Friday, February 13, 2015

planning my parents garden

My dad has kidney disease and has just started on dialysis. He has a pretty restricted diet as he can't eat foods that are high in phosphorus or potassium. His doctor has given him a list of all of his dos and don'ts. No tomatoes, no beets, no peas, etc. We looked at this list while planning what to plant in his vegetable garden this year. (I don't know if these vegetables are OK for all kidney patients, so please check with your own doctor if you have kidney disease.)

Kidney-safe plants for Mom and Dad's garden:
Onions
Garlic
Broccoli
Lettuce
Carrots
Peppers
Eggplant
Cucumbers
Summer squash
Green beans
(I don't know why winter squash isn't here. I have to ask if that's OK and if they want it this year. They usually like acorn squash a couple big pumpkins.)

A few of these non-kidney-safe plants for Mom:
Peas
Beets
Tomatoes

And we talked about basil. Its hard to know whether to plant it with the new basil mildew. I was going to pass it up, but my parents would like some. I'll write a separate post about that.

2 comments:

Margaret said...

I had big issues with basil downey mildew last year but there is now apparently a resistant variety - "Eleonora". I'll be getting mine from William Dam Seeds, but in the US, I've seen it at both Johnny's and High Mowing Seeds.

Unknown said...

That was a very nice plan that you made for your parents to help your father. I hope he is doing well.