Whether being encouraged by one’s mom or physician, we’ve all heard about the importance of “eating your fruits and veggies.” Making fresh produce a consistent part of your diet is brimming with benefits that include lowering blood pressure, reducing heart disease and stroke risks, positively impacting blood sugar levels, increasing energy, reducing weight gain, and so much more. In keeping with National Nutrition Month, your friends at Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful are happy to pass along some earth-friendly tips for acquiring fresh produce – whether growing it in your own backyard, staking a claim on a local community garden plot, or perusing the stands at a local farmer’s market. It’s a win-win for your health AND the planet!
At-Home Harvest
Whether you live in an apartment or have a home on a couple of acres, there are a wide variety of ways to establish your own garden of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. If you live on the fifth floor of an apartment building, you may be a bit more limited. However, a number of herbs and veggies perform well in containers. Included among them are basil, different varieties of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, bush beans, chives, microgreens, and more. To ensure your balcony garden’s success, avoid using containers that are too small, make sure your containers offer proper drainage, avoid over or underwatering, make sure your plants are getting the appropriate sunlight, and add compost to your potting mix for a natural fertilizer.
If you live in a home with a decently sized backyard, you have a lot more leeway with regard to the variety of fresh produce you hope to grow. It all depends on how much of your yard you’d like to devote to your backyard garden. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, you should start by picking the right spot. Make sure it receives 6-8 hours of direct sunlight each day to accommodate most vegetables, that the soil drains well (if not, you may want to install a raised garden), that the soil is nutrient-rich, and that it’s not too windy. Think big but start small to ensure you’ve selected the right spot AND that you have the discipline to be a gardener. A 10’ x 10’ plot if planting in the ground or a 4’ x 8’ raised garden are a great start.
As for choosing the best vegetables and fruits to plant, the UGA Cooperative Extension is an invaluable resource. CLICK HERE to learn what vegetables grow well in Georgia – they run the gamut from asparagus to watermelons. For tips more specific to our area, UGA offers a Gwinnett County Extension Office. You can go there for a lunch and learn workshop on everything from beekeeping to terrariums or visit their website regularly for tools like a Vegetable Planting Chart. No matter where you’re based, the Farmers Almanac lists lettuce, green beans, radishes, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, beets, carrots, spinach, and peas among the 10 easiest vegetables for beginners to grow.
Community Cultivation
If an at-home garden proves impossible because the conditions just aren’t right, there are several community gardens throughout Gwinnett County that might prove a more viable option for you. Live Healthy Gwinnett’s Harvest Gwinnett initiative encompasses nearly a dozen park-based community gardens that span from West Gwinnett Park in Berkeley Lake to E. E. Robinson Park in Sugar Hill. At the time of publication of this blog, they were accepting plot reservations for the 2025 planting season. Additional options include the Community Garden at Snellville, the Lilburn Community Garden, and Lanier Community Garden, among others. Many offer workshops to enhance your gardening skills and community share rows to fight food insecurity and help families in need.
Leave It to the Experts
While we’d all love to be graced with a green thumb, that’s not the case for everyone. If you’ve tried and failed at at-home or community gardening, it might be wise to admit defeat and leave it to the experts. Instead of simply going to a grocery chain or big box retailer for your fruits and veggies, you can elect to pursue a more sustainable path by supporting your local farmers. Gwinnett County is filled with farmer’s markets that not only allow you to source your produce directly from area farmers, but it gives you the chance to shake their hands and say “thank you” for their service to our community. Here are just a few you might want to add to your must-visit list over the months to come – whether while your own garden grows or as your main produce supply chain:
Grayson Market & Gathering Place
Living Well Farmer’s Market in Suwanee
From all of us here at Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful, we wish you the very best on your health journey during National Nutrition Month and beyond. We also have our fingers crossed that – whether you’re a novice or a seasoned gardener – your next harvest is a bountiful one. We invite you to share your garden and/or harvest photos on our Facebook page – they just might inspire others to follow your example! If you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe to our monthly e-blast at the bottom of our home page, which includes tips from our resident Master Gardener, Carmita Rivera. Now, get out there and GROWWWWWWWWW!
Sources: Vegetable Gardening for Beginners: The Complete Guide https://www.almanac.com/vegetable-gardening-for-beginners
UGA Cooperative Extension https://extension.uga.edu/
UGA Cooperative Extension – Gwinnett County https://extension.uga.edu/county-offices/gwinnett.html
KB 2/26/25
