for the majority of essential ingredients, we can harvest most of our own Thanksgiving dinners ourselves! Keep this in mind when you go to plant your garden next year so you can properly prepare for what ingredients you do want to grow in your own backyard for the 2021 holiday season. The feeling of providing for your friends and family is absolutely amazing and worth all the extra work.

Once again, take time this Thanksgiving to be thankful for all that you do have because 2020 has definitely shown us what could be taken from us in a moments notice. So be safe but still share love with family and friends this year. Happy Thanksgiving from your luxury landscapers!