Category Archives: The Garden

Tomatoland

July 18, 2014 Susie Middleton 1 Comment

Some weeks are crazier than others around here, and I will just say that this week, I was pretty darn happy to see Friday arrive.

It’s also easy, this time of year, to look around a farm and get discouraged. Weeds are ravenous, pests are ravenous, farm stand customers are ravenous. (And our egg supply isn’t keeping up with demand.). The pretty green frilly stuff of spring has fled, replaced by dying pea vines (piled on the picnic table, below) and bolted lettuce and plants ravaged by potato beetles.

But wait. That’s only one way to look at it.

Despite what I consider to be a lot of messy, less-than-ideal aspects to the current state of things (like this entire row of weed-smothered arugula, above), there is, by far, much more to celebrate.

For instance, the sunflowers are just killing me—they are so gorgeous, it hurts. And cheery? Nothing cheerier. And don’t even talk to me about the zinnias! (Okay, I realize that I’ve talked about the sunflowers and the zinnias for like the last three blogs in a row. I’m besotted.)

And I think it is safe to say now, that barring a true tragedy (not just one that I imagine or one that calls itself a hurricane), we will have a bountiful tomato harvest this year, and far more tomatoes than any other year.

Just look at all the fruits on these plants. And there are 230 plants!

This tomato thing is not to be under-rated. Everybody waits all year for these quintessential summer goodies, but not everyone is arranging their yearly budget around the tomato harvest. We have a lot to be expectant about.

We’ll be harvesting tomatoes every evening now. They’re just trickling into ripeness—Roy picked this quart of Sungolds and Sweet 100s last night—but soon we will be looking for surfaces all over the place to put them on.

There’s plenty of other good stuff, of course. (I can’t believe we’re actually getting to the ripe black raspberries before the birds do! With any luck, Libby and I will make that berry ice cream this weekend. )

Now that my pep talk is over, I can go back out and keep weeding. Underneath all those weeds are still some pretty nice vegetables!

Edible, Farm life, Sustain, The Garden

Hope for the Flowers, Witchcraft for the Weeds

June 30, 2014 Susie Middleton

Thursday night I drove up to York, Maine. Taught two cooking classes Friday and Saturday mornings at Stonewall Kitchen, spent some precious hours Friday afternoon and evening with my friend Eliza and her family, and drove back to Woods Hole to catch a 6 pm ferry home on Saturday night.

I was hardly gone for 48 hours, but stuff grew. A lot. I’m sorry to say that the weeds grew the most. (Those are supposed to be carrots on either side of the nasturtiums, above; but looks like mostly pursuane and grass to me!) I really cannot fathom how these weeds do it. Some sort of black magic, I guess. I wish I could cast a spell on them (crabgrass be gone! poof!) or conjure up some other weedy witchcraft to get rid of them. But this is just the kind of bizarre thought you have when you are hacking away at a tangle of roots at twilight when the fireflies are dancing against the darkening trees, the neighbor’s sheep (newly moved to a field next to us) are baa-baa-ing, and the potent scent of honeysuckle and wild roses make the evening seem a bit surreal.

But back to reality. There are weeds, yes, but flowers, too. Lots of them. That gorgeous sunflower (Ring of Fire, I think) is a volunteer from last year, so it came up (with a couple dozen more volunteer sunflowers) early in the season, and took “first to open” honors while I was gone. It is really stunning, since the petals haven’t suffered any bug damage. (You could call that a miracle.)

While I was gone, the Fairy roses bloomed, too, the zinnias started lining up in their merry parade, and the pea blossoms topped the trellises.

The cheery yellow calendula blossoms went off like firecrackers everywhere.

The cilantro bolted and arranged its dainty white flowers in clusters among the peas.

The lavender let loose…

And the surest sign of summer–the nasturtiums all over the garden started to flower.

Best of all, there is more on the way. Next up: coneflowers and daisies.

In the meantime, I’m helping myself to a little magic potion–a glass bottle of freshly picked flowers. Maybe flowers are an antidote to weeds!

Edible, The Garden

Market Garden or Farm Field, It’s Still an Outdoor Room

May 30, 2014 Susie Middleton 3 Comments

One of the things I love about formal gardens is the outdoor “rooms” they create from their inherent structure. I can remember as a child, tagging along behind by father, an enthusiastic horticulturist and talented amateur landscape designer, on garden tours, along brick paths, through boxwood mazes, under rose arbors, across pond bridges. In my memories, it was always a warm, muggy June day in Washington, D.C., where in my long-ago childhood, there were many elegant homes with beautiful gardens. The stone paths were hot under my flimsy sandals, and once a bee got underneath my little dress and stung my tummy. But it was an adventure and a privilege to be allowed to walk those secret gardens.

The gardens of my current life might seem like the antithesis to those beautifully coiffed architectural gems. But they are still outdoor rooms, with their own personalities, their own feng shui, and always, their unique interplay of man-made structures and natural plantings.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as our new back field has begun to take shape. The quarter-acre (above, and photo second from top) is much more like a traditional farm field than our original market garden (top photo). It has long parallel rows, each being planted with one crop as we move down the line. But once Roy got the fencing finshed, the field enclosed, and the gate up (a tri-fold of old chicken pen panels big enough to get the tractor through), it became an enclosed space. There’s a grassy strip left open, where we think we might put a table and chairs. The well pump will get a little structure over it. And we’ll be planting at least one row of flowers down here, too, in addition to tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, beans, potatoes, and greens.

So as the summer progresses, the field will develop its own personality. But it already feels like a destination to me, since we’ve been working in it a lot, and I’m fond of wheeling my little cart down there with buckets to harvest the arugula and kale under the row cover. I like opening those big gates and feeling like I’m stepping onto another plane. (We’re often working in the field in the evening, too, so the light is nice.)

It’s a much different space than our original market garden, which has its own quirky personality, with lots of smaller beds, some raised, some trellised, some staked. The market garden has flowers and herbs scattered about, and a nice swatch of perennial flowers flanking the gate. The market garden sits up high, the field down low. And the field is next to the chicken pens.

But like the hoop house, the farm stand, the potting area, the old stone foundation where the piggery went, and the old chicken coop that’s now a tool shed, the field is yet another distinct space that we’ve created or re-created while making up this small farm. A small farm, it turns out, is a fascinating collection of outdoor rooms. Not fancy, but certainly alluring and comforting, in the way only an outdoor space can be.

Edible, Farm life, The Garden

A Letter Home from Camp Green Island Farm

May 13, 2014 Susie Middleton 4 Comments

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well the first day at camp was nothing like I thought it was going to be. Are you sure this is the camp with the beautiful brochure we looked at? Did you really mean to send me here?

First of all, we got up at like 6:30, way earlier than I’m used to. Then, instead of a nice breakfast of farm eggs and home-cured bacon, we trudged down to the green house to pick greens and radishes for the farm stand. That was okay except it was really cold at first and then it got really hot, so I had to, like, go back to the cabin to change my tee-shirt twice. Not sure you packed enough play clothes for me.

Then we had to water what seemed like two billion tomato seedlings. I thought maybe we’d at least get to run through a sprinkler or squirt each other, but they don’t let you do that here. Supposedly we are going to walk down to a creek later this week to collect watercress, but that’s hardly like going to the beach.

Later on we had to hike over to the smelly chicken coops and collect eggs. A hen tried to peck my earring off my earlobe when I grabbed her egg. It was pretty hot in there, too. And did I mention stinky? Plus, there are like hundreds of chickens so the bucket of eggs was really heavy. And then, you wouldn’t believe it, but we had to wash and package up all those eggs!

Then there was some excitement because the refrigerator at the farm stand broke. So the maintenance guy (he’s also the head counselor) had to stop what he was doing (fixing a barn roof I think) and come and haul another refrigerator out of the mess hall and saw off a piece of the farm stand counter to fit it in.

Our job was to move like 50 dozen eggs and lots of other stuff from one refrigerator to the other. And then sweep up the mess at the farm stand after he got that done.

In the afternoon we planted lettuce seedlings. I don’t know why as there already seem to be a lot of lettuce seedlings around this place. Only we don’t get to eat any—it’s all for the farm stand customers. We had hamburgers and pretzels last night for dinner. Can you believe it? Some farm fare. Oh, they did let us go down to the asparagus patch and cut asparagus, but there was only enough for like, one per camper.

The worst was the after-dinner activity. I thought we were going to build a camp fire, or have movie night or game night or something. Instead they stuck us out in the back field and had us pick rocks out of the dirt and rake them up to the tractor bucket.

There is one good thing about this camp—they let the camp dog and kitty sleep in your bunk with you. In fact, the farm dog pretty much comes along on all our activities with us.

So like, its’ only May, and I am supposed to be here all summer? When can you come pick me up? Next summer can I go to that camp where you go to the beach all day and lie in the sand?

Love,

Camper Sue

P.S. My counselor took these pictures. She is trying to make the place look nicer than it really is.

Edible, salads, The Garden

Baby Kale, Avocado & Radish Salad—Susie’s Pink & Green #9

May 6, 2014 Susie Middleton 2 Comments

Lately I have been obsessing about this Red Russian kale we are growing in the hoop house. I feel kind of silly, as it isn’t exactly a new thing—other farmers on the Island have been growing this variety and harvesting it young for a few years now. But I finally got around to planting a thick carpet of it (in order to harvest it as baby greens), and my, oh, my, is it tickling my fancy. It’s beautiful, yes. But tender, too. And almost sweet. (Even Roy likes it!) Which means now I have no business being cranky about kale salads. (I have come around on this, and even have a kale salad in Fresh from the Farm, but I am still not big on thick chewy mature kale leaves in salads—massaged, or not.)

I do think the hoop house kale is particularly tender, because it grows fast in those lovely conditions and doesn’t have to toughen up to the elements outside. But Red Russian kale is so delicious young, that I’d say, hoop house or not, rush out and buy yourself a packet of seeds and dump some in a pot of soil right now. In 28 days you’ll have a tender kale salad.

(If you live in Texas, maybe wait until fall’s cooler weather at this point.)

Also, as most of you know, I am obsessed with the color pink. And this year we’re growing French Breakfast and Cherry Belle radishes in the hoop house, and they are nearly big enough to pull. Nearly big enough, yes. But since I am the boss, I get to pull them up whenever I want to.

In fact, since I realized I was heading towards yet another variation on a “pink and green” salad for my lunch today, I thought, “I’m going to put whatever I want in this salad!” So in went avocado, a few toasted pecans, a little blue cheese, and a drizzle of Perky’s Vinaigrette. Honestly, for your own variation, you could put just about anything you like in with that baby kale and it would be lovely.

If I sound like I am being obstinate, it’s because I have to go traveling again this week and am wishing I could just stay home and keep working outside until dark like Roy and I have been doing every night this week. (I’m not kidding, it really is satisfying.) But off I go so I’m having one last pink and green salad for the week.

And speaking of pink, we snuck off to get a quick peek at some trees in bloom at Polly Hill Arboretum Sunday afternoon (a stone’s throw from us).

I’d never seen this unusual magnolia, but fell in love with the pink blooms.

Of course.

Edible, Farm life, The Garden

My Potato Farmers, Then and Now

April 29, 2014 Susie Middleton 6 Comments

My mother took a lot (I mean, a lot) of photos of us growing up. We complained. Kids often do.

I have turned into my mother, of course.

My favorite (human) subjects are Roy and Libby. So far, Libby has been an incredibly good sport about this. However, you may notice that there are not many pictures of Roy straight on. That’s because he makes a funny face every time I try to take his picture. So I usually have to catch him doing something (which is really the way I prefer to photograph people anyway).

But this weekend he reached out to put his arm around Libby, very proud of the help she’d just given him with planting potatoes. I took a few shots and posted this one (above) on Instagram and Facebook (as I do with some sort of photo almost every day…usually of my other favorite subjects—food, plants, or farm detritus). Normally I don’t then use those daily photos on the blog, but this one brought forth such a warm response from so many people (even some I ran into in the grocery store!) that I thought I’d share it here with folks who don’t see those sites.

And because, in my ongoing surprise at how time flies, I realize this is my second favorite Roy-and-Libby-with-potatoes photo. The first (the pink bucket photo below) was taken in our first market garden in 2010. (Funny how Roy’s face is missing from that photo!) As I mentioned last week, this is now our fifth year of doing this—unbelievable.

I looked back at the spring potato planting photos from that year, and sure enough, Libby was helping Dad. Right from the start, potato planting was a father-daughter thing. (Though in the beginning, Libby certainly wasn’t wielding the knife as she did this time to cut the potato seed up.)

Maybe this is because Roy wants to pass along a little Irish heritage to Libby. Or maybe it’s because potatoes are Roy and Libby’s favorite vegetable. But more likely it is because the big potatoes are an easy thing for kids to plant.

Whatever the reason, this year the potato thing is out of control. Due to an ordering snafu, we are going to wind up with double the amount of potato seed we were supposed to have (which was much more than last year in the first place!). This small field (below) that Roy and Libby planted over the weekend ate up just a fraction of that seed. And Roy has already planted 300 more feet of potatoes out in the new big field. Not sure where the rest is going to go, but if you’re a farm stand customer, stand by for Red Golds, Red Thumb Fingerlings, French Fingerlings, and German Butterballs. Lots of ‘em!

Even though it was a grey and chilly weekend, we stubbornly followed up our farm work on Sunday with a trip to get ice cream and a walk on the beach. Libby is a good sport about both photos and farm work (she also helped me plant more seeds in the hoop house), but we always want to do something fun (off-farm fun) when she’s with us, too.

When we got to the beach, she immediately took her shoes off and started running about, teasing the surf, scooping up rock finds, doing a full-body sand-plant, chasing Farmer. I took pictures, of course. Later at home, looking at one of these (right) and at some photos I took of her the very first day I met her in 2009 (left), I realized that though she may be turning into a lovely young lady, she’s still a beach girl, through and through. Lots of traditions are worth keeping—even that one where the mom takes too many photos.

Edible, How-To, Prep Tips, side dishes, The Garden, The Recipes

Super-Quick “Confetti” Greens + (Surprise!) Broccoli Leaves

April 18, 2014 Susie Middleton

Even if I do not, the hoop house loves this weather. Or I should say the hoop house greens do. They like the cold nights and the many daylight hours of fuzzy sunlight. “Fuzzy” means grey and overcast to me, so I am not so happy about it, especially because it is freakin’ windy here, and the daytime temps haven’t exactly been soaring, so working outside isn’t really pleasant.

But the greens inside the hoop house don’t have to deal with the wind, and they prefer these overcast days to the super sunny ones when the house gets pot-boiling hot.

It did get hot a few days while I was away; I could tell because some of the greens bolted and flowered. I lopped off most of the flowers (including a few spent mini-broccoli heads) so that the greens could get their energy back and keep growing. In the process, I discovered that the flowers are delicious (especially the kale flowers), which I kept nibbling.

I’m not really sure, since I’ve never overwintered this many different kinds of greens in a hoop house, but I think the kale and collards may be flowering because the plants are aging and/or because of the day length, in addition to the heat.

But mostly, it has been cool and perfect for the greens, so the leaves are unbelievably tasty—nutty and sweet, not at all bitter. The broccoli leaves are my favorite—I can’t imagine why they aren’t sold in grocery stores or at farmers’ markets (maybe they are somewhere!). Harvested young and tender, they need absolutely no prep before tossing in the stir-fry pan.

None of this I would have known if I hadn’t finally taken advantage of the hoop house to plant broccoli and collards, which I normally avoid due to the cabbage pests out in the garden.

But here’s the good news—you don’t have to have a garden or a hoop house to do what I’ve been doing with the greens lately: Cooking the quickest side dish in the history of Vegetables-Meet-Fire. The secret is simply rolling your leaves up and slicing them across very thinly with a sharp knife. The slicing takes care of any tough fibers and the resulting “ribbons” cook in a heartbeat. I’ve often done this with mature collards in the past, but you can do it with any leafy veg.

To get started, you can follow the basic recipe that I wrote for Fast, Fresh & Green (and updated slightly), below. I often just go with garlic and red pepper flakes, so the vinegar/honey/parm combo is optional here. But you could try finishing with sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds or with lemon and minced capers or olives—whatever you like.

The greens also make a nice bed for fish (or lamb—it is Easter I realize!), a good addition to pasta dishes or frittatas, a nice pizza or tart topping, and an interesting fold-in to mashed potatoes or slow-sauteed root veggies like carrots and turnips.

Speaking of Easter, if you need asparagus side dish ideas, click here for a my favorite braised asparagus recipe, here for a nice saute, and here for roasting and grilling directions. Oh, and here for a nice asparagus bread pudding brunch recipe and here for asparagus bisque!

Super-Quick Sautéed Greens,“Confetti”- Style

I love using my large nonstick stir-fry pan for this and for so many things, but a large nonstick skillet works fine. Just crank up the heat so that the greens cook very quickly.

__________________________________________________________

½ teaspoon sherry vinegar (optional)

½ teaspoon honey (optional)

½ large bunch collard greens, broccoli leaves or kale

1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable, peanut, grapeseed, or olive oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

Big pinch crushed red pepper

½ teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste

Shaved or coarsely grated Parmigiano-Regianno (optional)

____________________________________________________________

Combine the sherry vinegar and honey in a small bowl (if using).

Remove the leaves from their stems by holding the stem with one hand and pulling the leaves away from it with the other. Rip the leaves completely in half lengthwise. You should yield about 4 ounces greens. Rinse the leaves and dry them well. Stack them up on top of each other, roll them up tightly cigar-style, and, using a very sharp knife, slice them across into very thin ribbons (about 1/8-inch wide).

In a large (12-inch) nonstick skillet or nonstick stir-fry pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic is softened and fragrant, 15 to 30 seconds. Add the sliced greens and the salt, and juke the heat up a bit so that the pan stays pretty hot. Cook, stirring to incorporate everything in the pan, until the greens turn bright green (at first) and then a darker green and are somewhat wilted, about 1 minute (do not cook much longer or they will begin to toughen). Remove the pan from the heat and taste. Stir in the vinegar/honey mixture if using, and serve right away, garnished with the Parmigiano if you like.

Serves 2

Edible, Farm life, The Garden

Coming Home, By the Numbers

April 15, 2014 Susie Middleton

Eight days, seven flights, six airports and five presentations later, I am home.

Despite the scary numbers, it was a good trip, mostly because I saw a lot of old friends. And also, because, well, I didn’t pass out or throw up or otherwise get too anxious before speaking in front of large numbers of people! I am learning to relax.

Oh, and I also signed and sold lots of copies of Fresh from the Farm, so I did my job.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (er, farm), Roy collected, washed, packaged and sold something like 2500 eggs. And fed, watered and cooped the 500 hens, of course. He also picked up our order of seed potatoes—100 pounds total.

And today I planted 500 onion starts that have been lying in wait on a cool floor upstairs (they arrived the day I left) – only about 700 more to plant tomorrow. (I think we doubled, like, every order this year. What’s a few hundred more?)

In the hoop house, 1500 seedlings greeted me. All very happy with this new temperate (relatively speaking) weather. And the overwintered lettuce and spinach (250 heads maybe) had gone bonkers—lush and lovely.

Well, speaking of numbers, I have three (3) magazine deadlines to meet, now that I am back, so I am keeping this blog short.

Here are a couple photo highlights from the trip, for those of you who aren’t doing the Face Book or Instagram thing!

My first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains from the car as we headed to Zone 4 Magazine’s “Plant to Plate” conference at Chico Hot Springs Resort in Pray, Montana.

I snuck in an early morning walk before the conference began.

And again the next morning…

Then it was off to my 30th reunion at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The Chapel is the focus of West Campus.

Glimpses of spring at Duke.

My freshman dorm room!

Two highlights: Left, my college room mate, Carolyn Kates Brown, holding my book while I hold her new book, a wonderful biography of Eudora Welty called “A Daring Life;” right, one of the many efforts Dan and Andra Spurr made to offer fun, goodies, and know-how to Plant-to-Plate attendees in Montana.

Counting my blessings on all my fingers! (At least the ones that don’t smell like onions…)

Edible, The Garden

Lovely Afternoon Light for Pea Planting with the Farm Dog

April 3, 2014 Susie Middleton 4 Comments

And so it all begins. The outdoor work, I mean. There is daylight enough for me to sneak in some garden time before a late supper, after I release myself from the office and the computer and the deadlines imposed by more travel coming.

Farmer and I spent a lovely hour or two in the leaf-strewn garden (the leaves were our winter mulch for the beds) planting peas and moving a few odd winter greens around.

We dawdled in the hoop house, too, finally warm and dreamy after days of cloud cover and chilling winds. Farmer is an excellent garden companion.

Naturally I brought my camera along, mostly because I find it so interesting to look back at the stark reality of early April when August comes around. And vice-versa—I’ve been deep into my photo archives this week putting together three different Power Point presentations. Looking at all those pints of cherry tomatoes and bunches of zinnias not only reminds me that we do actually manage to grow a lot of food, but that warm (truly warm) days will come again.

On an early April day, objects that will later fade into the summer collage now pop out in relief.

Even not-so-pretty objects look better in early spring.

I could do without the constant fiddling with Remay (the fabric row cover that keeps pests and a little bit of chill off early greens) this time of year, but getting my boots tangled up in it and stabbing myself occasionally with the fabric staples (in the very top photo) is surely a whole lot better than being inside staring at frozen, snow-speckled ground. If early April is what I’ve got, I’ll take it!

bakey things, Edible, Farm life, side dishes, Sustain, The Garden, The Recipes

Hope for the Seedlings + Sixburnersue’s Best Cabbage Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day

March 13, 2014 Susie Middleton

Yesterday I was hiding out in the hoop house, pretending that I didn’t have a long list of things to do before getting on a plane tomorrow. It was warm and bright and still inside, the air spritzed with the fine smell of damp potting soil. I could have stayed there for hours, futzing over the hundreds of little baby bok choy seedlings that have popped up in the last week.

We planted the bok choy seeds with the grand scheme of getting an early crop into our south-facing bed along the outside of the hoop house. Roy has been prepping the bed and installing hoops and a plastic cover to warm the soil up for planting. Bok choy can go into 50° soil and by using transplants, you can have a harvest in about a month after transplanting.

Even though we have the hoop house now, it isn’t heated, so the nighttime temperatures are still pretty chilly in there. (The greens in the raised beds have covers over them.) So we had to germinate the bok choy seeds inside. First, I mixed up the seed starting soil (with water) and spread it in 72-hole flats in the hoop house. Then I carried the flats inside, planted the little tiny seeds, covered the flats with plastic tops, carried them upstairs, and arranged them over the floor of Libby’s bedroom. Then I shut the door to keep the room cool and to keep Barney out.

So you can see, we still do not have a very sophisticated system of seed starting. And, by the way, though Libby’s room was the perfect temperature, and the seeds germinated very evenly, Barney did get in there more than once and pounced on the plastic tops. I think he got in because Farmer nosed the bedroom door open, thinking Libby might be in there.

Still, we’ll call that part successful. However, we’ve then had to carry the flats down to the hoop house every morning—and then back every night. The seedlings grow straight and sturdy in the gauzy overhead sunlight of the hoop house, so you want them there during the day. (Without adequate direct light, seedlings grow leggy and sideways, as most of you probably know. ) And very soon we’ll be able to just pop the plastic tops back on at night and leave them in there. But right now, because of this ridiculous weather (50° yesterday, 25° and snowing today) the flats have to go back inside the house at night. Argh!!

Anyway, this is certainly not a big problem to be complaining about, and I’m only really recounting this as my way of saying I am oh-so-very-excited about spring coming. (And for making delicious things with bok choy, of course!). When I get back from Chicago, I will plant more flats—of lettuce, spinach, kale, and chard. (That is—IF I get back! I’m supposed to get out of downtown Chicago and to the airport on Monday, and isn’t that St. Patrick’s Day? And isn’t there, like, a fairly large parade in Chicago?! Oh well.)

Since I won’t be actually here on the Irish holiday, I thought I’d better share my favorite cabbage recipes from Sixburnersue with you today. I’ve never been one for boiled cabbage, so for a simple preparation, I go with something like this Quick-Sautéed Cabbage recipe. For something fancy, there’s always the Savoy Cabbage, Apple, Onion & Gruyere Rustic Tart. But probably my favorite holiday cabbage side dish (with the same flavor profile as the tart, just with potatoes added) is this St. Patrick’s Day Cabbage, Onion Apple & Gruyere Gratin.

I may not get to eat one of these dishes on St. Patrick’s Day this year, but I do have some cabbage to look forward to—I planted some cabbage seeds directly into one of the hoop house beds last fall, and I now have a few tiny cabbage plants starting to form heads. With any luck, I’ll have cabbage on say, May Day! And baby bok choy even sooner. Can’t wait.

Sixburnersue.com

Category Archives: The Garden

Tomatoland

Hope for the Flowers, Witchcraft for the Weeds

Market Garden or Farm Field, It’s Still an Outdoor Room

A Letter Home from Camp Green Island Farm

Baby Kale, Avocado & Radish Salad—Susie’s Pink & Green #9

My Potato Farmers, Then and Now

Super-Quick “Confetti” Greens + (Surprise!) Broccoli Leaves

Super-Quick Sautéed Greens,“Confetti”- Style

Coming Home, By the Numbers

Lovely Afternoon Light for Pea Planting with the Farm Dog

Hope for the Seedlings + Sixburnersue’s Best Cabbage Recipes for St. Patrick’s Day

Vegetables, flowers, and serenity with Susie Middleton