A hearty welcome to all new members!

Spring is tip-toeing in, up here in the Great White North! We are anticipating (and you can too) our first delivery to happen on Wednesday, 5th June. (That is, barring any 12" of snow or 2’ of rain or a swarm of locusts!) As usually happens, the non-essential personnel (i.e. weeds) figured out the weather first, but the essentials (i.e. crops) are catching on nicely. Spinach is probably the prettiest!

Spinach is a beautiful thing.

We did have a Mother’s Day weekend thunderstorm that took out the 4 low tunnels guarding the early vegetables, so flea beetles (the bane of my existence!) took that as an invite to the mustard greens and boc choi. For now we are back to the “lacey” variety of those leafy greens; we’ll work on more of the “standard” varieties as we go forward. We also had a light frost after the zucchini and summer squash were transplanted…the jury is out on their survival and emergency seed order is on its way. (No photos of that—too painful!) All in all, things look quite good, albeit slow.

The high tunnel is moved to Position #2, prepped and all planted in tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet peppers. Roger finished installing the trellising cables just this week, so we are well situated to begin pruning and training the tomatoes and cucumbers to their single-string trellises. All we need now is a bit of sunshine; we have a forecast of 60% chance of thunderstorms and overcast skies thru Friday this week. Great for morel mushrooms, tough for the sun-lovin’ vegetables.

The rain (a little rain, mind you) will be good for the cover crops Roger planted this week; oats and peas are the standard here in the spring. They will grow for about a month, just until flowering, and then be plowed under and the space planted in warm season crops. A little nitrogen and organic matter boost for those kids. We are watching the rye and vetch planted last fall; it is about 14" tall now and doing their jobs of suppressing weeds (in picture below, yellow equals weeds, green equals rye/vetch) and boosting nitrogen. Once mowed, we will steal their tops to use as mulch for the high tunnel crops, and then till them under to serve as food for the pumpkins/winter squash and sweet corn scheduled for that space. What a cycle! Keepin’ it down on the farm…

Green is beautiful.

Recipes for your Consideration

Ok, last recipes using storage hangovers from Fall! A hearty little soup for these overcast days and some fries for dippin’ on a warm weekend evening.

Lentil and Wild Rice Stew

1 onion, diced
2-3 ribs celery (optional)
3 large carrots, sliced or diced
2 cups brown or green lentils (dry)
2 cups wild rice (uncooked)
1-2 quarts stock (that you canned/will can in the Fall)
1 bay leaf
2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
¼ cup brandy (optional)
More water as needed to cover the lot by 2" or so.

Everything in the pot or crockpot! Slow cook at a simmer for 2-4hrs. Stir occasionally and add small amounts of water as needed to keep it soup-like. The lentils and wild rice will thicken it up nicely.

Goes nicely with a slab of toast brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with dried, ground garlic.

Potato and Carrot Fries with Horseradish Dippin’ Sauce
Potatoes, scrubbed and sliced ¼" thick by 3-4" long
Carrots, scrubbed and sliced ¼ thick by 3-4" long
Olive oil
Sea salt

Place as many potatoes and carrots on cookie sheet(s) as desired (distribute to multiple sheets to maintain 1 layer).
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.
Massage and stir and rub them all around to coat. (Rub/masssage your hands to get the added benefit of a nice olive oil/sea salt exfoliation!)
Bake 350F for 10min; turn and stir. Bake additional 10-15min to desired done-ness.

Horseradish Dip
1 cup Veganaise (or equivalent mayo-type dressing)
2 spoonfuls prepared horseradish (really easy to make…we’ll try to debut the roots this Fall)
¼ tsp sea salt

Mix all together and serve with hot fries for dippin’.