The Restaurant Garden…Free Delivery…From Mother Nature

I posted on facebook some interim pictures to hold you all over before this post. The garden is in gear producing the early arrivals in abundance. The Raven Green Squash Variety is really out-producing all the other squashes but the Goldy Variety (renamed John Deer Squash) is right behind with thinner more intense fruit flavored yellow squash.

My hopes are swirling behind three other varieties that are beginning to show up. They are Green Tinted Patty Pan Squash…

The Yellow Star Patty Pan and The Mexican Tatume Squash varieties.
Big garden East,where all the squash reside,  was home to Ricks’ family corn patch for years. We have heard about undertones of flavors from Bee Keepers. Bee honey from CT. tobacco fields is much different from orchard or clover field samples. We found our John Deer Squash when sauteed in olive oil, butter, salt and pepper has a distinct undertone of Sweet Corn. Pretty Cool. Our Mesclun Greens are producing 2 Lb bags daily along with our mixed Large greens we have plenty for the Restaurant Salad Bar and to mix with our signature salad offerings.

The potatoes are flowering and Joe is experimenting with increased yield techniques by haying around the rows. I am hoping it works because of our earlier losses from potato rot.

In the Teardrop Garden the Beets are doing well although leaf boring worms have cost us delivery of beet greens to our guests who requested the dish a few weeks back. We have just started to show our Oregon Giant Snow Peas, from our second planting, (first planting was washed away by rain) and our Snap Peas, another second planting looks to be behind by a week or so. The Shallots are in their final growing stages and soon can be harvested. We can’t wait to cook with those babies.

Lisa has almost singularly taken over the challenge of “Tomato Keeper” pruning. hoisting, tying, suckering, and nurturing of over a hundred and fifty plants like she is dealing with one. Rather than names, we took a page from Orville Magoon’s book of plant identification, used at his wine vineyards in CA. “Four-Seven” (identifies Row 4 plant 7) has curled up leaves and “Three Two” looks like it has blight!!. “Fifteen-One is in a mud hole and isn’t growing, we need to…well you get the picture. The tomatoes have just started to arrive, the early variety is Golden Queen, Capris variety size yellow fruit with a fairly robust tomato flavor from a yellow.

Tomatillos are a couple of weeks away as are the tomatoes in the East side of the Old Garden. My boys and I can’t wait for the arrival…

I’ll add some updated close-ups this weekend so check back on Monday!!! See you all around the Compost Bins!!