Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has greens – lettuce, spinach, salad and braising greens, parsnips, sun chokes, potatoes, cilantro, and asparagus.
Field Notes. Whew! We had 80+ degrees one day and under freezing a couple nights later. It was a bit shocking. Some pepper and tomato plants got nipped inside the green house, and Ken will replace them. we are watching the fruit – last year we lost several apples and most of the grape crop to late season frost.
Ken is preparing beds to plant. it is a balance of keeping soil covered with green manures like rye and and minimizing the time the soil is bare and ready to plant. Ken frequently and emphatically states. “Naked soil is dying soil.” What he means by this is that naked soil is eroding and heating up and not promoting organic matter and carbon accumulation and microbial life in the soil.
From the Kitchen. Sunday was a busy day here and for supper I got three salads ready for whenever Ken got in from the field. If I know it will be late I simply walk a supper out to him. But he seemed uncertain whether or not he would be in the yard. For a main course I fried up some minced bacon, pulled the bacon out of the skillet with a slotted spoon and pan seared the asparagus. then I cooked some pasta and combined it with asparagus and bacon and some home made mayonnaise.
I made a radish salad like the one I had as a sample last Wednesday. I scrubbed and sliced and salted radishes. then added chopped onion tops or chives, cilantro, and some sour cream or yogurt.
Finally a tossed green salad with a salted preserved lemons, olive oil, and capers dressing with a bit of pepper and maple syrup
“Til Next Week, Judith
