Around the world on a healthy diet

Dark leafy greens, tomatoes, chilies, fresh local veggies and herbs...

Sounds delicious!

These are a few of the healthy foods you'll find if you explore the beauty and diversity of diets enjoyed around the world. You'll also find them all in a local community garden!

You can check out this link for more about that: (a great article on the "10 Healthiest Ethnic Cuisines").

The days have been lovely out in the garden.  Cool mornings give way to summery afternoons and we leave the garden with overflowing bags of fresh veggies.  Today's discovery: lemon basil!  It looks and smells a bit like lemon verbena but with the wonderful sweetness of basil.  We were thinning things out in the fairy garden and enjoying an amazing lemony aroma coming from what we thought might be lemon balm.  When we looked for a plant marker we were surprised to discover that lemon basil was the source of our enjoyment!  Just another unexpected delight and one of many in the garden!

You can find a recipe for lemon basil herbed rice here: click for link.  It sounds like a great side dish to serve with a local veggie stir fry.  (And if you need some lemon basil for your meal you can always stop by the garden to get some!). :)

We need to get a picture of that dish to post (please share one if you try it) so for now here are a few recent pictures of the garden:

rainbow chard

nasturtium

mini winter squash 
Have a great weekend and enjoy your veggies! ;)~Marykaye

August is the Perfect Time for a Ripe tomato!

Gardening is new to me and I find that all season I have entered the garden each day with a sense of adventure and can honestly say I find it every time.

 

I completely love the August gardening experience which provides the full summer heat during the day balanced by the coolness of the early morning breeze and the occasional call of the Canadian geese as they begin their migration. It gives me the pleasure of knowing that our gardening days this season are numbered, but with the reminder that the best days of fall harvest are still ahead. I marvel at the bounty of tomatoes that have our tomato plants bending to the ground from the weight of ripe tomatoes that need to be picked. It isn't uncommon to hear "Oh!! That's Good!" as we enjoy the sweet pop of summer in our mouths from the cherry tomatoes we eat while we work.  

 

As I look around the garden I am amazed at how much has been harvested from just a few months of work. We are really happy to share that we've donated 197 lbs. of fresh produce to Channels Food Rescue in addition to the bounty of vegetables that we are enjoying ourselves.  So much has been accomplished and so many have benefited from the garden in a very short period of time. That's the eye-opener for me. I think about it often and wonder what could be possible if we approached everything in life from this new perspective. It's really a paradigm shift. Where we once thought we had to do it all by ourselves, we've learned that we accomplish so much more with collaboration. Where we believed that individually we didn't have the time or resources to really do much, we've learned that collectively as a group, we have everything we need.

 

I came across this wonderful poem called "Cherry Tomatoes" by Anne Higgins that sums up the garden's gift to me this summer.  In her poem, Anne describes herself sitting on the ground in her garden in the middle of August eating cherry tomatoes right from the vine. "…the juice bursts in my mouth"; "I feel that I am in the mouth of summer, sloshing in the saliva of August".  Anne continues to vividly describe her experience of the tomatoes, the garden, the season, and then shares the "aha!" gift from her experience, "and my own bursting heart splits me with life".

 

I hope that you are finding your way this summer to the best tomatoes possible and that you experience the "Oh My! Aha!" moment. If that hasn't happened yet, please don't let the opportunity pass to stop by to visit us in the garden and we will not let you leave with an empty mouth or hands!

 

Be Well and Enjoy Life!

Karen

 

 

local news and recipe roundup

A warm welcome to any visitors from the recent Patriot News article about the garden!  We were so happy to have been featured in such a great article and to have had a chance to meet a wonderful local gardening resource: George Weigel, author of the column "Over the Garden Fence".  I wasn't able to find a copy of the article online for those that missed it, but you can read more of George's great tips on gardening at www.georgeweigel.net .  In the meantime, I've scanned an "old-school" cut and paste copy of the article that you can read here (click for link).

We are deep into the season when tons of produce rolls in, and it's always a lovely sight at the end of the day when we see all of our baskets filled to the brim.  So what do we do with all that produce?  It's been wonderful to have enough extra to easily give some away.  And luckily, we also all love to cook!  We thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite recipes using the abundance of produce that's been coming in daily.  We're also hoping to start taking more pictures of our own dishes to post along with our recipes.  For now, here are a few favorites from online (including many simple, quick recipes for when you don't have a lot of time to cook during a busy week):


For tomatoes:

Tomato Confit  (quick roasted tomatoes w/herbs to add to sandwiches, bruchetta or homemade roasted tomato sauce)

For zucchini:

Zucchini Crab Cakes  (a vegetarian recipe that you can also prepare baked in the oven)

For peppers:

Inside-out stuffed peppers (you can use veggie crumbles in place of the meat and layer the casserole, but this link highlights this a simple way to throw this together)

For eggplant:

a delicious Indian dish called Baingan Bharta

If you have all of the above available (mixed summer veggies):

Roasted french vegetables  (you can use ground fennel in place of the fennel bulb if you don't have one available)

Vegetable stuffed tortillas  (you can saute just about any vegetable and serve it in a whole grain tortilla with beans, tofu, meat or cheese for a healthy meal or snack)

For swiss chard, spinach or other greens:

Swiss chard with tomatoes

Greens fried rice

For green beans

Roasted green beans  (you can prepare just about any veggie this way and it will be delicious)

We've also begun planting some of our fall crops in the last couple of weeks including more beets, carrots, greens and cole crops (cabbage, brussels sprouts and broccoli).  Amazing to feel a little bit chilly this morning in the garden after all of those recent 90 degree temperatures! 


Here are some pictures from this week:

a new bed of beets, carrots and greens

second planting of lettuces, greens and cole crops

~Hope you are having a great time enjoying all of your favorite local veggies, too!

  Marykaye