Fresh from the Farm

Last Wednesday morning we found a box of fruits and vegetables on our front porch. A few days earlier we had signed up with Farm Fresh To You, which is kind of a CSA (click here for a good definition of CSA). Unlike more common CSA programs where you buy a share in a single farm, this program sources food from several different farms. This gives us a little more variety and hopefully makes it so we never get 15 pounds of kale at a single time.  We can exclude certain things if we really don't ever want to get them. Also, we can choose to get deliveries once a week, twice a month, or once a month, and can choose what size of box we get.

We went for the Monster Mix box--their largest available. So, what's in season in northern California right now?

5 Rome apples

6 Gala apples

2 bunches of carrots

2 pomegranates

2 bunches of Crimson grapes

2 Eureka lemons

3 beets

1 acorn squash

1 bunch of Dino kale 

1 bunch of radishes

1 bunch of baby broccoli

1 bunch of spinach

8 sweet fingerling potatoes (They're tiny!)

3 artichokes

1 head of garlic

We used some of the kale on Wednesday night for a delicious bean, sausage, and kale soup that the whole family loves (even if they won't all eat the kale part of the soup). Thursday I used the carrots in a homemade chicken noodle soup. And on Friday night I made beet greens. I cooked them with onions, garlic, a little water & sugar, and then a splash of balsamic vinegar on top. Crispy bacon was mixed in at the end. They were really good! Maggie and Gunnar both liked them a lot. Adah did not. I think Holly thought they were okay. Damon and I also both liked them. I think that recipe would be good with any green leafy veggie.

I've been trying to eat more seasonally for several years now, so this is going to be a fun new experiment for us. We'll get vegetables that I've never bought, but am willing to try. Then, if we really don't like it we can exclude it for next time. Also, all of this gets delivered to our door! We still have to see if this will be a good economic route. It all depends on how long everything will last and whether or not I still need to supplement with a lot of produce from the grocery store.

I can't wait to see what comes in the next box! (And I might not be able to wait a whole month; I might need to order one sooner.)

ZUCCHINI !!!

We grew zucchini every summer in White Salmon. Since I moved to California last month, I actually had to buy some zucchini. (Gasp!) I don't think I've done that for at least seven years. Truly. Once you've faced the July (and August and September) onslaught of these ever-producing squash, you're good for the rest of the year. You don't need to buy any imported zucchini at the supermarket in the off-season. 

Still, I welcome the onslaught. I've always said that I like to plant just enough zucchini that I feel a little overwhelmed. (Usually that means 3 plants.) Otherwise it just doesn't feel like zucchini season. Because, really, what says summer more than leaving anonymous bags of zucchini on your neighbor's porch or shoving foot-long squash into the unsuspecting arms of anyone who walks through your door? Nothing.

For me, the arrival of zucchini season means chocolate zucchini cake with peanut butter frosting. Oh yes. I make it with some of the very first zucchini off the plant. Damon says it's the best cake that I make. It is moist and rich and oh-so-delicious. You have to eat it with a glass of milk.

We also love penne with courgettes. Courgette is the French word for zucchini, and it's the word the British use for it. I have an English cookbook that has a delicious recipe calling for shredded zucchini to be sauteed with garlic and then mixed with cooked penne, eggs (that have been scrambled and then cook in the hot pasta), parmesan cheese, and fresh basil. Because we got the recipe in England, we feel bound to call our zucchini "courgette" when we make this recipe.

Let us also remember grilled zucchini, sauteed zucchini, zucchini casserole, zucchini bread, and zucchini waffles! Yes, folks. Throw some shredded zucchini in your waffle batter next time. You can reduce the liquid, and add a little cinnamon, too. I invented that one all by myself. Delicious.

We left behind our garden while it was still producing zucchini. I hope the neighbors have been picking it, as we told them they could. Otherwise I'm sure there are zucchini hiding under some leaves that are as big as pumpkins! 

Here's Holly! She finally got the zucchini in the right place.

And may I just say: Man those suckers got heavy! I had trouble keeping my grin. If I remember correctly, they weighed in at about 6 lbs. each!!



Raspberries (and other edibles)

Earlier in my blog catch-up, I showed some photos of our garden, promising a post devoted to our raspberries.  This is it.

We had a virtual bumper crop of raspberries this year.  We got the starts when our neighbors thinned their plants about 3-4 years ago.  This was by far our largest harvest.  I LOVE raspberries, so I was in heaven.

We picked bowls and bowls of raspberries.  We ate them by the handful, practically. We could just step outside and eat as many as we wanted at any time.  For the first time since we got the plants there were more than we could consume fresh.  I've got gallons of frozen raspberries in my freezer.  I made at least 3 batches of raspberry freezer jam (and that was after 2 batches of strawberry freezer jam with just one afternoon of culling my neighbor's strawberry patch).  I haven't purchased jam in a store for more than three years. I love living in berry country.

 

In other berry news: the blueberries were not quite ready and Maggie knew it.  I think she restrained herself from plucking that day.

 

Two and a half weeks later, the berries were fair game for Holly (and the rest of us).  Not that we could really stop her from picking green berries of any variety.  Actually, she learned how to identify ripe raspberries.  I think she loves them as much as I do.

And, for good measure, here's Gunnar in front of our corn.  We got a few decently edible cobs.  I think we grow corn for looks more than for any actual anticipation of a good harvest.  I discourage it--let's try a new crop!--because we can get cheap corn grown at a farm just a couple miles away, but Damon loves to grow it.

 

I love having a garden. : )

Cream Color

In mid-July when the garden was really leafing out and looking gorgeous, Gunnar found a beautiful moth amidst the vegetation. We never did identify it definitely; it had creamy white wings and zebra-like stripes on its body. Any entymologists out there have some ideas?

Despite our lack of scientific classification, the kids named the him Cream Color and made a habitat out of box covered with saran wrap and filled with rocks, leaves, and a little bowl of water.  When he turned out to be a she, evidenced by the eggs left in several locations on the sides of the box, we insisted that Cream Color be released into the wild so she'd have a true chance of reproducing.  She picked a spot on the beam above our porch and stayed put.  A "friend" joined her and they were there when we left on vacation a few days later.  Eggs were there upon our return.  We believe they'll lie dormant through the fall and winter and hatch in the spring.  We'll be watching.

"Instant" Results of Our Spring Garden Party

One of advantage of being four months behind on the blog is that I can see the amazing results of our spring gardening efforts outside my front door right now. In many ways it is a vivid contrast, when you compare our raised garden beds in July and August to what they were in April. The grass, I have to say, was a bit greener in the spring, but I think Damon's done a pretty good job of keeping the lawn looking lovely.

By the end of April it was time to get the yard and garden in shape after a long winter. We got all the kids to come out and help in a family gardening day.

Here's Damon gathering weeds from around the blueberry bushes, . . .

April

. . . which now are full of leaves and have already had their berries harvested. Below them is a jungle of squash vines.

July

Holly was definitely interested in those sweet blueberries.

August

Adah almost looks like someone out of "American Gothic."

April

Now below, you see the spot where Adah was standing from a different angle. The biggest change is in the full leaves on the trees, the purple wildflowers growing, and the wardrobe. Adah was in fleece in April. Maggie's comfortable in her leotard and chiffon skirt. (She was having a little photo shoot; don't ask.)

July

Gunnar and Maggie were obviously hard at work here. The children had been charged with cleaning up all the bricks, sticks, jumpropes, buckets, and other paraphernalia that had gone into building "Bird City" in a thicket behind Gunnar.

April

This must be Maggie's "Statue of Liberty Pose." Our winters (and sometimes springs) may be a bit dull and gray, as far as the sky goes, but man oh man do we get green grass or what? Now, look way behind Maggie back by the fence. See that vague brown flat area? Those are our raised garden beds.

April

Check them out in late July! This is about a month ago. Those plants under Adah's elbow are basil plants. They are now about as high as her waist! Mmm-mmm, pesto. Now we just need to start growing pine nuts and garlic.

July

I love that we have a garden. After several years doing some major landscape projects, it's nice to mostly be in the maintaining stage where we can just devote 1-2 weekends with each season change to the big stuff and then the day-by-day care is not so overwhelming.

Stay tuned for a more summer garden photos. The raspberries are almost worthy of a post all their won.

We're Nuts for Butternuts!

Count 'em, folks! We grew SEVENTEEN butternut squash this year! (Now, did you really count them? If you did, you only found 16. We gave one to a neighbor before we took the photo. ha ha)

Here is the biggest squash next to the smallest:

And, now, for scale:

I weighed that big boy before cooking it, and now I forget how much it weighed! It was too much for my kitchen scale and I had to take it to the bathroom scale. I think it was around 12 lbs.

Here are the three kiddos who did the harvesting, lovingly holding some of the tinier guys. They were very excited when the first use of the squash was one of our favorite recipes, butternut squash gnocchi. Check out the recipe on my other blog, Family Bean (which you may notice has not been updated for all of 2010).

We've never had such a successful butternut crop. They were planted in the same place as last year's cucumbers, so maybe we're onto something. Now we just need to decide what crop we want too much of next year.

The Eensy-Weensy Spider

The other night I was going outside after dark to dump our kitchen scraps in the compost pile and I nearly ran into THIS:

I just saw the spider kind of floating in the air because the web wasn't visible from where I was standing. The next day, after school, it was still there, and that's when I took the pictures. The kids were fascinated.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of this web, it's in the photo below, to the left of the post--you just can't see it in that light. It stretched from the floor of the deck up to the roof. The actual web part was down low, but there were several strands of web that connected it up to the roof. Amazing--and a bit creepy.

A view from the porch:

And from the side:

A Visit

We got a visit from Damon's parents, aka Grandma and Grandpa, in early September. They were en route to their own "Amazing Race" trip through Canada via trains, ferries, and the occasional taxi.

We were happy to relax with them on the front porch and to play Bananagrams at the kitchen table (after the kids were in bed).

Joanna (aka Grandma) and I also had our own harvest festival with basil, tomato, and zucchini. She picked, plucked, washed, and whirred our basil plants into several jars of delicious pesto sauce.

She also sliced cherry tomatoes and dehydrated them for her own supply of "sun"-dried tomatoes. (I've since made another batch for myself). I grated zucchini for bread and cakes and also made some fabulous sweet potato muffins. We filled the freezer, only eating some of our creations that weekend. I was just trying to get through all the produce piling up in my garden, pantry, and fridge before it spoiled and having some extra hands in the kitchen (Grandma) and with the kids (Grandpa) made it all possible. Thanks, guys!

And come again!

Leafy Greens

Holy rhubarb, Batman!

Do you see those leaves? They're like 3 times the size of Gunnar's head! That's rhubarb. It's pretty awesome-looking, I think. Before I moved to White Salmon I didn't think I liked rhubarb. I'd tasted it once (as a teenager?) in a strawberry rhubarb pie and I thought it was tart and didn't like it. I gave it another shot a couple years ago and then neighbors (different ones, yet again) gave us a plant. Now I make crisps, cakes, pies, jam, and even savory sauces out of it. If you think you don't like it, I recommend giving it another shot. Just add a little more sugar.

Now, check out these zucchini plants. Zucchini has a reputation for producing like crazy, but these are the healthiest-looking plants we've ever grown. There are three of them there and they are tall and strong. They mean business.

Finally, a panoramic view of our whole garden. The left bed has lettuce (gone to seed in this shot), kale, rhubarb, and tomatoes. We grew peas on the fence behind the tomatoes. The next bed is home to the zucchini, corn, basil, and a small cucumber vine. The next one has 3 blueberry bushes (one that didn't produce berries this year) and some very robust butternut squash vines. Seriously, we have some giant squash out there. The final bed, at the far right, is our raspberry patch. LOVE those berries.

Greening Up

Having shown you the sad state of our lawn earlier this summer, I am now pleased to report that the grass is green again!!

We got rain all Labor Day weekend and the grass perked up. After that weekend, whether related or not, the city decided to let us water again and we've been pouring it on (responsibly, of course). It's still pretty patchy in places from the summer trauma, but we plan to do some reseeding in the coming weeks. It is so nice to be able to play in the yard again, and the house's facelift now seems complete.

And here's a bonus shot of Gunnar in darling red boots by the tall corn:

Corn on the Cob

When my mom knit these slippers--

-- for Maggie last Christmas, we thought they looked like corn on the cob.

This surely proves it:

Cucumber Mania

Usually you hear about home gardeners being overrun by their zucchini crop. For some reason, our plants aren't big producers this year. We're getting zucchini, but not more than we can handle. In fact, on SUnday I had to use some of last year's frozen (shredded) zucchini to make our favorite summer cake: Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Yum!

But I digress from the topic at hand: cucumbers.

We started some of our own seeds in the springtime, but weren't confident that our plants would be successful once we transferred them to the garden. So, when my neighbor needed to thin her own seedlings, I happily took several and planted them beneath our blueberry bushes.

Fast-forward 2-3 months: This Sunday I picked 31 cucumbers. THIRTY-ONE!

I just thought I would go outside and grab one or two for dinner, but I kept finding another and then another and then another. (Please also note that about 4 weeks ago Damon picked 19 in one day, and 2 weeks ago I picked 13 at once.)

Adah & Maggie pose with our 31 cucumbers.

Everyone complains about too much zucchini. I've never heard of anyone lamenting an over-abundance of cucumber. Why is that? It seems to me that you can do a lot more with zucchini than cucumbers. I'm open to any new recipe ideas.

Meanwhile, we are enjoying all the bounty from our garden (1 of 4 beds seen above), and last night had a dinner that was almost entirely grown in our yard. We had some homemade pretzels along with all the home-grown veggies below.

Aren't the carrots cute? They have such a great flavor, too. This year is our best carrot crop ever, as well as best corn crop. I love having a garden---despite the overwhelming quantity of some plants.