Fourth of July weekend

What a productive weekend for the farm!  We had a house full of guests, including my parents, Mamie, Anne and Eric, Anne's parents, and a total of six dogs.  We also had a combination of heavy rain and high heat, which caused the garden and lawn to explode.  In photos, here's a recap of our weekend.

On June 30, I harvested a bumper crop of radishes.  They never ended up quite radish shaped, but they were delicious.

We threw together the above salad with our own radishes, arugula, lettuce and mustard greens.  Aren't the lettuces beautiful?  I love the speckled lettuce the most, and have been trying to ration those plants among our many, many salads.

On July 2, I harvested our first cauliflower with more broccoli.  The cauliflower is just gorgeous - lovely white heads with a slight purple tint at the base.  We had two heads of cauliflower, so on Saturday night I made a potato salad with grilled broccoli and cauliflower, dressed with a viniagrette, which was outstanding, and on Sunday night, we had a side dish of roasted cauliflower, broccoli, and beets (all our own!) with dinner.  Both recipes were great.  The fresh cauliflower was really amazing - buttery and sweet.

Anne helped me thin the beets, which was a far more productive chore than I originally thought it would be.  Looking at my beet bed, it seems like all of the seeds germinated.  Above are the beet greens that we harvested during our thinning efforts.  We pulled the plants from the roots, so in addition to the greens, we ended up with some marble sized beets, which were wonderful roasted with the broccoli and cauliflower.  My mom used some of the beet greens in a vegan calzone filled with sweet potatoes, beet greens, garlic, onions, and a dairy-free white sauce, and I sent Anne home with two more gallon sized bags of greens - which still leaves me with one more bag in my fridge.  Luckily, I like beet greens. 

Mike built me a new compost bin in the garden over the weekend.  Our compost used to be a pile in the shade next to our run-in, which was an inconvenient location for us, but a fabulous location for the dogs.  Now the compost bin is (somewhat) safely enclosed within the garden, so Bullet at least can't get to it.  Lily has proudly figured out how to squirm under the garden gate to get to the compost, but she's growing so quickly that I hope this access to  the compost is temporary for her.  Mike used old picket fencing that was left in the run-in for the structure, and I think it looks really cool. 

The girls also had a good weekend, with the exception of some inevitable heckling from the six dogs.  We gave them lots of radish greens, which were initially viewed with much suspicion, but then accepted as delicious.  Anne won the girls over with several offerings of slugs and snails plucked from the garden, and Taperman reconnected with the flock by setting up a folding chair outside of their yard and communing with the girls during the early mornings.

The giant pumpkins had a mixed weekend, and we're back to calling them the less dead (top) and more dead (bottom) giant pumpkins.  The more dead giant pumpkin was a victim of a particularly vigorous game of chase between Mamie's great danes, Bullet and Lily.  The less dead giant pumpkin was spared, though, and looks great.  If the more dead giant pumpkin recovers, I'll be pretty shocked.

Our bok choy and swiss chard are now ready for harvesting, so this afternoon I picked both.  I sent Anne and Eric home with plenty of each, and used more for a chilled sesame peanut soba noodle dish, which was delicious.  I can't believe how we've gone from just having lettuce to picking swiss chard, bok choy, beet greens, broccoli, cauliflower and radishes within a week.  We're thoroughly enjoying it all, although the lettuce is never ending, and I won't be planting a full bed at once next year - although we've been having salads all week, the bed is more overgrown than ever, and the arugula is beginning to bolt.