July 21, 2009

A lot of things are just starting to grow in the garden. I've thinned all of the new vegetables I planted, so they should start to develop fairly soon. The tomatoes are coming in quickly, and the broccoli is finally starting to grow heads. This is big news, as I wasn't sure if it would sprout in the summer heat. Broccoli will continue to produce side heads after the main head is harvested, so it should be fairly productive.It is really important to control the cabbage worms now, as they could destroy the crop.

We're going to start collecting newspaper for weed control. It's a cheap alternative to weed fabric, and a great way to do some small-scale recycling. If you come out to a work day, please bring newspaper or cardboard with you!

We have a couple of plants in the garden that aren't very popular. I think they're delicious, and they're highly productive and nutritious. These are kale and collard greens, and I thought I would show how they can be cooked. There's a lot of interesting ways to cook them, but one really tasty recipe is sesame kale. There's a receipe here: http://www.harvesteating.com/public/928.cfm. Essentially, you just chop up the leaves and then stir fry them with some shallots, soy sauce and sesame seeds. It sounds tasty!

July 07, 2009

Please come out to the workday tomorrow from 6-8pm. We did not hold the Sunday workday this week because it was raining. Wear long pants if you plan to come out; the mosquitoes can be vicious at night.

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and the okra is coming in the second bed now. I've been going out to pick it every morning- the pods get tough and hairy if you wait until they're longer than 2-3 inches to pick them. Soon we will have a large amount daily, if someone is interested in having the vegetable. Personally, I'm not a huge okra fan because of the texture, but I tried to experiment with a recipe for sauteed okra and red peppers that I found online and it turned out quite well. It gave the okra a nice crunchy texture that distracted me from the sliminess. The recipe can be found here:

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/8/Sauteed-Okra-with-Roasted-Red-Peppers

There are several suggestions online for ways to prepare okra to reduce the slimy texture. The most practical seems to be slicing it thinly and then leaving it to dry overnight. One day I'll have to give it a try...

June 30 2009

Yesterday I picked a lot of the beans, hoping to stimulate later growth. There are so many!

I also pulled up the remaining five beets and picked a row of edamame to see at what stage of ripeness their flavor is best. I cut about seven branches of NZ spinach that were sticking out around the bed. I weeded a bit and pruned one of the broccoli beds, trimmed back the cilantro that had started going to seed, and pulled up some of the salad greens that had already bolted. My boyfriend and I picked off the tops of some of the lettuce that looked like it was getting to bolt; we ate it for lunch as a salad.

Today I get to cook all of that. My boyfriend is doing the cooking; he also helped me in the garden yesterday and today. He's a wonderful cook. I picked and washed the spinach leaves. They look delicious.

The leaves are more fibrous and have a much stronger flavor than regular spinach- we sauteed it with onions, lemon and garlic to complement the flavor. We also baked the beets- we wrapped them in tinfoil and put them in oven at 400 degrees for an hour. We sliced the beets and put them over the spinach, and ate them with pan-seared chicken marinated in a soy sauce mix.

We also did some work in the garden today. I bought some seeds for the garden from Home Depot, and we planted them! In the spaces left from the plants I picked, we planted radishes, bok choi, and sweet and genovese basil. We also planted two frames of the new trellis with a type of long bean good in stir fry. We decided to give the potatoes one more week to finish producing and then pull them up and replant the bed.