Friday Favorite: Strawberry Season
Last night we have our first flush of ripe berries from the garden, they were delicious!
I planted these last year, we have ‘Sparkle’ Junebearing strawberry plants and everbearing ‘Seascape’. I wanted to give overbearing a try to see how they did. Last year they didn’t produce very many berries but it was their first year. We will see how they do this year.
We enjoyed the berries on strawberry shortcake, one of our favorite summer meals. If you’d like the recipe I posted it a few years ago on this post.
Next year we should have even more strawberries, our plants produce lots of runners. I’ll be moving all the ones that come this year to a new spot in the garden. Strawberries do well if they are moved to a new location every 3 years. I plan on adding a new section in the garden before the old one is exhausted so we alway have lots of berries.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy strawberries?
Share this:
The Bounty Begins
I love salad season. After a long winter of eating lots of root vegetables, salads really make my palate happy. Around mid-February I start to crave leafy greens but usually refuse to buy salad that’s not locally grown or grown in my own garden. Hopefully I’ll have a greenhouse someday to allow for a few green salads all winter long, until then winter means a famine of salad.
I’m extremely thankful that every evening I can head out to the garden to harvest a bowl full of various greens for our dinner. This year my focus was on red leaved salads since they contain more nutrients than green (for more information on healthier varieties of vegetables read Eating on the Wild Side.) There are also tiny French Breakfast Radishes to eat, I actually don’t like radishes, but I grow some each year.
Last night we also enjoyed Acadian Redfish as our maine course. I was reading an article about how this fish isn’t sold much because it’s considered “lobster bait” or a lesser species. Fisherman don’t make much on it. Our local fishermans co-op featured it and I decided to give it a try. Buying it helps the local fishing industry and it helps lessen the need for other popular fish. Here’s an interesting article from The Portland Press Herald about encouraging people to eat more Redfish.
What are you harvesting from your garden this week?
Share this:
Soothe the Itch with Plantain
Now that the weather has warmed the insects have come out as well. Here in Maine they come in droves at certain times of the year, at the moment black flies are biting like crazy. They don’t stop my from working outside. For the most part insects don’t bother me too much, but I do get bit on occasion. When I do I grab a leaf off a broad leaved plantain, pop it in my mouth and chew it for a few seconds, then I put the poultice on my insect bite.
This works like a charm every time, it also works well for bee and wasp stings. If you’d like to read a fascinating collection of the historical uses of plantains head on over and check out this article.
Do you have a tried and true way to dealing with insect bites?
Share this:
Grafting Tomatoes – Will It Work?
On Tuesday I grafted my first tomatoes. It should be an interesting experiment. The grafting seed stock was purchased earlier this spring and the seeds were started at the same time I started all of my tomatoes. You’re supposed to wait until your tomatoes have two sets of true leaves, which mine finally grew.
It’s really not difficult to graft tomatoes since tomatoes seem to want to live. I used this method from Herman’s Farm, I replanted a root grafting tomato and an heirloom tomato in the same pot. Then I simply cut the top off the grafting rootstock at a 45 degree angle and then cut a slit in the plant I wanted to graft and slid the rootstock stem up into the slit. I taped it with medical tape and in a week I’ll cut the stem of the heirloom tomato from the roots. Some methods have you cut the top off the heirloom tomato and graft it to the rootstock. This method seemed like I’d have better success for my first go at grafting.
After grafting all of them I spritzed them with water and down into the basement on a heating mat they went to give them the warm dark environment they will need. I also put a clear plastic tote over them to hold in the moisture. They were left in darkness for a day and when I checked on them yesterday they had all perked up and looked great. Today the grow light will be turned on and hopefully they will start healing their wounds.
I’m planning on planting these grafted tomatoes side by side with their own root counterparts in the garden. This will give me a good idea of how the grafting affected both disease resistance and fruit production. Stay tuned, it should be an interesting summer!
Are you doing any interesting garden experiments this summer?
Share this:
Quote of the Day: Jessica Prentice
“What if I had simply grown up in a time when food was seasonal? When there was, in each year, a time of more and a time of less? When food was not just there in packages on the supermarket shelf all year?”
– Jessica Prentice from Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection
Right now I’m hungering for asparagus. Every couple days I check the patch for signs of spears peeking out of the soil, every day I see nothing. It shouldn’t be too much longer, but it seems like it’s taking forever.
To me asparagus is the epitome of seasonal food, it really is best picked and eaten right away. There is a definite season for asparagus and I only eat it during this time unless I’m visiting someone who serves it. I love food that has such a short season and so long in between, it makes those few short weeks of gluttony so much sweeter!
What vegetable do you see as the quintessential season food?
