Boost Your Nutrients with Burpee Boost!

I have discovered a dietitian’s dream in the garden. Vegetables that produce even more nutrients for more bang for your buck! This new line of vegetables called Burpee Boost has up to 500% more antioxidants which just means you are harvesting even more health!

When I get ready to plant my garden each year, there are three things I keep in mind when I design my garden bed:

• Tip #1: Grow what you love to eat – this is really the best place to start!
• Tip #2: Grow what is low maintenance – which is pretty much any vegetable!
• Tip #3: Grow something that can help you harvest health and can enhance your health all growing season.

1. Sweet Heat Sweet-to-Spicy Pepper: Capable of producing 65% more vitamin C – which is excellent for enhancing immunity and healthy skin all summer long.  It will grow in both a garden or a container off your front step as long as it gets 6 to 8 hours of full sunlight each day.  The scolville rating (a measure of capsacin) is 300 – compare that to a bell pepper at 0 and a jalepeno at 3,500.
2. Healing Hands Salad Mix: A mixture of different types of lettuces that have up to 20% more lutein (a necessary eye health nutrient), 30% more total carotenoids (essential for protecting your cells rom the damaging effects of free radicals ), and 70% more anthocyanins (powerful antioxidants).  You can harvest this lettuce every three weeks throughout the season and it loves cooler weather.
3. Cherry Punch Small-Fruited Tomato: Delivering 30% more vitamin C and 40% more lycopene (an antioxidant that is a powerful cancer-fighter) than other home garden tomatoes.  Perfect for the garden or a container on the patio.
4. Gold Standard Cucumber: 500% more beta-carotene compared to other home garden cucumbers.  Not only can you eat this cucumber fresh but it is also good for pickling.

• How did the Boost line come about ?  The Burpee BOOST collection was developed by Ball Horticultural Company breeders in conjunction with Burpee. The BOOST varieties have been selected and bred based on their inherent high nutrient levels. For example, yellow and orange coloring is closely related to higher levels of carotenoids. The Gold Standard cucumber has been bred to have a gold flesh and five times the average amount of beta carotene.
• Has there been research as far as the bioavailability of the extra nutrients – are humans able to readily absorb them?  Ball breeders have selected the BOOST varieties for this collection because they produce higher levels of the same nutrients produced by similar varieties. The nutrients provided in the BOOST varieties aren’t “extra,” but count more toward your dietary requirements and are more of what a person’s body needs.  None of the BOOST varieties have dangerous or toxic levels of these nutrients.
• Do you foresee other vegetable and FRUIT options in the future that will fall under the Boost category?  Burpee Home Gardens is working to identify additional high-nutritional vegetables for the BOOST collection, but have not yet confirmed which varieties will be introduced next.
• Any other tips with these vegetables?  These varieties do not require any special care and can be grown and consumed just like any other garden vegetable. These varieties are great for beginners as they are compact, easy to grow and grow well in small spaces, like patios and rooftops. The vegetables are prolific, and yield a high number of fruits and vegetables.

Thank you to Burpee Home Gardens for all of this valuable information.