Garden Producing Daily

The garden has bounced back from our extreme heat week and is now producing cucumbers, beets, squash -zucchini and patty pan, green onions and wheelbarrow loads of kale.

While the strawberries are completely done now, the raspberries are really coming on strong producing about a quart of berries each day. It was during the blooming stage for the current ripe fruit when the hot weather changed the growth pattern of forming berries and we are finding many oddballs as we pick.

Many of the berries are twins or nearly twins. The malformation creates funny shaped fruit. Many times the ripening of the twins is slightly off and a single berry can be both ripe and not ripe at the same time.

These oddities are interesting to witness and I am on the lookout to see if any of the other flora has different growing patterns from our weather.

In the meantime, these berries will still grace our table and freezer as we continue on with our summer of unusual dryness. I wanted to share a kale/raspberry salad recipe while both are on my mind.

Kale Raspberry Salad

2 cups cooked quiona cooled

chopped green onion

2 cups chopped kale (tender leaves only)

a squish of garlic juice

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

*Depending on what is currently available, I also add grated carrot, chopped cucumber, minced radishes or even thin sliced zucchini)

Dressing

2 tablespoons miso paste

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons vinegar (I prefer rice vinegar)

Mix dressing into other ingredients and add up to 3 cups of really ripe raspberries depending on how sweet you like the salad. Keeps well in fridge when mixed in fact the next day the flavors marry up nicely.