growing

Late Fall Planting

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The week of Thanksgiving, we abandoned the warmth of our kitchen to do a bit of gardening.  We recently acquired asparagus and rhubarb crowns, and wanted to get them into the ground before the first major freeze of the season.  So, we took advantage of a seasonably warm afternoon, stepped into our gardening shoes, and dug our fingers into the cool, damp soil.

First on the docket was to sort through our worms from our compost.  The girls and Tyler picked out each individual wormy (as the girls like to call them), and placed them into a fresh compost bin that would be moved inside for the winter.  Then the amazing, black gold was used in the trenches that would house the asparagus roots.

The girls then helped me to separate the asparagus roots, which we concluded look just like how we imagine aliens to look, and placed them deep beneath the surface of the soil.  We did the same with the rhubarb crowns, burying them underneath the black earth in hopes they will produce delicious spring vegetation in a few months.

Outside Versus In

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On this sixth day of November, the day greeted us with the first signs of yet another change of season.  The first flurries of the year fell from the gray sky, melting into ice old pools of water in the garden, school parking lot and curbsides.

Although it is quite nasty outside, when we peered under our temporary greenhouse we found it teeming with life and vibrancy.  We do plan to eventually put in an actual hoop house, but for the time being our little makeshift project seems to be doing just fine and is supplying our family with fresh verdigris for our dinner this evening. I do believe I see a fresh arugula salad with dandelion vinaigrette dressing in our very near future 🙂

Unplugged

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This past Saturday, we made a family pledge to unplug and reconnect with one another.  That meant no email, no texting, no movies, no computer.  We are definitely not the crazy techie-types who constantly surround themselves with a barrage of technology, but we had been finding ourselves in front of the computer more, and spending less time with each other and the tactile activities we so dearly love.

Saturday found us surrounded by puzzles and pencils, leaves and s’mores.  And most importantly, we happened upon a day filled with the enjoyment of each other’s company, free of all the noise that seems to consume our lives so often these days.

Antipasto

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This past Sunday, we spent the day in the warmth of our kitchen’s arms, making Italian antipasto with my husband’s grandmother.  There were a lot of veggies, and even more chopping, but the best part of our afternoon was spending time with Grandma.  These are the moments that I hope my girls carry with them throughout their lives.  Moments when they are home.  Surrounded by family.  Learning lessons passed down from one generation to the next.

School Garden

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From the very moment my two little girls entered this world, I instantly began worrying about their schooling.  I’m not sure why these thoughts consume me so.  Maybe it is my teacher-self knowing the importance of education.  Or maybe it is the fact that Twain’s “never let school interfere with your education” seems to beat a constant drum in my head.  But no matter the reason, schooling has, and I think will always be, on my mind.

When my eldest little baby ventured off to kindergarten this year, I felt apprehension in my heart and an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach, wondering if I made the correct choice in her schooling endeavors.  It is now that we are in entering our third month of school that I am fully confident that my husband and I have not only made a good choice, but one that has allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief.

My husband and I both have a background in education, so we have always been fairly confident we would be able to supplement academically where our girls may need extra assistance when it comes to their education.  But with family and faith as our top priorities in life, we searched our large city a great deal to find a place where these two aspects of life were not only mentioned, but highlighted and emphasized as being of paramount importance in life.

We found that place in the school that our daughter attends.  It is a place where love and respect for your neighbor is taught and encouraged.  A place where prayer has not vanished, as it has in so many other aspects of our culture.  A place where my daughter not only feels safe, but feels loved and accepted by her fellow peers, the teachers, secretary and principal.  A place of family and faith.

{One possible spot for our new school garden!}

And now a place that emphasizes the importance of being stewards to the earth and caring for God’s creation that He has set before us.  Yes, we have been granted full permission and support to start a school garden!

It is impossible for me to express in words the absolute outpouring of support I have witnessed since first mentioning this project only one month ago.  Over the course of the past few weeks, I have seen a group of adults go above and beyond their call of duty to do what they think is best for kids.  It is truly wonderful and awe-inspiring to be a part of.

And so we begin another new adventure in faith, family…and gardening!  What could be better 🙂  If any of you have experience in working with school or community gardens, please feel free to pass along advice in the comment section of this post.  I will be sure to keep you all updated with the progress of this very exciting project!

Autumn Bounty

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Last night marked the beginning of a new day at the Fagan abode.  We harvested our first batch of arugula from our fall garden.  In honor of this great day, I made a dinner filled with garden fresh produce, and I must say it earned rave reviews from the entire family.

Our meal consisted of a bed of organic pasta (not homemade I’m afraid to say 😦 ), topped with local sausage, the last of our tomato harvest, regional feta cheese, and finished with a large handful of the peppery arugula from our brand-new garden beds.  I dressed the entire dish with a drizzle of organic olive oil, a splash of aged balsamic, and a bit of sea salt.  Yummy.

Fried Green Tomatoes…Italian Style

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We have a LOT of green tomatoes this year.  A lot.  So, last night I gave fried green tomatoes a shot.  But instead of serving them up Southern-style, I decided to do a play on eggplant Parmesan. Instead of eggplant, I used some of those green tomatoes covering my countertop.

Italian-Style Fried Green Tomatoes

-Slice 8-10 green tomatoes and set aside.

-Scramble 3 eggs in a small shallow bowl and set aside.

-In a large shallow bowl, mix together 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup corn flour, 1 tablespoon dried basil, 1 tablespoon dried oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, 1 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder.  Set aside.

-Pour about 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom of a frying pan (I used an organic, non-GMO canola oil.).  Heat the pan until very hot.

-Dip each tomato slice in the egg, then the dry mixture and then place in the hot oil.  Allow to cook until brown, flip and cook the other side until brown.  Remove the fried slices from the hot oil and allow to rest on a paper towel for a few seconds before plating.

I served my fried green tomatoes on a bed of pasta, topped with my homemade tomato sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Enjoy!

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Fall Preparations

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With frost now hitting our area in the evenings, this little family of mine has been rushing about, making final preparations for late fall.  I really do love this time of year because at this point, I am ready to nestle in and do a bit of indoor work (reading, crocheting, sewing) instead of the manual labor that is involved with a large garden during the warm months of the year.  I am so thankful that we live in an area that experiences all four seasons.  It gives us a chance to let our bodies and souls rest and rejuvenate before starting the growing season again the next year.

Our first order of business was to bring in all of our herbs.  These seem to be the first of our plants to get hit with frost, so they topped our priority list.  The girls and I picked our basil, oregano, sage and thyme and then dried it in our food dehydrator.  Once the herbs were dried I ran them through a quick whirl in the spice grinder and put them in Mason jars. We store our dried spices in our spare refrigerator for the winter.  The herbs keep very well storing them this way, and we have found it saves us a great deal of money in the winter months to have all of these herbs on stand by.

Next came the tomatoes.  Oh those tomato plants…All 36 of them.  I must admit, I was dreading this activity this fall.  Good thing I had a little helper by my side to keep me company and do some of the manual labor 🙂  We first picked all of the remaining ripened tomatoes.  Then we harvested all of those lovely green tomatoes (a recipe to come tomorrow), and took down all of the cages and composted the vines.

I received some garlic seed from my mother-in-law, so that went into some of the empty beds that had been cleared a few weeks ago.  Hopefully the seed makes it because a certain little kitty cat keeps wanting to dig it up.  We shall see if this little garlic venture is fruitful come next year.

We are trying something new this year for weed control.  Gardening is quite the effort in trail and error and each year we seem to fail in this department.  Last year, we planted annual rye grass in each of our beds.  The rye grass was suppose to act as a ground cover to help deter weeds, die off in the winter months, and leave the soil enriched with nitrogen and provide excellent compost to till in come spring.  Well, we didn’t get much of a hard frost last winter, so the rye did not die off.  Instead, we were left with garden beds filled with two foot high, green rye grass.

This year we are just aiming for weed control and plan to add compost to our beds in the early spring.  We stopped by our favorite local coffee roasters that I mentioned in this post, and got a bunch of burlap coffee bags.  I cut these and used them to cover each of our beds that will remain dormant for the winter.

And now we venture into the unknown with our fall/winter garden we added this year.  For now, it seems to be surviving the frosty evenings just fine and we should be able to start harvesting in the very near future.  A new adventure waits in the valance.  I can’t wait!