What's Growing?

Today I pulled three more radishes (and about 8 nice green beans), and added them to about 10 more radishes I got in my CSA box.  I made the Rachel Ray braised radish recipe that I listed in a previous post.  Radishes cooked that way taste really good!  Very hearty tasting.  Below are the three I pulled.  I still have quite a few left in the ground.

I recently started up some ever-bearing strawberries in a part of my garden that needed some ground cover.  Darn it!  I just realized I didn't document the variety that I bought.  I bought these as seedlings from the nursery.  Darn it, darn it, darn it....  I've gotten two strawberries off the four plants I bought, and I have two more strawberries growing now.   My intention was to let them spread as ground cover, and if they bear fruit, all the better.

Below is a picture of my oldest square foot garden.  The spinach, lettuce and swiss chard is really getting big.  I cut quite a bit of it tonight for salad.  The kale is in the lower right-hand corner and still a bit small.  Broccoli is in the upper right.

Below is my newest square foot garden, growing slooooowwwwllllyyyyy....  The parsnips haven't sprouted at all.  The turnips came in spotty.  The spinach came in nicely.

And last but not least, here are two rows of mesclun that I planted.  Do you know there are like three ways to spell mesclun?  Mesculn, mesclun, and mesculin.  "Mesclun" has a wiki page, so it must be legit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesclun)!

I found a nice blog with some nice pictures of mesclun:  http://stuffnathanlikes.blogspot.com/2011/04/mesclun-greens.html

Here is a picture from that blog showing different lettuce varieties in a mesclun salad mix.

http://stuffnathanlikes.blogspot.com/2011/04/mesclun-greens.html

Today's CSA Box:

Here's what we got in today's CSA box:

A head of romaine, a bunch of radishes (bigger than mine!!), a bag of swiss chard, a bag of green beans, 2 oranges, 2 apples, 4 squash, 1 pepper, 6 eggs, small jar of honey.  All for $15.

Now I need to figure out how to (still) cook the beets from last week's CSA box, and then figure out something creative to do with radishes.

This looks good, a braised radishes recipe:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/braised-radishes-recipe/index.html

 

Dinner Last Night

I went out and pulled even more radishes in the evening, plus some lettuce, swiss chard and spinach.  Everything is coming in really nicely now, so I'm just harvesting a few leaves from each plant.  Take a look at the salad I made.

Swiss chard (upper left), buttercrunch lettuce (upper right),
spinach (lower left), radishes and carrots -- all from my garden

Salad!

Then I made leg of lamb in red wine with onions and garlic (I made up the recipe) and couscous (I followed the recipe).  I got the Leg of Lamb from Whole Foods market, it's organic/local.

Hubby liked it so much he ate 4 portions of dinner, and we have no leftovers now!

Big Radishes!

I haven't been able to look at my garden in the evenings this week.  With the time change it's just been to dark in the evenings.  I finally got a chance to look Saturday morning and things are looking great!  All my lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard is coming in great.

This morning I pulled two big radishes that were really poking out of the surface.  I also pulled two carrots that were showing.  I can't wait until it's time to harvest my carrots that are planted in the really good soil.  I hope they look really good!  I think this batch of radishes looks so much better than the other batch because these are in better soil.  That soil mixture I put together is really worth it!

My CSA Box:

I get a CSA box each week.  $15 a week from Brian's Farmer's Market.  I get the small box.  It always has 5-6 eggs in it, a small jar of honey, and then lots of veggies.  Here's a picture of this week's box:

This week I got:  6 eggs, 4 carrots, 3 beets, 2 batches of asparagus, 1 orange, 2 apples, 1 GIANT onion, a sack of small tomatoes, a bag of swiss chard, and honey.  Then typically we'll go around the market and buy a bit more.  Usually strawberries.

Now I have to learn how to cook beets!!!

More Chicken Videos:

Another chicken video.  This lady is in San Diego and has quite a few chickens in her backyard -- but it looks like she has a big backyard!  My front yard is huge, but my backyard is kind of small.  Hmmm....  what to do, what to do?

MyPetChicken.com

Just saw this on Bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/bloomberg-enterprise-my-pet-chicken-10-9-Tw~LKy1pSJGH3e9c718YoA.html

This is a really interesting news report on the couple that runs the mypetchicken.com website.

Besides having nice chickens, feed, and coops for sale, they also have cute gifts.

I think I want one of their cute tin signs:  http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Tin-Signs/Farm-Bureau-Co-op-Chicks-Tin-Sign-p300.aspx