Pesto for all (or most)!

The First Church garden is really great at growing basil. The plants may fear being squashed by jungles of tomatoes, but it still does well (and we've planted a lot of it!) Last summer I began my search for a great pesto recipe that would suit our nut-free and vegan bent. I tried replacing the cheese and nuts with various things with okay results, but it was obvious that something wasn't quite right.

Now I think I've found the secret. If you add a little lemon juice, you will no longer be disappointed when the pesto doesn't taste like cheese and nuts. I'm hoping many of you were able to sample some of this recipe last week at coffee hour. It's adapted from this strange blog and goes like this:

Lemony Basil Pesto

2 c basil leaves
2-6 cloves of garlic (I actually used about 10 garlic scapes this time instead.)
2 T nutritional yeast (Sold in the bulk section of Harvest)
2 T sunflower seeds (hulled and preferably raw)
2 T lemon juice
2-6 T extra virgin olive oil
salt to taste
maybe some pepper too

Roughly chop basil leaves, garlic, nutritional yeast, and sunflower seeds in the food processor. Add lemon juice and 2 T of olive oil and process until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and thin with more olive oil if you'd like to put it on pasta or prefer a thinner pesto.

Feeding the Body

Our harvests are getting bigger and bigger! This week I pulled our first beets out of the ground. They are such big, beautiful specimens. I also harvested lots of kale, collards, chard, lettuce, and parsley and brought them over to the East End House in East Cambridge (Project SOUP was mysteriously closed). The food pantry there was about to give away their weekly delivery of rescued food from Food for Free and the staff were overjoyed to be have such fresh, local veggies to distribute as well.

Here's some more pictures of this week's veggies:

'Early Wonder Tall Top' and 'Touchstone Gold' beets

Swiss chard and collards

Kale!

What's Growing Today?

Calendula

Kale!

Zucchini forming

Zucchini plants getting gigantic

Calendula

Young banana peppers

Pole beans

Blooming lavender

Chard

Golden beet forming

'Rainbow Lacianato' Kale

Feeding the Body

I'm back from vacation in Portland, OR and have returned to a garden brimming with life and giant plants! Many thanks to the folks who cared for it while I was away -- especially Elizabeth F!

Today I harvested an IKEA bag full of greens and brought them to the food pantry. (Yes, you read that right!) It included chard, collards, bok choi and loads of three different kinds of kale. Have you ever seen an IKEA bag full of greens before? It's quite the sight:

What's Growing Today?

Everything!!

tomatoes starting to bloom!

tomatillo and ground cherry plants

'Cocozelle' zucchini

large 'Crimson Giant' radishes ready to harvest

carrots

lavender just starting to bloom

dill

calendula getting ready to flower

strawberries!

peas beginning to bloom

Feeding the Body

With all this heat (and frequent extra water) the garden has been growing very quickly. It is finally time to bring our first big bag of vegetables to Project SOUP, the food pantry of our mission partner the Somerville Homeless Coalition!

See the 'Winterbor' kale to the left? It has grown big and thick. So have the other two kinds of kale, collards, lettuce, and bok choi.

The lettuce has fed the Sunday morning crowd and folks went home with the small thinnings tonight after Rest and re/New. These are small greens that I had pulled them from between the greens to let the remaining plants grow to full size.

But the biggest and brightest of the lot, the 'cream of the crop' so to speak, is is going to be delivered tomorrow to Project SOUP. We have two grocery bags full of lettuce, a bunch of the best kale I could find, and all of the full-size bok choi specimens (it is a smallish variety).

This delivery is partly to fulfill our promise to the original funders of the garden. We are required to give 10% of our produce to the poor. Realistically, urban gardens often make this 'donation' without trying.

All that said, food pantries are accustomed to receiving produce significantly past it's prime. Tomorrow I will deliver a big bag of super fresh, super local, organic veggies to one of these pantries. What does it mean to give our very best away and only keep the punier specimens for ourselves?

P.S. We will likely have a glut of all kinds of gorgeous produce in the very near future. There will plenty for our church community and extended communities to enjoy! Please let me know if you'd like to cook with our produce for any kind of church function and help yourself to snips of herbs.

What's Growing Today?

The strawberries are starting to turn pink!

tiny lemon balm seedlings

marigold "volunteer"

The lettuce and bok choi are getting big!

'Baldwin' apple tree