Red Cabbage

How beautiful is this?

 

Only two more CSA pickups this year. This cabbage we got a couple of weeks ago. I cut into it and chose to cook it only really because I wanted to see the inside! I made cabbage soup and it wasn't bad.
Please please please! What other delicious cabbage recipes are there?!? Tell me!

Tomatos! and detour explanation

 

They are finally coming in! I've missed tomatos so much!! The plan was to have enough ripen at once to make tomato paste.
The tomato plans didn't receive that memo so they are staggering their ripening. Maybe we'll dry some. There's a bunch more green ones on the vines - maybe enough will be red at once to make a paste? We just know from experience that it takes A LOT to make A LITTLE of any tomato product.

Detour
Ren Man started the detour/distraction. He was looking up something (can't remember what) on craigslist in Vermont and came across an almost 2k sf home with a huge carriage barn for under 100k. This got us thinking... maybe it would be better to have a house that needed fixing up so we could do that and focus on the farm instead of building a new house and fitting the farm in to that.
So we looked. There were five homes were were very interested in.
After much discussion though (and fantasizing) we decided that being on the farm, building a house to our own specifications, and replacing the trailer that is currently on the building site made more sense.
It came down to this:
we could own a house and at least one of us work full time off the farm
OR
we could work on the farm and build our house with less expense to us (so more time to devote to family and farm)
While owning had it's appeals (that I won't detail because then it gets me thinking about it again!) I was having a very hard time imagining being off the farm and commuting (arguably minimally) 2miles to the farm.
So that was the detour.

Early Garden Happenings

It got warmer.
I put the peer pressure on.
Ren Man resists as long as possible reasoning that another cold front could happen before it's REALLY time to plant.
I reason warmer weather.
He finally relents and plants.

 

Two raised beds - yes, in the front yard.
What's the point of all that grass when we could grow produce?!?!
Oh, and the "trellis"?
That's from our boxspring that we took apart.
I have mixed feelings about this: pride (we were resourceful) and mortified (we have a box spring piece in our front yard).

 

And here's where the rush wasn't a great idea.
We (meaning Ren Man) transplanted basil and tomatos here and then covered them with hay to keep them a little more toasty.
And then last night.... it got c-o-l-d!
When I glanced out the front window this morning I was shocked to see a small baby quilt thrown over these plants! Then I realized they needed the extra coverage last night!

 

These guys were brought in last night too -
don't need any tomatos to suffer in the cold!

 

Yep! Yummy produce already! It's fun to see how far we can stretch the growing season using cold-loving plants.