farm with a view

There are two sides of me: The organic veggie-growing, back-to-the-land “me,” and the “me” who’s been known to dump out a can of Campbell’s Chunky Soup and call it lunch more than every so often. I have no excuses ‘cept that their clam chowder has a special place in my heart. (Blame Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Long Winter.”)

In these next few months, though, I’ll be veering decidedly toward the healthy, green tea-drinking “me.” Andrew is embarking on a new diet due to inflammation-related health concerns, and so, his new eating habits naturally translates to our new eating habits. Which is actually a very good thing, because the non-inflammation approach makes a lot of sense from a healthy eating perspective and doesn’t require one to do anything that’s just plain wacky, like eating steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The premise of the anti-inflammation diet, in a nutshell, is to remove all the stuff that has been known to increase inflammation or allergic or digestive reactions in the body – wheat/gluten, sugar, dairy, caffeine, acidic foods like citrus and tomatoes, etc. – and replace them with lots of fruit, vegetables, beans, fish, good fats and non-wheat whole grains, in order to get your system back to its baseline level. Then, gradually re-introduce these foods one a time, and see how your body reacts. It’s also recommended to avoid processed wheat and refined sugar regardless of whether your system can or can’t tolerate them, but we all know that.

Obviously, the first few months of the diet is the most limiting. Especially since Andrew is allergic to fish.

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Cabbage worms are chomping through our kale plants at lightning speed. There’s perhaps nothing more disheartening than arriving at the garden and seeing what was once a large, broad leaf, shorn off with only ragged bits and pieces hanging off each side of its stem. (Except maybe arriving at the garden and seeing all your seedlings scattered about, dead.)

I decided to harvest the few leaves that were still intact, knowing that if I didn’t, the worms would most surely get to them that very evening. (We’ve also been hitting the plants with fertilizer emulsion regularly, hoping they’ll outgrow the rate of the worms’ voracious appetites.)

(Holey kale … And these were the better leaves)

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(Bright Lights Swiss chard leaves the size of my head)

Along with four sugar snap peas:

(Gah. Horribly fuzzy iPhone photo.)

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Look who we found hanging out in the sage:

I know he’s harmless and all but he still gave me the creepy crawlies. Andrew, however, was having a grand old time letting the little guy hang out in his hand.

The crazy heat snap we had last week created some monster zucchini twice the girth of my forearms. I literally groaned when I saw these freaks of nature. I’m done with zucchini.

(Zucchini by themselves do not make for very interesting photos. Throw in a monkey with a cell phone, however, and now I’ve got your attention.)

Our impatience got to the best of us and we dug up our dormant spinach seeds. Not one of them germinated. As Andrew would say, “Bee-larg.” (more…)

We have tomatoes coming out our ears.

When we first started the garden and decided to grow some tomatoes, we figured we’d get a nice ongoing harvest throughout summer, and I wouldn’t have to spend a small fortune at Whole Foods or the farmers’ market to satisfy my caprese salad cravings.

We didn’t expect to be bringing home 25 pounds of tomatoes in one go.

Everything is ripening at the same time, seems like. In addition to this mater motherload, we have several pounds of lima beans, more zucchini, a ridiculous amount of basil and nine crimson bell peppers. It’s overwhelming. But I guess it’s a good crisis to have.

Now, on to cooking, eating and storing all this stuff. Jeez, where to start. Must think of mass production, as in huge batches of Ina Garten’s pappa al pomodoro soup and meatballs with tomato sauce, to freeze. Also learned that you can freeze whole tomatoes, thanks to fellow OVFer Gardenerd. We will be doing that for sure. Wish we had a bigger freezer.