Early summer eating at the urban farm

After cultivating, planting, and then spending a few busy weeks weeding, now is the fun time of summer before the tomato plants become large and unruly and the flurry of canning has started. This is the sweet time when you can really begin eating something besides salad.

Due to my locavore tendencies, I've also been thinking more about reducing food miles where I can and eating what is in season and available in my region. Many of the veggies and fruits we now eat are grown in our own plot of land, and if not here, then purchased from local growers. And food miles aside, this food is ripe and tastes better than much of the produce trucked in from some other time zone.

Things we've been enjoying this week: green onions, broccoli, broccolini, basil, cilantro, parsley, and Swiss chard from the urban farm, and homemade bread made from local wheat and homemade sourdough culture (a real treat toasted and smeared with last week's strawberry jam). I also made my raspberry millet muffins (recipe from February 24) and subbed in local sour cherries. (I may now need to plant a cherry tree!)

Some other foods in photos...

Local bread cheese (Juustoleipa), warmed up on a hot griddle.

This is my second week of enjoying local strawberries. These were frozen on a cookie sheet and then stored in baggies for wintertime smoothies and shortcakes.

On a bike ride with my daughter today we found a patch of wild blackberries. They are tiny but perfect (maybe even more perfect because they were a gift from nature with no work involved).

Our cultivated raspberries are starting to ripen. There were only enough red ones today to pick and eat immediately, still warm from the sunshine, but I'm hoping to be freezing and making jam out of an abundant berry harvest soon.

Until our chickens start laying eggs, we're very lucky that a neighbor is selling eggs for a local farmer this summer.

Our first harvested kohlrabi (German for "cabbage turnip"). Very easy to grow and tastes a little like broccoli.

The community garden plots are producing some very nice beets, which I like roasted or pickled.