Newsletter Articles
Edible Plants for Your Thanksgiving Table
Written by Kelsey W.
Thanksgiving is a meal that never seems to change for many of us, and it’s common to see the same traditional foods on the table every year. However, with a little creativity, you can dress up this year’s Thanksgiving feast with some amazing plants that are both beautiful and edible.
Many traditions include staples like turkey, stuffing, and something made of cranberries, but there are so many other festive autumn plants that can join you at the table. Maybe this will be the year that you put a pie out for dessert that’s something other than pumpkin.
Did you know that many families put a pecan pie or sweet potato pie on the table rather than a pumpkin pie? Sometimes, you might have some pumpkins on your porch from the Halloween season that would do well as pies, but if not, there are so many other ways you can go, especially with plants.
Let’s talk about some of the plants that can beautify your Thanksgiving table, as well as how those plants might enter into some of the new recipes you’ll make this year for your family and friends on the big day.
Carrots are Delicious and Decorative
It’s usually everyone’s hope that Thanksgiving brings some chilly temperatures around because no Turkey Day is complete without sweaters, sports, and food comas. One excellent option that pairs beautifully with sweater weather is soup, and the ideal plant for that is the mighty carrot.
While you might not associate carrots with Thanksgiving, they’re actually a popular part of stuffing recipes, but that’s not where this plant will shine on your table. Instead, consider making a creamy carrot soup as a starter for Thanksgiving dinner and also crafting some centerpieces with some carrots that still have their fluffy green tops attached.
If you’ve been growing your fall and winter garden and have carrots available from your own backyard, that’s great! But if you’re short on carrots from your own home, don’t worry! You can definitely get full-size carrots with their big, fluffy green tops still attached at almost any grocery store.
Create Beautiful Centerpieces with Live Herb Plants
If you’re making stuffing for your turkey or any other dish with several ingredients, there’s a good chance you’re using herbs to complete the flavor profile. We often use herbs from little jars when they’ve been dried for us or have been prepared for use, but that’s not the only way to use herbs.
Most garden centers will sell potted herbs that you can use as fresh ingredients for your dishes, as well as for decorations on your Thanksgiving table. Some herbs you might see listed in your traditional recipes include thyme, sage, rosemary, and parsley.
Now, you can always use these herbs in their dried forms when you make your meal, but consider adding fresh plants as decorative touches to your table or as accents around your home where people might be gathering during your Thanksgiving festivities. They’ll look lovely and enhance the aroma of your meal like nothing else.
Branch Out from Pumpkin Pie . . . Or Don’t
Pumpkin pie is a favorite for many families, so it’s understandable if you want to keep this traditional part of your Thanksgiving meal intact. What you may find fun is decorating your table with little miniature funny-shaped pumpkins, also known as ornamental gourds.
These little gourds come in all sorts of beautiful shades and shapes, and they do feel very autumnal in any display. Unfortunately, most gourds aren’t edible, so they’re just for display, but they do look amazing as a display next to the pumpkin pie.
If you’re weary of yet another pumpkin pie this year, you might want to branch out into sweet potato pie, which is a tradition for many Thanksgiving tables in the Southern states. You can even decorate your table with sweet potatoes if you wish, but the gourds will match just as well for the ambiance.
Dress Up the Wine with Grapes and Leaves
If you enjoy a glass of wine with your Thanksgiving dinner, don’t just present the bottle to the table and pop the cork. Instead, consider displaying your bottle amongst a bunch of grapes. You can rest your bunches on some leaves – grape leaves are ideal if you can get them.
If you’re drinking red wine, surround your bottle or bottles with some red or black grapes. If you’re serving white wine, grab some green or yellow grapes for display. You can create a display on a sideboard if you have room for it, or just place it in the middle of the table, too.
Perhaps your Thanksgiving dinner plans call for more beer than wine. You can create a display for the beer that includes fresh hops, which is one of the traditional four ingredients of beer (the other three being water, malt, and yeast).
Don’t Forget the Fruit for Your Table
The most common fruit we might think of at Thanksgiving is cranberries, but not everyone is a huge fan of those tart berries. Sure, they pair excellently with turkey, but your family members with pickier palates might end up skipping the cranberries because of their strong taste.
Citrus fruits offer the ideal alternative both for decorating your table with something beautiful and creating something edible and healthy for your Thanksgiving dinner. You can try something really simple, like a basket of fruit for your guests to snack on, or you can get a little fancier and place a dwarf citrus tree somewhere in your home.
Other fruits that tend to pair well over the course of Thanksgiving mealtime include pears and apples, the latter of which is often made into apple pie as an alternative to pumpkin pie. If you’re thinking about apple pie and ice cream, what better décor for your table than a fresh basket of apples?
Add Ears of Corn to the Festivities
If you look at any random image depicting an old-fashioned Thanksgiving, you’ll often see participants eating ears of corn. But somehow, corn isn’t a hugely popular part of the average Thanksgiving table these days. Sides like mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole are more popular than corn.
If you want to create a really traditional look for your table, consider adding corn to your display, as well as to your menu. You can use the classic corn on the cob for your feast (don’t forget the metric ton of butter!) and then decorate with the beautiful rainbow corn for your centerpiece.
If you’re super keen on using the multicolored corn for food, just note that it’s not usually eaten the same way as the familiar yellow corn on the cob because it doesn’t taste the same. Usually, the best way to eat it is as popped corn, which makes a great snack while watching the big game. Incredibly, the tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving started way back in the 1880s, many decades before any of us were watching the game on television.
Get an Early Start on Next Year’s Thanksgiving Table
If you’ve been inspired to create your own backyard garden, now is the perfect time to think about the plants you might want to see growing next year. Make a date in your calendar to plant your Thanksgiving carrots 10 weeks before the holiday so you can pluck them fresh out of the ground for the big day.
If you’re interested in covering your table and home with fresh herbs, you can grow them inside in a container garden or a windowsill at any time of the year. If you have a shady porch, many herbs can even grow happily outdoors, as long as they’re not in the direct sunlight for too long in the summer.
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to bring food from your own garden into your recipes because it’s a time for family and friends to gather together, which means the personal touches you can add to the meals will mean that much more.
Make This Thanksgiving Beautiful & Delicious with Help from Green Thumb Nursery
Want to create a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving table this year for your friends and family? Drop by your local Green Thumb Nursery for some inspiration and information about the best plants to display alongside your giant turkey dinner. Get new ideas for your garden and your kitchen with edible plants and gardening ideas from Green Thumb Nursery.
Do you like what you see? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get content like this every week!