Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Kale Chips!



For all you Martha haters out there, you should still check out this website and figure out how to make kale chips! The perfect, healthy, vitamin-packed snack. Crisp, salty, and delicioso! Martha even gives you five quick and easy alternative flavors to plain old salt.


Now, if you've always wanted to grow your own kale, or have wondered how we grow it at the farm...well, it's easy.  Kale is part of the cabbage family, and it is a very resilient leafy green that can withstand cold weather, can be grown through most seasons, and resists many diseases. Hot weather and cabbageworms are its enemies. Gentle World provides a good overview about how to grow kale in pots and in the garden.  When harvesting, snip the leaves from the outside rather than plucking.


Tuesday, July 2, 2013

PRESTO! Basil to Pesto.



Basil is a very important herb in cooking, but fortunately for everyone, basil is super easy to grow! You can even grow it all year long as long as you keep it in a sunny, warm spot indoors or outdoors.  If you grow it outdoors, make sure that the basil gets enough water. If you grow it indoors, make sure that the basil is getting at least six hours of sunlight.

You can start basil from seed after the last frost of the season, or you can buy a seedling from Home Depot if you aren't into starting from seed.  Maintain your basil plant by plucking off the larger leaves so fuller and stronger leaves can grow in their stead.  Make sure that flowers do not grow on your basil plant- if they start to bud, pick off the flower and the surrounding leaves.

And that's it! Caring for basil is super easy and super rewarding. Having fresh caprese (fresh basil, fresh tomato and fresh mozzarella) sandwiches is THE BEST! If you have more basil than you know what to do with, dry it out to have some dried basil on hand, or freeze it, or make some pesto! Here's an excellent, blogger-tested pesto recipe. It takes five seconds to make and it's yummers. Enjoy! P.S. we have basil at the   Campus Farm :)