.........AND AFTER

On May 24th, the following day, our garden looked like this.......

There's only a few of the boards from our raised beds left behind. This is a view from the southwest of the garden, where the shed used to be. It also blew away.....

You can kinda see where the rows were, but no vegetation is growing anywhere....not even a weed!

The cement blocks are all that was left of the new garden shed. The four "beds" in the background were the lettuce beds.

While we sustained a substantial blow, our family is doing well. We are trying to find our new normal and still be able to have fun in the midst of added lists of things to do. Our home sustained damage and will not be living there for several months. We all miss home and we miss our garden, but we know that it is temporary. We're not missing anything that cannot be replaced or repaired. At the end of the day, we are thankful that we can say, "We are all okay!"

GARDEN ...... BEFORE

The day before the tornado, May 23rd, this was part of our garden. I actually remembered to bring the camera to take photos of the garden that morning, finally beginning to flush out with green vegetation. Our tomato plants survived the late frost and were finally beginning to stand straight with new growth. The beans and southern peas were sprouting and the summer squashes were growing rapidly....it seemed that our hard work was paying off.

100' bed of greens..............

arugula.....
this pic shows the beds with beets, kale, mustard, pac-choi, komatsuna, squash, zucchini,

cucumber, 300 tomato plants, green beans, and purple hull peas.......
approximately 800 butterheads, romaine, and leaf lettuces......

We were letting some folks "pick" early for their produce co-op on this particular morning and getting geared up for our first "picking day" the following Saturday. Soon after, we would be preparing for the weeky farmer's market as well. Little did we know, the very next day, we would see hundreds of hours of hard work and months and months of planning, blow away in the wind.......

TORNADO BLOWS US BACK TO START!!!!

As many of you already know, we were hit by the May 24th tornado that stormed through the Piedmont/Cashion area. We are extremely blessed to have had access to a storm shelter and we are all ok. Thanks to so many who have checked on us, packed us, moved us, brought us water, clothing, food, vehicles, offered homes, did our laundry, etc.....We have been humbled by the outpouring of generosity we have received from our family, friends, and church family. "Thank You" just isn't enough....

As you know, we were just getting geared up for our first "picking day"! But, Lord willing, we will be back.......again:) We just don't know when at this point. We are trying to find our new normal in our rental home and waiting to see how to proceed with repairing/rebuilding our damaged home as well as the garden. We hope to be growing again soon....

We will keep you posted here on the progress of our garden as we get up and growing again!

Again, thank you all for your prayers and thoughtful concern for our family!

BBVEGGIES IS BACK FOR THE 2011 SEASON!!

We are officially starting our 2011 Season this Saturday, May 28 (delayed a week due to rain) at our garden. We will be open from 8:00-10:30 AM for U-Pick. Yes......YOU-Pick!! We are very excited about kicking off our season, so we are offering SPRING FLING prices just to celebrate!

This week's picking:

Butterhead lettuce

Romaine lettuce

Green and red leaf lettuce

Red Russian kale

Blue Scotch curled kale

Spring Fling prices:

Lettuce - .75/head

Kale - 1.00/bunch

WATCH THE BLOG - MORE COMING SOON!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE SALSA!!!!!

SUNDAY, JUNE 28

It's looking more like salsa making time!! We've had a gillion green tomatoes for weeks now....they're ripening slowly, but surely! This week we should harvest the first batch.

We use tomatoes in lots of different ways, but our favorite family way has to be salsa.  There are as many salsa recipes as there are people, but we've perfected a recipe that seems to please the whole family.....which is no easy task!  Here's our recipe in case you want to try....

Chopped tomatoes filled to the top of the blender

2 tsp fresh chopped garlic

3 Tbsp chopped jalepenos (fresh or pickled)

several sprigs of cilantro

Several shakes of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Blend in blender until desired consistency and Enjoy!!

It tastes better when all of the flavors have mingled together in the fridge for awhile, but ours never lasts that long :)

If you have a Salsa or other recipe to share.....please feel free to post it here!!!  Just click on comments......

Swiss Chard This Week!!

THURSDAY, MAY 28

The summer market hours have kicked in  and we will be in Bethany for the first time this season on Saturday!  We'll be back in Edmond on Wednesdays beginning June 10.  We enjoyed meeting some nice folks in Edmond this spring and look forward to this summer there, as well!

We'll bring our first chard of the season to market this Saturday.  We planted four heirloom varities of chard this spring:  Canary Yellow, Flamingo Pink, Fordhook Giant and Oriole Orange.  We picked up these seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds when we were in Missouri for Spring Break.  What a fun place to visit!   The leafy greens are beautiful to look at individually as well as in our favorite,  Bright Lights (coming soon), which is a mixture of all of the great neon colors.

If you're like most, you look at chard and admire its beauty, but wonder what in the world does one do with it in the kitchen.  It is, of course, great in salads.  It's also a wonderful substitute for spinach in dishes you may already prepare such as omelets, pastas, pizza topping, etc.  The mid-rib can be quite sizeable and used as a celery replacement.   Because they're also quite colorful, it adds a splash of color to an otherwise bland-looking dish.  

Try this recipe from a favorite, farmgirl fare blog, and let us know what you think:

www.inmykitchengarden.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-to-do-with-swiss-chard-hot-swiss.html

Look forward to seeing you soon!

Your Friends @ bbveggies

First Lettuce Harvest This Week....

We attended our first market of the season this past Sat. in Edmond.  In spite of the sporadic storms, we had a great day.   We had shallots, shallots, and more shallots!  We had fun digging the shallots Fri. night in the mud, in the dark with a flashlight!  Thanks to those of you who stopped by to see us Saturday!  It was good to see you again and we look forward to another market season...

I've heard some folks say they couldn't enjoy growing vegetables as much as flowers because veggies just aren't that pretty.  Some aren't, but many are truly beautiful.   I'm amazed at how many of the vegetables and herbs that we grow are additionally beautiful, flowering plants. Many of them have striking foliage in addition to their beautiful blooms.  

One of my favorites is leaf lettuce.  There are hundreds of varieties of this vegetable with chartreuse to dark green and everything in between - not to mention the deep burgundy-reds, stripes, speckles, and mottled with green and red together.  I enjoy looking at the striking color combinations as they grow in the garden....just as beautiful as any flower I've seen, I believe.  

We chose about a dozen different varieties based on many factors, including heat tolerance for our lettuces.  We hope to be able to stretch our lettuce harvest well into the summer. Currently, we have four varieties planted and will be planting more in the coming weeks.   Waldman's Dark Green is a standard green leaf lettuce especially good for Spring.   Black Seeded Simpson is a beautiful light green, crinkly leaf lettuce.  Firecracker is a deep red, ruffled leaf lettuce.  Its deep burgundy leaves are striking when mixed with Black Seeded Simpson (2nd photo).  We also have Mottistone (top photo) which is a summer crisp lettuce, much like a Romaine in texture, but with a sweet taste.  It is a beautiful green/red speckled leaf.  

We plant the lettuce intensively in the beds to help crowd out the weeds.  Then, we harvest the thinnings and leave the rest to grow to mature size.  This week will be our first harvest of thinnings.  We will have bags of our Spring Mix, which is a combination of the four varieties, at the Edmond market on Saturday.   So, come and see us!!