Ministry of Pie[e]

Jul 06 0 comments

Unusual Quantities

We’ve continued to get amazing harvests twice a week from Stefan’s work – bags of salad greens, kale, chard, and little nuggets of radishes and peas hiding in the bottom. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but we’re sharing our haul with another couple. So, all told, the garden thus far has been feeding four adults and a six-month-old for a couple of solid meals a week since our harvests started.

Last year, the husband and I bought in on a CSA. We wanted to do it for a number of different experimental reasons – forcing us to try and work with things we wouldn’t normally buy, learning more about what grows here when, and just generally remembering how amazingly different in-season produce tastes versus some mid-winter greenhouse stuff can have a such a strange non-taste. The biggest thing we learned, though, wasn’t something we anticipated. That, specifically, was what what to do with the unusual quantities of different kinds of stuff we’d get every week.

The Backyard Harvest garden has had the same kinds of rhythm. We’re getting loads of salad greens that are crunchy, peppery, and delicious without a lot of frou frou added. The kale and chard are easy to quickly sauté and get vast amounts down into a reasonable dinner size. But some of the more delicate offerings have been more like tiny treats rather than main components of a meal.

The peas at the top of this post totally fell into this category – they were sweet, poppy, and juicy. But there were only a few handfuls each harvest for a week before the heat wave killed off the blossoms -and no more peas for us. We’re getting another planting for later in the season. Even without that promise of another haul, these were amazing rinsed off, popped out of the shells, and eaten over the kitchen sink. Seriously, they tasted like summer.

Some people who do a project like this for the first time might be weirded out by huge and tiny harvests of different things, but it’s been delicious training for us. We use what we have and we enjoy even the little snack-y servings. And with these peas? It’s like eating ice cream. Thanks Stefan!

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full photo collection for this project is over on Flickr.

Jun 26 0 comments

Backyard Harvest, CSA, Home, gardening, photography

Our First Harvest

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

This has been our first week of getting edible goods from the garden. We’re on a twice-a-week harvest schedule and we prep for each harvest day by putting some ice packs in a cooler on the porch. This week, with every day being above 90, that was especially important, but even the crisp little salad greens survived beautifully until we could get home and get it all into the house.

For both of our grabs during the week, we got a similar mix of stuff – dinosaur kale, rainbow chard, and a handful of peas each time. We’re sharing our harvests with another couple, so this week’s division was easy – the husband and I took Monday’s and our friends took Thursday.

The chard and kale already got used in a quick sauté over rice with some tuna. I think our buddies are going to just chunk it up and add some dressing to call it spicy, amazing salad. While everything’s this young, they’re all ready to eat without any cooking. The peas are like candy and I keep popping them out a pod at a time and just eating them out of hand.

For the first time this year, it’s been really, truly hot and we’ve had some great downpours to go along with the heat. The garden gets watered on a timer, so it’s going to get what it needs no matter what, but it really does seem like the rain works different, mystical things than the sprinkler does. The summer squash, for example, is literally growing inches each day. I’m kind of afraid that it’s going to take over the whole back yard if the leaves keep growing at the pace they’re working right now, but I’m sure Stefan will keep it in check for us!

Also, we are now, officially, the envy of all of our neighbors and every one I’ve talked to about the Backyard Harvest program is starting to ask on a weekly basis, “So what’s in your garden again?” And “How’s that garden coming?” It’s really fun to list off everything that we’re starting to get and will enjoy in the next couple of months. And when they see it, it’s even more amazing – everyone wants to know what each thing is, when it will be ready, and how the program works. We’re trying to spread the word as best we can

For kicks, check out the pictures of the garden as a series – it’s really amazing what happens just from one week to the next. I didn’t know stuff could grow like this!

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full photo collection for this project is over on Flickr.

Jun 22 0 comments

Friends, music, photography

Rock The Garden

[[Rock The Garden by: WontonBrutality]]

The stage and the sunet at the 2009 Rock the Garden. It was great! We were called the “best dressed and best sunscreened crowd.” I think that was true – we were almost reflective.

UPDATE: This picture is getting floated around a few different places. Thanks!

MINNPics – which is a really cool site I didn’t know existed yet.

Walker Art Center [Off Center blog] – which I fangirlisly love

Jun 19 0 comments

Backyard Harvest, CSA, Home, gardening

Garden Party And an Upcoming Bounty

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

There has been a lot going on in Backyard Harvest land over the last week, but thunderstorms and otherwise strange weather has been getting in the way of decent photos.

Thankfully, the weather held out during the first (annual?) Backyard Harvest garden party. It was great to meet other homeowners and farmers. Everyone is so excited about being part of the project and eagerly discussed what was going on with their gardens. While we all have farmers taking care of the heavy lifting, it was obvious that every single person felt really involved with their garden and the group that organizes all of what we’ve been having such fun watching so far. So, thanks Krista, the farmers, and Catherine Turner for hosting the party!

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

In our own back yard, we’ve had the pea and bean structures installed. The beans get to crawl up that fancy tepee you see in the middle of the pictures and the peas have some very cute twisty twigs to curl around. Like I mentioned earlier, we finally had some rain and everything in the garden just sort of exploded – there are blooms everywhere, leaves are growing gigantic, and sprouts where we thought things were already filled in are coming up. There are clearly more surprises in the garden that we know about, and they all look like future dinners.

For our part this week, we got a cooler cleaned up and set out on the patio for Stefan to put in any harvested goodies. Right now, it’s just holding our garden journal which got an entry this week outlining the harvest process. We’ll be getting whatever is ready on Mondays and Thursdays and I can hardly wait! In case anyone is wondering how this will work, we’ll put freezer packs into the cooler on Monday and Thursday mornings so that the goods going in can be at least sort of chilled. The journal stays in there too, in a freezer storage bag thing to make sure it stays dry.

I also got a decent panoramic done for this month and it’s obvious how much the garden has come along even from week to week – what a bounty!

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full Flickr collection of pictures for this project is over on Flickr.

Jun 07 0 comments

Backyard Harvest, Home, gardening, photography

The Garden At Large

[[photo by: WontonBrutality]]

There are little surprises popping up every day in the garden, especially with the rain we’re getting this weekend – you can almost hear things stretching out in there.

We’ve also gotten word that tomatoes, peppers, and basil are planned for next week. With those last plantings, I think we’re pretty much set up for some serious growing time, but few newcomers. The lettuces are looking more and more like proper salad and some bean additions are unfurling in cute little rows.

Also, the Star Tribune ran a piece about Backyard Harvest featuring our favorite farmer (but we are, admittedly, horribly biased) Stefan Meyer! While we have different motivations for wanting to be part of this project than those that the writer hypothesized, the core of why anyone would want to be involved is certainly in there.

Along the lines of keeping critters out of the garden, the rabbit fence seems to hold true to its name. The bunnies haven’t yet made a full-out invasion, but there is a tiny bit of evidence that some squirrels have been poking around. Is there anything we can do about that, or are losses to the rats-with-pretty-tails just a forgone conclusion? So far, I think they’ve only gotten to two or three little sprouts, so it hasn’t been a major land attack on their part.

The Backyard Harvest posts will always be replicated, and often expanded on, over at Backyard Harvest on WordPress. The full Flickr collection of pictures for this project is over on Flickr.