Day 1: Coconut chicken soup
Day 2: Beef pot roast, Parmesan and sage biscuits
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad with radishes and olives
Day 4: Vegan Shepherd’s pie
Day 5: Grilled fresh bratwurst, Grilled asparagus, mushrooms, and greenhouse tomatoes with classic barbecue seasoning
Day 6: Baked potatoes, Orange slices (probably the last ones until winter)
Day 7: Disappearing greens gumbo
Notes: Gardening
Well, that’s a wrap on my spring CSA from Keewaydin farms. I have really enjoyed the fresh greens, herbs, asparagus, rhubarb, potatoes, and more. There are a few weeks left until my summer CSA starts which means I’m going to be pouring my energy into my gardens. If you are still looking for a CSA, check out my article on How to Choose a CSA.
Do you have your garden planted yet? I finally put my last seedlings into some pots this past weekend and it feels good! We had plans to really expand our gardens this year, but the price of wood is so high that it was going to cost over $1300 for three raised beds!! So, back to the drawing board I went and decided to expand my garden in other ways.
I created a gallery (below) of my garden progress; from seeds to ground. You can see some of the adaptations I’ve had to make since I wasn’t able to add more growing space. I also direct sowed some seeds; carrots, snap peas, pumpkins, herbs, and butternut squash.
To make the most of the two raised beds I already have, I am doing square foot gardening (read more about starting a garden here). I also am moving the pumpkins to my butterfly garden where they can spread out. You can see in one of the pictures the wood trellis I installed in a raised bed. I’m going to try to train butternut squash up the trellis. I’ve seen pictures of this before, but didn’t really believe it would work because the squash gets so heavy. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I am also making use of my patio and planted four of my tomatoes in large pots instead of taking up room in the garden.
My gardening hit a snag this week… when I got home from work on Monday and went to water the garden, my kale, brussels sprouts, chard, and broccoli had all be eaten! All that work I put into starting everything from seed, gone. Turns out we have some voles that dug under the garden bed and have made a home. They don’t seem to like the tomatoes or peppers though. Lesson learned: with my new gardens I am going to put hardware cloth on the bottom before filling with soil.
Let me know how your gardens are coming along or if you are sticking with CSA, farmer’s markets, and grocery stores.
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- Starting seeds
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- Starting seeds
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- They sprouted!
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- Outgrowing their first home
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- Hardening off
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- Garden beds prepped
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- Square foot gardening
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- Carrots, pea seeds are in. Notice trellis for squash on the right
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- Pumpkin seeds in the butterfly garden
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- Leftover tomatoes in pots
CSA Breakdown: For those of you also using Keewaydin Farms this spring, here is a breakdown of how I will use each piece of produce this week. You certainly don’t need to make the whole week’s worth! This is a jumping off point for you so that none of those awesome veggies go to waste. See the first CSA post from this season for details on how I structure the plans.
