Arugula Spinach Scramble

It's really warm here tonight, and for dinner I wanted something fresh and easy. So, out to the garden to pick the last of the arugula and some spinach, and some scallions for good measure. And then this cooked up relatively quick! All the ingredients except the EVOO and garlic are from my garden or from Hager's Farm, the local farm stand open year round. And the sage was dried from last summer.

Ingredients (serves 1 hungry person):

recipe adapted from Happy Valley Locavore

2 tbsp olive oil

2 small russet potatoes

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1 cup chopped greens

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

3 scallions, green parts chopped

1/2 tsp sage

1 tsp minced garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Saute potatoes, EVOO and sage in fry pan on medium heat, covered for 15 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

Add greens, onion, garlic and saute another 5 minutes until onion is tender. In bowl, combine eggs and milk and beat gently.

Add egg mixture and scramble. Add scallions, salt and pepper to taste at the end.

Delicious dinner on a hot night!

Montage

A fellow gardener from Pitchfork Farms in Charlemont told me about some heirloom Italian tomato seedlings she had. A man had given them to her, and they had been saved in his family for generations. So of course, I had to have some Sicilian tomatoes! Here is Red Pear Periformo. I also got Bolseno, Amish Brandywine and Chocolate Cherry. Thanks Pitchfork Farms!

Continuous Upgrades

A lot of stuff has gone on this past week. It seems like there is always something to plant, build, or dig. We have also has some gorgeous weather which all of the seedlings have liked. Plants have literally grown inches overnight!

Our pickling cucumbers, still hidden under row cover to hopefully prevent attack from the infamous cucumber beetle.

Pea Pod growing!

Remember our peas, leaf lettuce and mustard greens?

They are much bigger now!

Since I have been getting a lot of our seedlings in the ground, I realized I over estimated how many seeds to start back in March. Here are some extra tomatoes, and various squashes that I will be giving to my family and neighbors for their gardens

Got all of the squash beds planted. This bed will hopefully have a summer squash trellised and a honey boat winter squash trellised. Hopefully the vines won't over-take the bird bath.

And the biggest improvement over the past week is our tomato trellises! Marc whipped these bad boys up in about an hour! We now have 16 tomato plants trellised and another 10 that are determinate in front.

And one of the highlights of the week for me was being able to harvest some of our greens, scallions and radishes to give to our family. It is the best feeling cutting food from your front yard.

Worth 1,000 Words

Peppers are In

Yesterday I took a little tally on the veggies in the cold frames, and to my surprise, all of them have outgrown their 4x4 containers. So, since the peppers were in the smallest of pots and wilting in despair, I replanted them....all of them: Jalapeno, Bell, Spicy Thai, Marconi and some Eggplant for good measure. Then, Marc and I covered them with light weight row cover because it is still a little chilly for these guys.

Row cover with rocks holding it down...we have an abundance of rocks from double digging the garden beds.

Today, I FINALLY finished doing the prep work on the last bed! There is compost and airated soil in all the beds, and now begins the fun work of planting all the seedlings/seeds in the nuturing garden beds. I also replanted some broccoli, cauliflower and alyssum that had been damaged and killed because of the high winds we had for about a week. Hopefully these little guys will fare better!

Once again this year, we have our gorgeous hanging plants that have already started attracting the humming birds!

Let the Gardening Begin!

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and needless to say our winter was uneventful. But, there has been a lot going on here since the beginning of March! You remember how our front yard looked last fall....

It is starting to resemble a garden finally!

It took most of April to get the beds double dug, composted and ready to start seeds in, but already we have a lot growing on our little plot!

Tomato seedlings in our cold frames.

Shelling peas, leaf lettuce, mustard greens, verbena, and asters in this bed.

What we are Currently Growing:

Arugula, Beets, Carrots, Swiss Chard, Parsnips, Red, White and Sweet onions, Garlic, Shelling peas, Spinach, Butterhead Lettuce, Leaf Lettuce, Brussle Sprouts, Kale, Russet Potatoes, Radishes, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Pickling Cucumbers (under row cover), Sage, Rosemary and assorted flowers as living mulch.

In our Cold Frames: 3 Types of Tomatoes, 3 Types of Peppers including Jalapeno, and Eggplant.

Winter Improvements:

This winter we started doing serious water conservation in our house which means there are buckets of grey water everywhere. We have cut the amount of water we use in 1/2 just by saving the water from dishes and when the water is warming up in the shower and then using that to flush our toilet.

We have also joined a Co-op that sells bulk foods and local produce. And thanks to a great Christmas gift we are now making our own soymilk and tofu with our bulk organic soy beans.

And we are in the process of making some portable greenhouse structures to grow greens and other veggies over the winter. But, this is still in experimental stages!

All in all, things have been going well here, and the planting will be continuing! Now, I am going to enjoy our first salad greens of this season!!