From the Garden this Week…

From the Garden this Week…

Tomatoes, Green Beans, Cucumbers, Summer Squash, Basil, Lettuce Heads, Sweet and Hot Peppers, Crenshaw Melons, Lemon Verbena, Thyme, Pluots and Apples

Coming Soon…Winter Squash and Sweet Potatoes

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

This week we needed to harvest our lemon verbena and thyme. You can use these for marinating chicken or fish. I like the lemon verbena in a marinade because you get the lemon flavor without the acid from the lemon. I also included a recipe to make a seasoned herb oil. This would be good for salad dressing or as a drizzle on a tomato salad or sandwich. The cucumbers are continuing to go strong, so I have an extra recipe for a creamy cucumber salad, this uses sour cream and basil.

Creamy Basil Cucumber Salad

¼ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar or lemon juice

1 teaspoon sugar

Pepper to taste

1 large or 2 medium cucumbers, peeled if desired and thinly sliced

¼ cup thinly sliced onion

2-3 tablespoons chopped basil

In a large bowl, whisk sour cream, vinegar, sugar and pepper until blended. Add cucumbers and onion; toss to coat and stir in the basil. Serve right away.

Lemon Verbena Thyme Oil

(I wish I took the after picture. Below was before the "haircut.")

½ cup lemon verbena leaves

¼ cup thyme leaves

1 teaspoon whole black pepper corns

1 cup inexpensive oil, like a regular olive oil or canola oil

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

In a 1-quart mason jar, place all of the herbs and peppercorns. Pour both oils into a saucepan and heat to 200 °F. Pour the hot oils into the jar and cover with a kitchen towel. Let stand overnight. Place cheesecloth over the top of the jar and replace the outer rim of the lid. Invert and strain oil into a container for storage.

We are starting our U-Pick harvest

By appointment

Call or Text Cindi

209-607-1887

We have tomatoes, peppers and eggplant available.

Let us know when you can come out to visit!

Fruit Desserts…

We are nearing the end of the fruit crush. This will be the last harvest of the beautiful purple fleshed pluots and we also have Pink lady apples coming your way. I thought that they would make a nice crisp, combining the two, the apples will take on the color of the pluots, but will lend their texture and sweetness.

Pluot-Apple Crisp

3 apples, peeled and chopped

4 pluots, chopped, pits removed

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Topping:

¾ cup light brown sugar

¾ cup old fashioned oats

¾ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup cold butter, diced into small cubes

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Butter an 8x8 baking dish, or spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, add chopped apples, pluots, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir to combine, then transfer to prepared baking dish. In a separate mixing bowl, add the brown sugar, oats, flour, salt, and cold butter. Use a pastry cutter, two forks or your hands to cut the butter into the oat mixture, until mixture resembled pea-sized crumbs. Spread topping over apples in baking dish, and gently pat to even it out. Bake 40-50 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly.

Metaphors of the Soil and Soul by Ronda May Melendez…

Chard is a fascinating little veggie. Yet, as fascinating as it is, it was their nemeses who hold my attention this week.

I noted that the chard had some critters present, who apparently enjoy chard as much as you and I do! This is an issue. If we are going to enjoy the chard, then, the little multi-footed ‘friends’ cannot. So, how to solve the problem? Awareness and timing.

Julie shared that if we remove the current plants and push back re-planting for about a month, it provides opportunity for those vying for vittles a chance to die off and not return as heavily.

This thought gave me pause. What good things in my life am I holding onto for too long, rather than allowing them to be removed, just for a time, so that the pests that continually feed on what I prize can be diminished or removed, perhaps, altogether?

Jesus said in John 5:39-40, “ You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

Those He addressed were holding onto what was good; what would, indeed, feed them. However, because they did not know the person of Jesus, the Giver of Life, they would not be able to receive the fullness of nourishment the Scripture provides. In order to receive true life to the full, they would need to relinquish their idea of what Scripture was purposed for. Scripture reveals the character of God, but they are not God. Will we relinquish our ideology and come to the One who gives life and life abundantly, allowing Him to remove our ideal use for the good, so that we can have His Best?