time to feed the tomatoes.

while the tomatoes feast on compost tea and eggshells, while the air gets warmer with small bouts of heavy rain, and while i sit in here typing away on the computer, the garden is just going to town folks. it's getting harder to stay caught up. but i guess really, in truth, that's a good thing. i've got lettuce coming out my ears with plans on planting more, the brussel sprouts need to be thinned out and rearranged, i need to find or construct some space for crowder peas (like now!!!), and i need to cut down the peas to make room for the 2 squash plants we bought at one of the asheville tailgate markets this weekend. not to mention that i have yet to come up with a plan for the fall and winter gardens. and the cleaning around here NEVER ends (you folks with kids, how do you keep sane??). the dairy yesterday was out of butter and eggs, my legs are killing me from jogging, i haven't had a decent BM since i ran out of yogurt, i keep forgetting to order keifer grains, and ray is yelling from the living room that he is bored but doesn't like any of my suggestions of what to do today. but when you think hard about it, if those are my biggest problems right now, i am doing really great. we both still have jobs, the dogs are healthy (although cleveland has developed a wart on his muzzle that continues to grow. it's probably just canine papillomavirus, but i'm taking him to work sometime this week just to be sure), and two different farm tour weekends are coming up. so it's a local we will go. till then let's play a little catch up with some garden goodies and darn good dinners.

high in calcium, the tomatoes are supposed to like eggshells.
although i think they like the compost tea more.

back to the earth you go.
coffee and kitchen scraps ready to be buried under the t.v. dish.

lettuce.
seeds came from a packet labeled summer mix.
there is more where that came from.

not to mention all the strawberries around here right now.
we are having strawberries with just about everything.
strawberries with cornmeal pancakes and local pastured raised bacon.

little strawberry puddings.

homemade yellow cake and organic vanilla ice cream with a quick and easy strawberry sauce.

fresh garden greens, local strawberries, local pasture eggs, raw walnuts, and crackers left over from ray's lunch.

we also had a good bit of peas.
more than i though we would get from only about 9 plants.

venison burger with local onion and homemade roll.
fresh garden greens, raw peas from my garden, cucumber and tomato from local farm.

time to harvest the last of the spinach that was planted last fall.

first harvest of the rainbow silver beet chard.

i harvested the spinach and the swiss chard so i could make a savory tart.
cornmeal crust, spinach, chard, eggs, onions, and local feta cheese from split creek farm.
this my friends was GOOOOOOD!!!!!!!

so good in fact, that ray requested another one......

second savory tart with a few changes from the first.
this one had roasted onions and tomatoes with chard, yellow squash, eggs, and feta cheese.
it's so good and lasts for days in the frig making a few yummy lunches during the week.
can't wait for all the tomatoes in the yard to start coming in.
i see lots of tomato tarts in my future.

more fancy mixed lettuce harvested from the garden.

that lettuce was used to make a salad of fresh mixed greens, homemade wheat noodles, cheese, venison meatballs, and raw peas.

this weekend we bought some of the last asparagus from bi-low farms at the greenville saturday market. we ate some for breakfast the next morning with goat cheese and green onions from asheville, local pasture eggs, peas from the garden, and more local strawberries.

all this food is making me happy, but i am also sad, cause i am down to the very last few pecans that we collected from my grandmothers yard during christmas. but not to worry, i have already scouted out a few areas to forage for even more nuts this year.
there is a tree at work, a few trees here on the subdivision property, a co-worker of ray's says her sister always has more than she can use, and of course the 17 trees at grannies. hopefully, once we get a big freezer, i will be able to collect enough to last me a whole year.