Pages

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

June 21-27

Picture-A-Day:

6.21.11
We joined a CSA this year (click here for more info on what a CSA is). This is my first share pick up! I've been wanting to join one for years, but there was never one close enough to home. I read an article in the paper early in the spring about Rise Up Farms, which is in Elkhart! This is their 2nd season running. And the best part is, they have a pick-up location just down the road from our house. It was so exciting to unload all my veggies, they smelled so earthy and fresh. It's a challenge to use only these vegetables each week, but it is a week's worth, so I'm determined to buy as little from the grocery store as possible.

6.22.11
Oh my heavens, Derrick took Sage for a ride on his motorcycle. She loved it. She's been on 2 rides now, and she's hooked. Every nice days she says "It's a really nice day for a motorcycle ride, isn't it Daddy?"

6.23.11
I have no good story to go with this one, just Daddy playing "three-headed monster" with his boys.

6.25.11
This is my garden after 9 hours of work (I worked 6 hours on Saturday and my neighbor helped me for about 3 of those hours). We got most of the jungle cleared out. For the past couple years the boys have been too small and demanding for me to get much work done in the garden. This year they're able to piddle around the yard all day while I work. The back left corner is what's left of the jungle. The front right corner where you see green is where Derrick dumped the grass clippings - it helps keep the weeds down. It doesn't keep them down completely, but it helps a lot. I also bought a weeding hoe and some Preen which is supposedly organic weed stopper. I prefer to be a purist, but I just can't keep ahead of the weeds on my own.

6.26.11
I found this beautiful sage growing under my porch! It was sticking out from under the bottom stair. I had a pot of sage a couple years ago, and I figure it must have seeded. So I pulled these and hung them from the clothes line to dry.

6.27.11
And this, my friends, is wild spinach. Never heard of it, you say? I hadn't either until I got a bundle of it from the farm. They said "It's wild spinach. It grows like a weed." I have a TON of it in my garden (that jungle in the back corner? mostly wild spinach!). I "did a Google search" and found that it's even more vitamin packed than "regular" spinach, and apparently you don't even have to tend it because all these years I've been throwing it in the compost with the weeds. I have so much of it, I'm not sure what to do with it all. I read that it could be dried and stored, so I'm trying that. So if anybody wants some wild spinach - it tastes much like regular spinach. You can use it in a salad, cook it into spaghetti sauce, or whatever you would do with spinach. I will share of my abundance.
I love growing season. It's so satisfying and fulfilling to eat from my own garden. And I also really love the fresh produce that comes from the farm just a couple miles away.

2 comments:

  1. I can appreciate your hard work on the garden. Keeping up on weeding feels like a part time job.

    ReplyDelete
  2. all looks great. put some of your spinach on personal pizzas...good protein...

    ReplyDelete