What's the Big Dill?

Before I moved to Utah 13 years ago, if you had asked me the above question, I would have answered, "the pickles that aren't sliced." Now that I speak Utahn and say "banana pill" and "for sell," I know that dill and deal are pronounced the same. This week at the Garden, though, dill is the big deal. We have a wall of dill that's a fabulous deal--an ounce or two of sweat for all the dill you can deal with. I made the best and easiest potato salad of my life with it--boil potatoes with green onions to fork tender, cool, add desired amount of mayo, salt, pepper, dill and stir. My mom also used to make "dilly rolls:" her favorite bread recipe plus plain yogurt, diced onions and a generous amount of dill. What dill recipes are a big dill at your house?

Also come try English broad beans. Green onions, beets, some peas, chard available. Plenty of weeds to harvest as well--I think I'll try the purslane recipe I heard today.

Lettuce Eat!

In one of those useless forwards I read once that lettuce is the only vegetable in the produce section that can only be eaten fresh-not canned, frozen or cooked. Well they didn't consult Julia Child on that one. In the last 6 weeks I have eaten lettuce nearly every day and never bought any. When the Community Garden was shelling out bushels of peas I knew I had to consult the French way of cooking. I discovered a recipe for 3 contemporary vegetables--lettuce, peas and green onions. What I didn't know was how long it takes to shell a grocery bag full of pods, to get two cupsful of peas. Hint: many hands make light work. My 3 yr old didn't sense there was nothing in it for her, as my older boys suspected. Shelling aside, this dish took 5 minutes prep and 30 minutes cooking. The sugar carmelized to make this a flavorful new spin on lettuce. And it turns out, these veggies go together, well, like peas in a pod.

Peas are still plentiful at the Garden! Usher in the first day of summer with a visit tonight, 6-8pm.

Natural Gardener

Children possess a natural inclination for gardening. If you want to feed the next generation, foster this innate curiosity. Bugs, soil, plants—they capture the attention of babies, preschoolers, and even teens.

 A few weeks ago I helped plant a “patchwork” garden box with some third graders. After thirty minutes of crouching in the hot sun to plant and water dozens of seeds, one of the boys exclaimed, “Wow! This is SO fun!” and another asked if he could take home seeds to do this at his house. A few days later my family worked with a struggling neighbor, whose children may have never used a yard tool before. Over two days and four hours my kids and I worked with 3 young men, a young woman, and 5 young children. They were absolutely thrilled to be industrious, to contribute, to get dirty, to look at bugs, and most of all, to be important enough to be entrusted with a job. 

Someone recently asked me how I got into gardening. After a moment of reflection, I responded, “Well, I never got out of it.” I have been in the mud, the berries, the weeds, the bugs since infancy. I helped my parents in the garden and when they didn't plant, my sister and friends at age 10 grew our own garden in hopes of making lots of money (by August there were so many grasshoppers in my 6-ft corn rows I wouldn’t even enter, much less pick and sell it). I can’t help weeding if I see weeds. And every February my soul yearns for delicate green life, no matter how much I vowed the summer before that I was done with gardening. 

Yesterday I had one of those victories that would have been so easy to miss. I brought in some spinach and left it on the kitchen counter, then went to the other room to listen to my answering machine. When I came back I found a trail of salad dressing drips that ended at my 3-yr old’s face. Overlooking the generous smears of dressing I said, “Wow, what’s this?” She mumbled through a full mouth, “I ate da spinach all gone.” A kid who sneaks into the spinach for a snack? I think she’s on her way to knowing how to feed herself someday. Have you fed your inner gardener today?

We are negotiating a contract with the city, our steering committee is evolving, and more than 30 kinds of vegetables are growing. We always appreciate help and hope to see you this Saturday morning between 8 and 10/11am.