What's Up Wednesday

I can't take credit for these eggs, or even for the chickens that hatched them. I basically just want to share that my neighbor gave me some eggs from their chickens and that the eggs were delicious. How awesome is neighborhood bartering? More on this soon.

Oh, Oregano- You grow so well by the side of my house where I didn't plant you, and so poorly in my garden where I did.

The Cilantro I started indoors in January is now epic- it's being housed in the kitchen window until it's warm enough to plant outside!

That's right- those little green guys on stems are prehensile CHERRIES!

The raspberry vines are starting to form pre-rasperry clusters.
I Cannot. Freaking. Wait.

What's Up in your Garden Today?

Asparagus with Olive Oil & Lemon

If you're in the S.E. Michigan/Northern Ohio region, chances are that you've gotten your first taste of fresh asparagus for the season already- yep, it's that time! I swung by the Ann Arbor market this past Saturday and there was a long line for fresh asparagus at the two booths selling it.

Being the formerly picky person that I am, I only recently started liking asparagus. By liking, I mean actually trying it. At any rate, I always want to buy it- it's one of the first green veggies in season in the spring that's not in the leaf greens family. I haven't accumulated that many go-to asparagus recipes; I hope to find 5-6 new ways to prepare asparagus this season. Here's one of them!

Asparagus with Olive Oil & Lemon

Ingredients
15 stalks medium sized asparagus
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon zest 

1 teaspoon lemon juiceSalt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

• Prep the asparagus by rinsing them well and cut off white bottoms and compost/trash them. Cut into 1 to 2 inch sections, slicing the asparagus at a slight diagonal angle.
• Fill a medium sized saucepan half way with water, and bring to a boil. 
• Add the asparagus and reduce heat to a simmer. 
• Boil the asparagus for 2 minutes, then drain the hot water. 
• While the asparagus are still hot, add olive oil, lemon zest and lemon juice to the pan and mix.
• Add salt and pepper to taste

Serve and Enjoy!


What's your favorite way to enjoy asparagus?

What's Up Wednesday

Garlic is looking good- nice and tall! In about a month to a month and a half, we'll have garlic scapes!














Little carrot plants are so dang cute. I like the point when they start to get their first fern-like leaves and you remember, "oh yeah- I planted carrots here!"

The first set of Potato plants are coming up as well

Can you tell what this is, besides a terribly out of focus picture of my hand? I had to share- It's a mini, tiny asparagus stalk!!!! I was worried the plants didn't establish, but looks like they're doing well! 

What's Up in your garden today?

Silent Sunday



 Chives!

    

'Speckles' Lettuces looking beautiful in the garden



Kale and onions in the side yard bed

 

If I can get my hands dirty in the garden, it's a good day.

Happy Sunday :)

     

Strawberry Jam Smoothies

Smoothies are pretty much the perfect breakfast- any time of year! My ability to make smoothies year-round depends greatly on how ambitious of a canner I've been the past summer and what kind of frozen, local fruit I can get my hands on.

I accidentally discovered Jam Smoothies when I was trying to fix a blender problem- when making smoothies in the past, I'd add yogurt and ice first. The ice wouldn't crush quickly or easily because it would get all clogged up at the bottom of the blender.

I had several jars of strawberry jam from last season that hadn't set right- they are more "strawberry puree"- so I tossed some into the blender with the ice and yogurt. Voila! Enough of a liquid base that the ice broke down much more easily, and the strawberry "jam" added a hint of sweetness to my drink! If you're not a canner with unset jam, you should probably substitute strawberry puree for your smoothie instead.

                                                                                                                        "Jam" Smoothies

Ingredients: 1 pint Jam of your choice/or fruit puree
1.5 cups Frozen Mixed Berries
1 cup plain greek yogurt
6 ice cubes

Directions: 

• Add the yogurt, the jam, and the ice cubes into the blender. Set the blender to "ice crush" and then blend until ice is incorperated into smoothie mixture. The liquid from the yogurt and jam will help you blend the ice down without having to manually un-jam (haha) the blended several times
• Now add the Frozen Mixed Berries! Blend to your liking

Serve and Enjoy!



Homefries with Kale, Onions, and Garlic

I harvested my first kale leaves (curly dwarf kale) from the garden this morning, as well as a green onion, and though, "What to make for breakfast with these?" I spotted russet potatoes I have left over and thought "Homefries!" 

I'm always trying to sneak kale into different recipes- I don't love it as much as others do, but kale is really healthy for you, it's pretty, and it's cold-hardy which is important here up North! So here's the recipe I cooked up- it was quite good. 

Homefries with Kale, Onions, & Garlic

Ingredients:
2 medium russett potatoes, peeled
3-5 kale leaves
1 scallion/green onion
1 clove of garlic
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Pour the olive oil into a small frying pan and set on the stove, on medium heat
• Meanwhile, dice up the potatoes into small, hashbrown-ish pieces (1/2 inch is good)
• Add the hashbrowns into the sizzling pan, and let them brown a bit
• Dice up the green onions and mince the garlic- add to pan after about 5 minutes 
• Cut the kale leaves from their stems, and chop into small pieces
• Taste potatoes or poke with a fork, to see how much longer they need
• Add kale to the pan when potatoes are almost finished.
• Add salt and pepper to the dish as needed

Serve and Enjoy!

How to Plant Potatoes in your Home Garden

Have you ever grown potatoes in your home garden? If you have a sunny spot and a few feet of space, they're really easy to grow! Today I planted the first of the seed potatoes in my garden, & I'll show you how to plant them in yours too.

A few facts about potatoes:

• The potatoes you order and plant (or save and then plant) are called seed potatoes
• Potato plants get to be about 12-16 inches high!
• Potato plants will have pretty flowers on the top 
• Correct spacing for potatoes is 1 per 12", with 12" between rows

Step 1: Dig a 3-4" deep trench across the length of your bed. If you're planting in a 4'x8', you could have 4 trenches  8 feet long.

Step 2: Place potatoes in trench, 12' apart. You want to place the eye of the potato up towards the sky.

Step 3: Cover the potatoes with 1-2 inches of soil. In several weeks, they'll start to push out of the ground with little buds.

First Potato plant leaves

Step 4: As the plants grow, you can level out the soil. Once potato plants get to be 5-6" tall, you can begin to mound up the soil at the base of each plant, to give your potatoes more space to grow!

Good luck with your potato growing! :)

Mature potato plant- pretty, right?

What's Up Wednesday

This is what's "up" in my urban garden today!

The two dwarf cherry trees are in bloom. Last year each tree produced 1 cherry each, so I'm hoping for more like 10 each this year haha! They're now 3 years old so they're starting to branch out & produce more.

Garlic is looking good- I have 37 heads of garlic growing- hopefully that will be enough to last me through June of 2013! I purchased 4 delicious varieties from my local garlic friends/farmers- if you can find locally-grown garlic near you, it is a worthy investment for eating, and planting too!

Kale, lettuce, leeks, onions, and carrots are planted at the South end of this long bed in the picture. Sugar snap peas are sprouting down at the far end by the fence. 

Just harvested out of the root cellar/garden! I've been using up the last of the carrots, and pulling the few onions that didn't get harvested last fall to use as green onions. Soon I'll have fresh new onions and carrots.

All out of garlic :( I got pretty close to getting through the whole year using only homegrown/local garlic- I think that's sort of awesome. Garlic scapes will come up in June, so there's really only a 2 month gap that I have to "outsource" my garlic. Yeah!

Holly bushes are planted!

Tonight after work we used the last 1/2 hour of daylight to get those hollies in the ground past the back fence! They're small, but they look nice, and we're excited to see them grow! It's nice to plant and spend that time outdoors, even if it was only for a few minutes today.

          

              

Get to it! Tackling those garden projects you've always said you'd do..

Now that's spring we're finally tackling those long-neglected yard projects that have been just waiting for the perfect weather. Like what, you may ask? Among other things, more seed starting, some minor landscaping, and protecting those newly-formed little buds from the upcoming frost!

First on the list- Seed starting! Last weekend I started more basil (globe), as well as my summer peppers (yolo and jalepeno). Over all, all the seedlings are doing great- the onions are now 8 inches tall, cilantro is growing strong, and I've set out all my lettuce, kale, and spinach in the garden. I started all my tomatoes yesterday too.

Also- Backyard landscaping! Over the weekend, my mom and grandmother came up for a visit, and no visit is complete without some kind of plant-related adventure, right? We drove over to Lucas Nursery, located in Superior Township by Canton, MI. Lucas had a ton of amazing perennial shrubs and trees, and this was a good a time as any to find the perfect shrubs to grace our back little strip of yard, that had previously been a weed wasteland until a few weeks ago.


We picked up 3 of combination Blue Prince/Princess Holly plants (shown above). They'll be placed across said wasteland (see pic on left), and will eventually fill in that area and become amazing bits of color & interest, as well as providing some privacy! They can get to be about 10 feet high and 8 feet wide- woah! I'd settled for 4' by 3'. Excited to get this area more cleaned up and more attractive-looking: it's right on the street so it'll be nice to have hardy shrubs that will be less trashy looking than weeds and randomly-strewn flowers.


Lastly- a cold front is coming in! Hurry- save the fruiting trees!! Here in S. E. Michigan, it's supposed to dip down to 25 degrees tonight- quite chilly compared to the 80 degree temps we've been having recently. Many trees have budded out early and are even beginning to flower, including our little cherry trees, our big weeping cherry out front, and the raspberry canes. I grabbed some spare sheets (and pillowcases) to drape over the more susceptible plants- I don't want to loose the potential for all of those delicious black raspberries!

I do think I'm a little bit clever- you'll see that the sheets covering the budding cherry trees have a cherry blossom print. Half coincidental, half intentional. :)

Spinach, Carrot & Ginger salad with homemade lemon dressing

This is quite a simple recipe, but it's quite delicious. A great way to make use of that fresh spinach from the farmers' market. The ginger gives it a surprise little zing, and the lemon dressing is light, fresh, and tasty- the perfect compliment. This has been our dinner for the past several nights, and I this continuing to be a trend!

Spinach, Carrot, & Ginger Salad w/ homemade lemon dressing

Ingredients:
3 cups Fresh Spinach, chopped
source: Ferris Farms, Ferris MI
1 small piece Ginger-
source: local food co-op
2 medium Carrots-
source: my root cellar
2 tbsp. Dried cranberries-
source: Michigan-grown from local food co-op



Dressing-
1/2 lemon
source: local food co-op
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
source: local food co-op
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
source: local food co-op
1 sprig Oregano
source: grow lights in basement
1 sprig Thyme
source: grow lights in basement


Directions:

• Take chopped spinach and add to a large salad bowl
• Grate ginger and carrots into small, thin slivers- add to bowl 
• Add cranberries to salad as well
• In a small bowl, squeeze the juice from the lemon
• Add the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano, and thyme into the small bowl with the lemon juice
• Whisk dressing together with fork or a small whisk
• Top salad with dressing, and make sure to distribute dressing evenly

Serve and Enjoy!