We've been pulling a few radishes and picked our first greens last weekend. Did you know that radishes are full of potassium, vitamin C & fiber? If your like most people you usually only eat radishes in salads, but here are a couple of recipes I thought you might like to give a try for something a bit different.

ROASTED RADISHES
2 1/4 lb. radishes, trimmed & quartered
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. minced fresh oregano or 1 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Transfer to a greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Baked, uncovered at 425 degrees for 30 minutes or until crisp tender, stirring once. Yield 5 servings

BOK CHOY & RADISHES
1 head bok choy
2 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. olive oil
12 radishes, thinly sliced
1 shallot, sliced
1 tsp. lemon-pepper seasoning
3/4 tsp. salt
Cut off & discard end of bok choy, leaving stalks with leaves. Cut green leaves from stalks. Cut leaves into 1" slices; set aside. Cut white stalks into 1" pieces.

In a large skillet, cook bok choy stalks in butter & oil for 3-5 min. or until crisp-tender. Add the radishes, shallot, lemon-pepper, salt & reserved leaves; cook & stir for 3 min. or until heated through. Yield 8 servings.

Here's a recipe for arugula, also showing up at markets now.

ARUGULA SALAD WITH SUGARED PECANS
3/4 tsp. butter
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. sugar
4 cups torn leaf lettuce
2 cups fresh arugula or baby spinach
1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. water
1 Tbsp. honey
1/8 tsp. salt
In a small heavy skillet, melt butter. Add pecans; cook over medium heat until toasted, about 4 min. Sprinkle with sugar; cook & stir for 2-4 min. or until sugar is melted. Spread on foil to cool.

In a large salad bowl, combine the lettuce, arugula, fennel & tomatoes. In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the remaining ingredients;; shake well. Drizzle over salad & toss to coat. Top with sugared pecans. Serve immediately. Yield 6 servings.

The above information & recipes came from "Birds & Blooms grow it cook it A to Z veggie guide"
Enjoy!

We've got lots of flats of heirloom tomatoes just starting to sprout in the big green house, plus some cabbage, cauliflower, fennel, borage and kohlrabi. In the little greenhouse we have tomato plants about ready to go out into the big hoop house. In the little hoop house we have some greens, mizuna, arugala and radishes that we are starting to pick off. Onions have all been planted, and we have some onions that we overwintered that are about ready to start pulling. The row cover has come off the strawberries, so lets hope for no more below freezing weather so we don't have to pull those things back on! Ha-ha-ha! We've about got the third hoop house ready to plant some more spring greens and radishes. Has a bit of a wet spot that needs to dry out.

Boy what a difference a couple of days can make. Monday we had almost 9" of snow, and today is up in the 70's! Got to love that saying about Missouri, "If you don't like the weather, just give it a day"! This Sat. is our last indoor winter market, then the last Sat. of March we start out outdoor market. Hopefully we will have some of this 70 degree weather then! Last year we had about 2" of snow that first day of market, was not fun at all!

If you live close and are interested in our CSA, we are still taking applications, so give me a hollar if you have any questions.

SO SORE!!!! Yesterday Greg took off work and we planted around 1,200 long storage onions for this fall and winter sales, and around 1,800 candy onions, and around 180 leeks! I say "around" because some bundles have lot more than others, they make bundles a certain size and know that they have at least 60 plants in them! We plant them on raised beds covered with black plastic mulch and drip tape, so we have to poke holes with sticks and put the plant in and push the dirt around it. Lots of crawling and bending!

Seed orders have been coming in! We've got some tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli and basil sprouted in the little green house. I planted some cilantro this morning. I've taken more cuttings off my rosemary, stevia and mint. The little hoop house has some greens and radishes coming along in there. We've been working on the big green house, doing some updates and modifications, about to get it done, then have to clean it all up so we can start getting seeds started in there. We worked on the big hoop house a bit yesterday. Have some tears and rips that need fixing.

The snows all melted and now we are floating in mud! The sun is shining today, so come on spring, warm us up and dry us out! I saw where day light savings time starts in a little over a week! That's hard to believe, but it will be nice! Have been hearing the "peepers" for a couple of days now. I love hearing them, but I think it's little cold yet for them, guess they are getting antsy just like us!

Speaking of Spring it's time to start signing up for our 2011 CSA. If you live in the Fulton or Columbia area we'd love to have you join us. Just contact me if you're interested and I'll get you the information. Prices and pickup times and locations will be the same as last year.

We are starting to get in the seeds that Greg ordered! He got eleven flats of tomatoes planted Sunday, so we are slowly gearing up!

Also wanted to let you know that this week is Thank A Farmer Week! Just click on the green highlighted words for more information!

ORDERING SEEDS!

It's seed ordering time! What an ordeal! First the seed catalogs arrive and there's the fun of looking through them all and seeing all the pictures of all the wonderful, colorful, interesting, weird and new things. I hate the catalogs with no pictures! But they are of use when Greg starts comparing prices. Then you start marking everything that looks interesting, of course some particular seeds (Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce) are found in most catalogs, then there's those that are harder to find and only have one or two sources. Plus you have to go through your old seed and see if you think any of it's still good for this year, and do you have enough. That's where it starts to get "hairy"! O. K. now you've got to figure out who has the cheapest seeds, what's shipping going to cost. Is it really cheaper to get them from one source if you only need a couple of items plus the shipping, or from a more expensive source, but you are ordering more things from them because you can get bigger quantities of seed cheaper, but the new things you want to try you don't really want but a small amount of seed to see if you like it or how's it's going to do for you.....!!!! Who has organic seed, if that's what you want, who's seed is more reliable, etc.

As you can tell this is not my cup of tea! I have no problem looking through the catalogs and marking them all up and turning down the pages, but from there I turn it over to Greg! His engineering mind can handle all that detail stuff much better than mine! As we speak he's right dab smack in the middle of the mess! He's only got about thirty catalogs to wade through and make his choices from!

Some of the things we've decided upon so far are Purple Plum radishes, Nash green beans, Orient Express cucumbers, Simpson Elite lettuce, Queensland Blue winter squash, Kikuza squash, Jarrahdale pumpkin, Thelma Saunders squash, Galeux d' Eysines pumpkins, Buttercup Burgess, Guatemalan Blue, New Zealand Spinach, Australian Butter squash, Rouge Vif D'Etempes squash, Musquee de Provence, Triamble squash, Sunflower Collection, Cincinnati Market radish, Red Malibar Spinach, Galaxy of Stars gourd, Casius squash, Taybelle squash, Delica squash, Golden Impire Wax bean, Fordhood Lima bean, Batavian Escarole, Olympia pean, Cascadia Pea, Knucklehead pumpkin, Snow Sweet pea, Indigo Radicchio, Virtus Radicchio, Rhodes Endive, Concept lettuce, Magenta lettuce,Gremlin gourd, Imperial Start Artichoke, Super Red cabbage, Confection Kabocha, Cheddar Cauliflower, Aladdin pumpkin, Munchkin pumpkin and Lil Ironsides pumpkin.
As you can see there's not much lettuce or greens of any kind yet ordered, or beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, peppers, radishes, turnips, beets, onions, leeks,cucumbers, summer squash, herbs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, melons, etc..... Oh the fun of ordering seeds!!

BRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!! It's cold out there and we have around 4"-5" of snow on the ground! Well it's the middle of winter and so I haven't had much to post about as far as farming goes. We've been getting seed catalogs in the mail, so we need to get on that and get those ordered. Greg has been making plans and accumulating parts to put together 3 caterpillar tunnels for this Spring. We are still selling at Columbia's winter market. We've been taking winter squash, sweet potatoes, dried apples, jams & jellies, eggs, and baked goods. We sold the last of our regular potatoes last week.

Greg & Lucas got the big hoop house cleaned out of the old tomato plants, stakes, plastic mulch and drip tape while Lucas was home for Christmas break. They put up the snow load braces so we don't have to worry too much about them caving under the weight of the snow. We got the little green house refurbished and the plants moved over from the big green house, and the big green house shut down, which is nice as the little one doesn't use as much propane. The propane barrel ran dry before we got the little one finished, so all the heaters in the big one shut off. Luckily we caught it and had it refilled (emergency weekend call), before it had been out too long and we lost plants!

My amaryllis that my grandmother passed on to me years ago that had come from her mother, is now blooming! It has 20 bloom stalks, 9 of which have 4 bloom, 6 with 3 blooms, and 3 with 2 bloom, 2 still to bloom, making a total o 60 blooms so far!!! That is what the picture is of! It usually blooms around Christmas and again in July!