More about greens...

Chard ready for harvest

Greens as wraps
With young leaves I sometimes use them as a sandwich wrap for a slice of cheese, ham, roast beef, or spicy tofu  Collards work especially well for this. Put the slice of cheese, for instance, at the edge of the leaf and roll it up.

Greens and pasta
The following is what I frequently do with greens.  Boil a big pot of water for pasta and salt it.  Once it comes to a boil, add the greens to blanch for two to three minutes.  Pull out the greens with a slotted spoon into a colander and flush with cold water to cool.  Set aside.  Bring the water back to a boil, add the pasta to the greens water to capture some of the nutrients from the greens.  While the pasta is boiling chop up the greens.  When the pasta is ready, drain it to a big serving bowl, while still hot add the chopped greens and cottage cheese or goat cheese or ricotta cheese (1 cup or so) mix and serve. 

Martha Rose Shulman has a number of fantastic recipes that are not complicated:
http://www.martha-rose-shulman.com/

Here's what she wrote for the New York Times for Swiss chard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/18/health/nutrition/swiss-chard-and-rice-soup.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/health/nutrition/31recipehealth.html

Please no more rain

During our virtually snowless winter and our dry spring, gardening/farming folks and my mother all said something like," I hope it does not mean we'll  have a wet and cool summer."  I cannot generalize about weather trends, but I can say that we have had a surplus of rain.   

The potatoes were coming up nicely and having dodged the Colorado Potato Beetle, I was feeling good.  On Saturday, Kamal dug up the dirt to make it nice and fluffy in preparation for hilling a third time (just because we had the soil and to buy less straw for mulching).

  But the rain gods had other ideas...

After the hailstorm with an inch rain

 We'll try again next weekend. 
 

What to do with all those greens?

This weekend, Kamal spent three hours mowing between the paths and the field edges. With all the rain the weeds (best habitat for insect pests) were flourishing.  Meanwhile, I was doing the last big planting of fall crops-- that is collards, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

Eventually, having all the greens folks want ideas for what to do with them.  With the help of the internet, I have found number of ideas.  Here are some greens.

arugula

With arugula, I add it to salad, of course.  However, your young children may not like the taste!  Then, there's arugula pesto -- with extra cheese on the pasta it maybe palatable for kids.  Here's a recipe that I found useful: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/arugula_pesto/   Maybe an arugula, brie panini (buttered bread and enough brie to cover it and add arugula- a  slice of apple can really tie it together- grill it like grilled cheese, unless you do have a panini maker). I  am pretty sure that kids will hate it, though. 

lemon basil

Genovese basil

Speaking of pesto, lemon basil can add a welcome brightness to pesto.  It's is also good in salads and salad dressing.  Genovese basil  may be the type used for pesto originally.  If you don't have a food processor, I make a roughly chopped pesto of basil, walnuts, olive oil, garlic and grated Parmesan or Romano.  One cup of nuts and handfuls of cheese until, I get the saltiness that I want.

Staying in Italy, there is Tuscan kale (also goes by Dinosaur kale to appeal to kids?) and curly kale.  Both varieties I grow and they can be used in the same way.   Paula Wolfert has so many excellent recipes: http://paula-wolfert.com/recipes/kale_beans.html

Curly kale

Tuscan kale

 Solea in Waltham, MA does this great dish with collards and I use chard, kale or even collards. It is blanched collards, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and raisins- maybe some heat in the form of hot peppers or chili flakes.  Heat the oil, add garlic and pine nuts (I often use almonds.) and raisins, when you can smell the garlic add chopped greens.


When all else fails there is the simple stir fry with the protein of your choice (chopped tofu or chicken) with oil, onions and garlic, and chopped greens. 

If you have too many greens, I blanch them and freeze them for the winter. They are already washed; all I have to do is thaw and chop to add them to something.

The kitchn blog has excellent instructions on blanching. 
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-blanch-vegetables-home-108570

The promise of vegetables to come

The flowers are the promise of vegetables to come.  In the field the cucumbers, summer squashes, winter squashes and tomatoes are flowering. 

I have sprayed a food-grade clay on many of the crops to confuse the bugs. You'll see it in photos.  The clay will wash off when it rains, like today, and tomorrow I will spray it again in hopes of  little pest damage. 

Lemon cucumbers open for pollinators. 

As well as lemon cukes, I am trying a new variety of pickling cucumbers this year that self-pollinates.  I only have to open the row cover to harvest.  With luck, this may mean that I yield more cucumbers and deter the cucumber beetles damage.

It's funny how I am excited at the beginning of the season for little things, like this flowering zucchini.  If things turn out as I wish, I will be so-over zucchini.

zucchini with the baby squash. 

Melons and winter squashes.

Acorn squash with a baby squash

Winter squash spends an awfully long time growing, much can happen before this is ready to harvest.

Spent sometime before the rains to prune and trellis the tomatoes. Some of the sungolds have fruit!

 We'll have to wait until September for the fingerling potatoes.  This weekend we did the second hilling of the potatoes.

 
Let's hope for sun and that I can deliver a bounty for my first CSA delivery on June 21/22.

Time for Landscaping

These rainy days allow the weeds to proliferate and encourage the grass around the field.  The grass makes good cover for rabbits (and other pea-eating) mammals as well as providing habitat to insect pests.  So, it is time for landscaping. 

Here I am with my new weed whacker. I never thought that I'd be doing this but weeks of rain leave us with plenty to do.