We hope everyone will join us this Thursday, July 9, from 1 to 5
p.m. for another tempting Pathfinder Produce fresh fruits and veggies
market. We’re pleased to announce that more New York State grown produce
items are coming to market now, and our oh-so-delicious homegrown Hoop House
items are sure to please your family!
****
This
weekend was a busy one, with area families hosting post-graduation parties,
Independence Day picnics, and everyone taking advantage of the nice weather for
mowing and other outdoor work. At the Grace homestead, we spent some
much-needed time in the garden.
First
on the “to do” list was to weed the transplanted bed of wild strawberries,
which have done well. The plants have adapted to their new garden home
and are throwing out runners. In as much as these are wild strawberries,
I should probably add a few domesticated plants, so that way the resulting
fruits next year (fingers crossed) will be larger than the end of my pinky.
My
son and I also removed weeds from the other two beds, which are mostly planted
in spinach, green lettuce and kale. We had a discussion about how to
identify weeds, based on a large mullein plant that is growing on our
property. The garden weeds included crab and quack grass, carpet weed,
garlic mustard, plantain and a few others. There are many handy internet
websites available to figure out what weed you’ve got, like those posted by the
University of California and the University of Illinois. Even master forager
Steve Brill, who eats his way through NYC’s Central Park, offers an “app for
that” from his website.
A
few weeks ago I removed many of the spinach plants, which were going to seed,
and replanted; I wasn’t sure those seeds would germinate because of all the
rain. However, a few have started to grow. This weekend, my kale
needed to be thinned, and my lettuce had gotten “leggy,” so I tore out the
tired plants and put in some fresh rows. (I was smart this year and
actually bought several seed packets of each green, so that I could
replant).
My
small crop of peas also has started to come in, so we picked the pods that were
ready. Coupled with other fresh produce -- watermelon, greens, and
avocados -- it was quite a delicious weekend. Little did I know until I
perused the news Sunday morning that the “Twitter-scape” was in an uproar over the New York Times’ recommendation of adding peas to the
traditional recipe for guacamole. Even the President and his potential
successors weighed in against the addition. (We didn’t put peas in ours … my
son makes it with just a bare minimum of ingredients and
there are never any leftovers).
Until
next time, enjoy the outdoors and all the fresh tastes of summer,
Lori
