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Sunday, August 16, 2015

#eatlocalutah Day 1

Eat Local Week!  This challenge is supposed to run 8/12-8-19.  Lets face it, as a working mom with little kids, for us it starts on Saturday.

South Salt Lake Succotash



Ingredients:
1/4 white onion chopped
2 cups diced sumer squash
2 cups sweet corn (about 3 ears depending on size)
1 cup chopped tomatoes, salted and drained
1/2 cup fava beans (this is the yield from 1 lb whole beans in pods)
Salt and chili powder to taste
Squeeze of lime juice.
Grape Seed oil

Instructions:
Chop your tomatoes, sprinkle about 1/8 tsp salt and toss.  Then place in colander to drain while you prep the rest of the ingredients.  This will concentrate your tomato flavor and make the recipe less watery.  
Heat sauté pan to medium and add about 1 tbsp grape seed oil,  Once hot, add onions and cook until almost brown.  Add summer squash and cook until tender and warmed through.  Add corn, tomatoes, fava beans.  Cook a few minutes, until heated through and then add salt and chili powder to taste and last thing add a squeeze of lime.  

Dig in.  I suggest having some crusty bread or biscuits on hand to mop up the juices.

We served our Succotash with bacon cheddar brats from Clifford Farm.  

Saturday, August 15, 2015

For the Bees

Every good gardener needs bees.  However, more and more, we are hearing warnings about collapsing populations of wild and honeybees.  What is a gardener to do?  Given that I don't have any control over large scale use of pesticides, mites, or weather I have decided to control the one thing I can - my backyard.
After some reading and consultation with my local extension office I've modified my backyard bee habitat.

I've let 5 leeks that share a bed with my papers to go flower.  Bees love onion flowers and the hopeful byproduct will be some leek seeds.

Afghan sesame, while not a local plant, bees really like to hang out in these long white flowers.

Spearmint.  OK this isn't new to my garden, but I'm giving it a bit more irrigation love to promote flowers.  And you've got it, the bees are digging it.

I'm also allowing some of the border areas which I would normally be more finicky about mowing get tall and I have left a couple of old logs with holes in them around.  Mason and wild bumble bees have been hanging out in these areas and joining the pollination party.  They are pretty tough to photograph so I don't have any pics to share.

So far I'd say my yields are improving substantially.  This is awesome, but is keeping me busy.  Pics of fruit tomorrow.

JG

Winter, finally (and seriously)

I planned to start this blog last spring as my garden flew into action, but then got into the actual work of gardening and abandoned the task. However, today its winter, really winter. I'm wearing long underwear and sitting under a blanket and I'm still cold.
Today is the shortest day of the year so from here on in it gets better. I look forward to longer days, that's for sure. But I'll also tuck in and enjoy winter's freeze and snow, it does mean skiing after all. Maybe more importantly is the snow pack - without snow there isn't water for the West.
The end of the year and the solstice are a good time to think back on the last 365. I have no reason to complain and feel really lucky about the last year and really hopeful about the year to come.