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.

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 :)

El Tomate = Salsa

This week's post is going to be very lazy, and about something super delicious.  One of the greatest crops to plant in your summer garden is tomatoes because 1) they are delicious, 2) they're so useful in the kitchen, and 3) they're low-maintenance.

The hard part about planting tomatoes is deciding which type of tomato you want.  There are several varieties that serve different purposes.  You may want cherry tomatoes for simple snacking and salad-making, slicing tomatoes for your hamburgers, or perhaps you are in need of cooking tomatoes because you are obsessed with Italian food and need ridiculous amounts of red pasta sauce.  Don't be afraid to try out different tomato varieties!

When deciding upon a tomato to plant, remember that tomatoes are vines and need some type of support to help them grow upwards.  Some tomato varieties are indeterminate type tomatoes (meaning they have a longer period of time in which they produce fruit, and they grow taller)- they will need to be planted next to stakes and trained to wind around the stalk.  Other tomato varieties are determinate type tomatoes (shorter fruit producing time period, can be grown with a stake or a tomato cage).

staking method

caging method

This link and this link will give you easy steps about how to grow the best tomatoes in town.  Just in case you get too antsy, just remember to plant your tomatoes in a sunny space and don't over water (once every 5 days at the most).  When picking transplants, don't buy overgrown plants because they will have poorer root systems and will take longer to give you produce.  (P.S. if you want summer fruit, it's probably too late to start from seed. Typically, one would start seedlings in a greenhouse around March)

NOW. If you have a crap ton of tomatoes, or you just love salsa, try out this recipe!

Ingredients:
4 C. chopped tomatoes (drained in streamer)
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 lime, juiced (if you roll it on the counter before you cut it, it helps get the juice out)
some fresh cilantro, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped (for peppers, set aside seeds, then add as many as needed for desired hotness)
1 serrano pepper, finely chopped