Gardening
Garden-Fresh Vegetables Help Fight Cancer
Tomatoes contain lycopene, a powerful antioxidant with many health benefits, including lowering the risk of certain types of cancer.
Photo credit: photo courtesy of MelindaMyers.com
Cancer prevention starts on your dinner plate; actually, it starts in the garden. Growing your own nutrient-rich cancer fighting vegetables allows you to grow pesticide-free vegetables, harvest them at their peak, and use them right away, ensuring the highest nutrient value and best flavor.
Be sure to include some broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and turnip greens. These cruciferous vegetables release cancer fighting substances that help fend off lung, breast, liver, colon, and prostate cancer. Three weekly servings of these vegetables can greatly reduce your cancer risk. Include these vegetables in your stir fries, as a side dish, as an appetizer or eat them fresh as a snack.
If your space is limited, these plants can easily blend into your current garden space. The bold texture and form of red cabbage makes an eye-catching focal point. Turnips can easily be mixed with flowers or planted between longer season vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. Or mix some kale in with your flowers; the color and upright growth habit creates a nice vertical accent in the garden or containers.
Another popular vegetable that is a cancer-fighter, the tomato, can easily be grown on any size balcony or landscape. And nothing beats the flavor of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. Whether eaten fresh, juiced, sauced, or added to your favorite dish, this lycopene vegetable (a powerful antioxidant) will help in the fight against cancer.
To grow tomatoes, all you need is a container of potting mix or a sunny spot in your landscape. Save space and reduce pest problems by growing these vines on a stake, in a tomato cage or supported by any decorative structure. Compact varieties like Patio Choice Yellow Cherry, Early Girl Bush, Window Box Roma, and Red Robin are just a few you may want to try.
Always select a tomato variety suited to your growing conditions. Check the plant tag to make sure you have enough warm frost-free days for the plant to grow and produce in your area.
Include fiber rich beans in your garden and meals. Regular consumption of this natural source of antioxidants and phytochemicals can help reduce the risk of certain cancers. Go vertical, growing pole beans on a support if space is limited and for making harvesting much easier.
Save a bit of room for red onions. Research at the University of Guelph found red onions had high levels of quercetin and anthocyanins that help fight cancer. Start onions from sets or plants and harvest when the bulbs are full-size, and the tops begin to yellow and topple.
Not only will you improve your health by growing your own nutrient-rich vegetables you will also improve your well-being. Tending a garden can help improve your mood and reduce stress.
Melinda Myers is the author of more than 20 gardening books, including Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio segments. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Latest Antiques, Collectibles, and Auction News
The Moscow Times reported that two paintings of Rasputin are headed to the auction block. According to the Moscow Times, "the portraits were done by Theodora Krarup, a Danish artist, in St. Petersburg. Karaup did a total of 16 portraits of Rasputin, most of which have been lost or destroyed. Krarup sold three portraits of Rasputin to the Finnish Consul General, Otto Auer. One was resold and its whereabouts are now unknown, but descendants of Auer consigned the two remaining portraits to the auction house. Grigory Rasputin was renowned--and reviled--for his supposed ability to stop the Tsarevich's hemophiliac bleeding and for his supposed influence on the royal family." Rasputin was assassinated in 1916. The Moscow Times reports that the auction estimates are $16,500 to $24,600 and $82,000 to $98,000.
In other art news, rockstar Alice Cooper is auctioning an Andy Warhol silkscreen on canvas. According to the Arizona Republic, the artwork titled "Little Electric Chair" was gifted to Cooper by his former girlfriend and model Cindy Lang. She paid $2,500 for it in 1972. Cooper said "I never was a Warhol collector. I collect other artists but I never really collected Andy Warhol so I'm sure there's somebody out there that is a Warhol fan," according to the Arizona Republic. It is estimated to sell for between $2.5 million and $4.5 million.
A collection of rare baseball cards is also going to auction. The collection belonged to Dr. Thomas Newman of Tampa, Florida who died in January of COVID-19 at the age of 73. ESPN reported that "he began collecting as a child, and through loving the sport of baseball, he had built a small collection of 1950s cards that was thrown out by his mother when he went to college." He began collecting cards again to replace his discarded collection when he graduated from medical school and the collection eventually grew to over 1,000 cards. The most valuable card is a 1933 Godey Babe Ruth card. "The card could fetch close to $5 million and the entire lot could eclipse $20 million," according to ESPN.
In other auction news, a Tiffany lamp recently set an auction record, according to the Antiques and Arts Weekly. The lamp was designed for the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris by Tiffany Studios. Antiques and the Arts reported that "the 29-1/2-inch lamp featured a hand-blown favrile glass globe-form shade on top of a hammered and patinated copper base. The spectacular imagery of the lamp depicts the growth cycle of a dandelion, the yellow flower rising from the base’s bottom up to its top, where it features a crown of seed puffs. The globe on top features a contour pattern similar to a topographic map, intended to represent the wind currents blowing through and sweeping the seeds away." The dandelion lamp blew away the record for any Tiffany work when it sold for $3.7 million dollars.
Our next multi-estate online auction is running and ends on June 16th. Our sports and non-sports cards online auction is also open for bidding and ends on June 23rd. More events are already planned. See our website for details on upcoming events: www.centralmassauctions.com.
Contact us at: Wayne Tuiskula Auctioneer/Appraiser Central Mass Auctions for Antique Auctions, Estate Sales and Appraisal Services www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com