A summer evening with the boys....relaxing

Some photos from a relaxing  evening visit with our steers last night.   It was beautiful warm evening, much more appreciated thanks to the cooler, rainy days we've been having.    Here's our three steers, Mean, Ugly and little Trouble enjoying the lush summer grass.   One of my favorite sounds is the happy munching of cows - it is very, very  relaxing to listen to.  We've got one more steer, an Angus/Simmentaler that arrived two weeks ago as well.

Beet Greens!

We've got beautiful beets and beet greens coming along - they've been responding well to the rain, and we're working hard to keep up with thinning them.

Store the beet greens in a plastic bag in the fridge - do not just lay them on the shelf - they wilt (like all greens do...).  The beets can be cut off and stored separately, they keep for quite a while.

Roasted Beets and Sauteed Beet Green

1 bunch beets withgreens

1/4 cup olive oil, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons chopped onion (optional)

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C). Wash the beets thoroughly, leaving the skins on, and remove the greens. Rinse greens, removing any large stems, and set aside. Place the beets in a small baking dish or roasting pan, and toss with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. If you wish to peel the beets, it is easier to do so once they have been roasted.

Cover, and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a knife can slide easily through the largest beet.

When the roasted beets are almost done, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and onion, and cook for a minute. Tear the beet greens into 2 to 3 inch pieces, and add them to the skillet. Cook and stir until greens are wilted and tender. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the greens as is, and the roasted beets sliced with either red-wine vinegar, or butter and salt and pepper.

From Allrecipes.com

 

White Bean and Garlic Scape Dip

1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste

1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.

1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups.

From the New York Times, June 18, 2008

Garlic Swiss Chard

Ingredients:

• large bunch Swiss chard

• olive oil (preferably extra-virgin)
• garlic cloves, greens or scapes  thinly sliced

Cut thick stalks and ribs from chard leaves. Chop stalks and ribs into 1/2-inch pieces. Cook stalks and ribs in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 5 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer stalks and ribs to plate. Add chard leaves to boiling water in pot. Cook just until wilted, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Drain well. Squeeze excess moisture from chard leaves. Coarsely chop leaves.

Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté until golden, about 2 minutes. Add chard stalks, ribs and leaves to skillet and sauté until liquid evaporates and mixture is heated through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

And the planting never stops...

Blessed days in the garden....I'm enjoying the sounds of songbirds, the chattering of ducks.   Although many days I'm a solitary farmer,  engrossed in listening to NPR podcasts  on my Ipod as I weed and hoe, other days take on a different, more meditative and introspective pace.    Yet others are days are just plain family time, even more precious now as kindergarten looms on the far horizon.   Yesterday Mattie and I had a good day together in the garden.    Truly nothing compares to the happy stories of a five-year old, excited to be harvesting everything needed for our dinner salad all by herself; pulling tiny baby carrots softly from the ground and choosing just the right colors of the rainbow swiss chard.   

We're busy planting in the garden, and weeding, and harvesting, and moving chickens, and mowing the grass, and mulching, and days are just not long enough.... Tom made good use of some our rained-on round bales of hay by mulching parts of the garden.  We love using roundbales as mulch, as they help suppress weeds, keep in moisture, provide lots of food for our earthworms, and also habitat for all sorts of beneficial spiders.

Veggie Season has arrived!

The season is off to a wonderful start!  Our early seedings of peas, beets, lettuce, onions, spinach, chard and carrots are looking great, thanks to well-timed rain in early spring.
It seems you’ve all been enjoying the garlic greens – a rare delicacy which has gotten rave reviews.   Snip them up into salads, stir-fry them – be creative!  It’s wonderful garlic flavor in green crunchy form.   Hmmm...

Our spinach is already winding down, thanks to the few hot days we did get (hard to remember those right now...), but snow peas and sugar snap peas are weighing down the trellis, and lettuce is absolutely beautiful.   We’ve been using the tender beet thinnings, roots and all, thoroughly washed and then chopped into a salad – delicious, and ohh so colorful!

We’ve had a fun spring, with Mattie’s playschool friends visiting us one day, and the two kindergarten classes from Centre Hall spent three hours with us the following day.    Weather was perfect, and the kids had a good time climbing in with the piglets and even eating spinach fresh out of the garden.

Once again, we’ve taken part of the garden out of production to build the soil with cover crops.   On a yearly basis we take part of the garden out of production to raise cover crops, and pasture our pigs in there.    It is great for nutrient management and helps break up any disease cycles of the plants.  And the pigs love being moved to a new section every other week or so.   This yeat the center strip of our garden was seeded in spelt and hairy vetch as cover crops over the winter, and I scattered some assorted outdated seeds in a section closer to the house – which is now a lovely jungle of lettuce, parsley, dandelion, cilantro and hairy vetch.    The pigs were moved into a section yesterday with a lot of cilantro that had already gone to seed – those piggies sure smell good!   The beneficial insects which we encourage in our garden are also enjoying the habitat which the cilantro provides.