Yesterday we enjoyed another dish with some fresh greens from the garden. We used quite a bit of Swiss Chard, as we have about a 25 foot row of this, but also some kale (which is beginning to send out seed forming stalks), cabbage leaves, and collards. I wasn't sure what collards were exactly - just a leafy edible green. Now I'm thinking that it's a type of cauliflower, as when we were cutting up the leaves for our dish, we found a tiny cauliflower head. Although it could be that the plant was mislabelled. Time will tell. We left the leading kale plant to go to seed, so we'll have seed for the fall. We didn't add any Sorrel to the dish, as we had just planted it and I didn't know what it was used for yet. Now I know that its juicy and tart leaves are used is salads, etc. like many other greens. I also read that its tartness is in the larger, older leaves because it contains oxalic acid, which is poisonous in large quantities. Hmm. Oxalic acid is also one of the toxins in rhubarb leaves. I'm not sure how many sorrel leaves it would take to feel any effects, but if you have kidney problems - it be best to not have any. We also sometimes add a few mint leaves to our salads for a bit of fresh zip.
We brought back some saskatoon berry plants from our road trip to Alberta. We heard they need a good frost to make the berries sweet, so we'll see if they do anything out here on the mild West coast. The hops have grown about 4 inches higher in the last 4 days - what a difference from last year!
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