Week Two-

Its only week three, and I am already behind on posting. Somehow, I am not too surprised. These delicious offers come from week two- We picked them up on Saturday June 11th.

Above we have rhubarb (not from the CSA, but delicious none the less). Each week the farmers say it will be the last week for rhubarb and the next week some more always appears. We also have some sugar snap peas and asparagus. Below are young broccoli and broccolini. Still working out what to do with them.

Spinach. Not much more to say here.

Above are garlic scapes (the flowering part of the garlic, harvested before blooming to increase bulb growth) mint, and purslane. Below are two types of turnips and one kind of radish.

Should be good cooking this week.

Busy Day-

Busy day yesterday- No updates on either plants or food. Instead, here is one of Amy's stone owls exploring a forest of ginger shoots. I planted the ginger two months back, and it seems to be thriving.

-Kris

Week One- Dinners in retrospect.

As I am playing catchup with this blog and the food we have been consuming, here in one post are the dinners from last week- All using at least one CSA item:

Dinners We Missed-

No pictures of these, as they have already been consumed. Next week I will
try to post the meals as they are cooked but before they are eaten.

Monday: Quick fried neck of lamb with baby bok choi. Learned that neck is the
wrong choice of meat. Very wrong.

Tuesday: Basque chicken with mashed potatoes and turnips. Learned that various root
veggies can add a nice bit of flavor to potatoes.

Wednesday: Bo Ssam. Slow roasted beef short ribs, white rice, a green
garlic sauce, a dragon chili paste all wrapped up in lettuce leafs.
Super tasty.

Thursday: Chicken Fajitas. Simple, straightforward. Used the garlic scapes.

Friday: Deli Sandwichs with a chilled red pepper soup. The jury is still
out on the soup. Assorted greens in both sandwich and soup.

-No pictures, As I forgot prior to record the meals for posterity prior to eating them.

-Kris

Week One-

CSA Week One- June 1st
From last week- Posted for completeness-

From our CSA:
Asparagus (427 oz)
Arugala (143 oz)
Baby Bok Choi (150 oz)
Bunch Spinach (276 oz)
Head Lettuce (106 oz)
Radishes (199 oz)
Turnip (130 oz)
Cilantro (86 oz)
Green Garlic (76 oz)
Nettle [Not touching the stuff-]*
Mint (83 oz)**
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Rhubarb (521 oz)***
Garlic Scapes (118 oz)***



* Our CSA is run by some interesting folk, who give us things like Stinging
Nettle. Its works as anti-allergenic tea- supposedly. I will let Amy comment
on that one.

** We supplemented the CSA's mint with some from another seller.

*** From the others at the farmers marker, not from Echollective.

Updates on the new food should come each Saturday. All the photos are from my new phone- Thus the poor resolution.

Have a good one-

Kris

...And we are back!

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Hello All!

After a long hiatus (due to schooling and the like) I now return to my
blogging duties. In addition to keeping track of the plants that Amy and
I are cultivating, I intend to record the produce we get from our share
from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) and how we consume it.

The CSA we chose is Echollective They seemed to have a good selection
of food and they have the option of a couple's share, which has half the food of the family share.
I will try to keep track of what we get, how much we get, and how we use it.
Pictures of the raw produce and the final product will also be shared. Hopefully.

Have a good summer-
-Kris

Sorry about the lack of content-

Hello All-

Apologies for the recent dearth of material. A combination of graduate school, a handful of trips, and life in general have conspired to prevent me from posting some of the new and exciting developments in plant life in my apartment. Much has happened and over the next few weeks I hope to catch the blog up. In short, this page is emerging from its (not so) brief hiatus.

Most recently, I dug up the Purple Heart (aka a Wandering Jew, or a Purple Queen) which I had planted in the spring under my neighbor's window, potted it, and brought it into my new office. Why dig it up now? It frosted just a week later, a rather dramatic shift in temperature to which the plant would not survive. Why did I plant it under my neighbor's window? Underneath my window is asphalt, which is used 7 Saturdays each Fall as parking for tailgaters.

Over the next week, I need to pull up the garlic that has managed to struggle through the season, before the frost deals it a permanent blow. It will be interesting to see how the bulbs have developed, as the plants were prematurely cut down by overzealous weeders sent by the apartment managers, and are in their second bloom this season.

Thats all for now-

K.G.K.

Plant Counter!

No new pictures tonight, but I have added a 'widget' to the blog to count the number of plants under my care. Its broken up into a few subcategories:

Bonsai are normal trees cultivated for aesthetic form while maintaining a small size.

Pre-Bonsai are plants currently being transitioned to bonsai.

Succulent plants are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climate or soil conditions. Succulents store water in their leaves, stems, and roots.

We define cacti as a subgroup of succulents, that is all cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti. Specifically, Cacti have spines and evolved in the Americas, while the rest of the succulent category evolved in the Old World, mainly in Africa.

The tropical plants are a catch all group to describe ferns, palms and other leafy indoor plants.

Terrariums are small collections of moss and ferns held in glass containers.

Outside plants include herbs, bulbs, and other hearty species we have planted in the flower beds outside the apartment.

Hopefully I will get to posting some more pictures over the next week. We have purchased some new cacti that I am eager to document.

-KGK