Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, salad and braising greens like beet thins, endive, and Napa cabbage, the last of spinach, asparagus, sun chokes, green onions, radishes, herbs, and the first of the snap peas.
Field Notes. This is one the year’s busiest times for Ken. He is juggling so many things: planting the sequential crops like lettuce, planting the last of the “full season” crops like potatoes, cultivating all the small plants in between rains until they form canopy, and moving, and fencing animals.
The hens are consolidated and near the mobile high tunnel. New chicks have hatched, The garden is fenced to keep the geese – now free range on lawn crew – out of the crops.
We are moving from radishes – the first of the solid crops to peas and soon baby carrots and beets!
From the Kitchen. Last week I froze asparagus and this past weekend I froze some spinach for winter. It always amazes me how a t- shirt handle bag once blanched becomes three pints!. If ever you are told to eat more greens, consider braising or salting to wilt and decrease volume without sacrificing too much nutrition. And if you find a green to have a bit too much “bite ” for your liking, wilt or braise, and that will make the greens” flavor milder. I often cook up some side pork or bacon, add greens to wilt, and then add either vinegar or cream and serve.
I have been putting beet greens in salad for texture, color and flavor ( sweetish) and in braising mixes. Beet green have less oxalic acid than spinach and can be substituted in spinach recipes – as can chard. All three are cousins.
Asparagus has peaked. we usually have it until July 4th. After that we need to let the plants grow and store energy for next season.
‘Til Next Week, Judith
