How does my garden grow?

Lets put it this way – I’m counting on my friends at Grant Family Farms to grow most of my food for the next 26 weeks. I can come up with creative ways to prepare fresh food (again, with a little help from my friends), but I’d starve if I had to rely on my own wimpy garden to get me through the summer. My CSA delivery starts next Monday and I’ll be posting weekly recipes according to the harvest. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’ve been watching my little organic garden thrive in spite of my dog’s initial digging interest, the recent rain and hail we’ve had and a few overly enthusiastic wild bunnies. The photo above is of one of my four purple mizuna plants. My micro-victory garden is .00229568415ths of an acre. Seriously.

Urban gardening at the nano-level.

I didn’t make that number up, I actually figured it out. Of course, I could be totally wrong. It’s not like I went to MIT or anything. Within seconds of square feet conversion calculating, I was having synapse spasms, but I pushed on and I think I’m right.

Although I won’t have much of a “harvest” per se, working my little .002295-whatever of an acre has been very rewarding. I’m feeling like quite the little farmer-ette. Today I made a wonderful mizuna salad for lunch. I walked outside, clipped off some leaves and made my lunch. Oh my gosh, I love that feeling. Zena, Farmer Princess.

Purple mizuna is a Japanese salad green that I find to have a mild earthy taste. Maybe it’s a mild spicy taste. Or a mild peppery taste. I can’t really identify it.

* Cid, can you help me with this since you’re the expert on all things Japanese? What does it taste like? Other than good.

Purple mizuna salad
I made this up with ingredients that were sitting on my counter and it turned out delicious. The fresh cherries, dates and walnuts made this mix a winner. Crumbled goat cheese or feta would be a nice addition.

2 cups mizuna greens
mejool dates (I used 3, pitted and chopped)
fresh cherries (I used about 8, pitted and cut in half)
walnuts (4-6 chopped)
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
drizzle with dressing

dressing (any good vinaigrette will do, this is just one of my regular versions)
whisk together
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon agave nectar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Go forth and grow your own greens!
Melissa

*Thanks Kay, for all your gardening tips and guidance. Kay is a blogger friend who is a master gardener, composter extraordinaire, worm rancher (or something like that), chicken herder and all around hard-working farm girl. She’s my gluten-free garden guru.