Green at the gills

There's been a boom of green in the garden lately, including a forest of lambs quarter seedlings. We've given about 30 pounds of chard and kale to Friendship Trays in the past month and the volunteer gardeners have taken home a great deal of greens as well.

We used chard to make creamed "spinach" last week. What's your go-to recipe when you have a glut of greens?

What to do with wild violets

A few weeks ago the wild violets were poking their pretty little faces up in the yard and I took the opportunity to try my hand at candied violets. Alongside my 5 year old daughter we brushed the delicate blooms with egg white, coated them with sugar, and set them aside to dry thoroughly.

They were so pretty I asked my baking expert friend Jude to make a special treat worthy of showing off the candied flowers. The cakes definitely upstaged the delicious violets, but not because the violets weren't amazing themselves.

Candied violets will be added to our rites of spring. Interested in adding it to yours? We'll have wild violets available at our fundraising plant sale on Saturday, April 11, 2015. Come out to support the garden, leave with a gorgeous array of interesting plants ready to inspire tasty treats!

Praying for food

Look what decided to hang out with us this summer!

Not Fried Green Tomatoes

Though we're mainly harvesting squash and zucchini from the garden, the tomatoes are coming in nicely. Unfortunately we've been so caught up in battling overgrown grass that the tomatoes have started producing and we haven't gotten them all staked and pruned!
On the upside, we had a big harvest of green tomatoes just from the tomato prunings.  While the other gardeners took their share for frying, last year I mentally bookmarked the idea of a green tomato tart. I looked into a few recipes and loosely based my recipe on this one from The Egg Farm.

I changed the recipe to what I thought would better suit my family's tastes since we have 2 little ones and a husband who is well-versed in southern foods. I added 2 layers of sauteed onions, a generous amount of thyme to the grated (Munster) cheese, and bacon. The sauteed onions added enough extra oil that you don't need to brush the pastry dough before filling it with the ingredients. Oh, and pile up the filling really high. I filled ours up to where I wondered if it would be too much and after it cooked I realized I could've added much more filling.

Garden-Fresh Sodas

For those who came out to the tour and tried the herb-infused simple syrups, the recipe is really easy, hence the name simple!
1 cup boiling hot water
1 cup sugar stirred into water until dissolved
1/2 cup herbs of choice steeped in the sugar water for 10 minutes. While you're steeping the herbs, make sure you cover the container with a lid or plate so the oils don't escape with the steam.  Every so often stir and bruise the herbs in the mixture. After 10 minutes, filter the herbs from the syrup, store the flavored syrup in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Use lavender syrup in lemonade, mint in mojitos, lemon balm and seltzer as a homemade garden-fresh soda...the options are endless!

May 10, 2014

This weekend we exhausted ourselves with planting. There's still (always!) plenty of weeding to be done, but in lieu of that un-fun stuff, we put in yarrow around the base of the grape vine, yellow cherry and Mr. Stripy tomatoes in rows, tons of bell peppers perennial flowers and a couple milkweed transplants that may or may not make it, and basil and veggies outside the fence. We already have cucumbers, sweet potatoes, potatoes, loofah, greens, dent corn, and a handful of perennial veggies in the ground. In a few more weeks things should really be filling in.

For your own yard and beyond

Attention Nature Loving Pals! HAWK Matthews is hosting Habitat Steward Training on June 23-25, 2014 in Matthews at the Community Center.

Call Debbie at 704-841-1372 for more information.