May 27,2009 – This week’s featured vegetables start with more radishes and rhubarb, Spring onions, head lettuce, herb, collards or kale (kale is leafy, collard is flat), asparagus and salad mix (boxed separately).

Recipes

Those who went out of town for Memorial Day (myself included) may still be trying to use up last week’s vegetables!  Here are some ideas for those playing CSA catch-up.

Looking for radish recipes? Food Down Under has 210 of them to choose from.  Golden Walnut Couscous Salad uses radishes and spinach,  Couscous and Radish Salad uses radishes, mint, and scallions.  For anyone trying to feature their CSA vegetables in main dishes rather than side dishes, try Japanese Style Rice and Radish Salad with Shrimp or Black Bean and Radish Burgers.

What about rhubarb?  Anyone looking to get beyond the tried-and-true rhubarb-and-strawberry combination might try  Roast Leg of Lamb with Rhubarb Mint Chutney. 

Canadian Living also lists fun rhubarb recipes in a June 2008 article, then expands their list to include even more recipes.  I liked the look of their Rhubarb Muffins or Loaves.  For the rhubarb entree that I’m making this week, check my blog.

Food For Thought – Lasagna Gardens

For me, the tall brown paper bags that are starting to appear on curbs everywhere are not full of yard waste – they’re full of gold.

That’s because this spring I got caught up in Lasagna Gardening – layering compost directly onto my grass, like a big mulch lasagna, and then planting in it.  Friends had been tempting me with the idea for years: no tilling, almost no weeding, and very beginner-friendly.  All I needed was carbon-rich brown compost – like leaf litter, sawdust, or mulch – and nitrogen-rich green compost – like grass clippings, manure, or vegetable peelings from my kitchen – and I could get started.

That’s when the tall brown bags began to look so attractive.  I needed more grass clippings than my own small yard could provide.  I began knocking on doors.

Lasagna gardening introduced me to more of my neighbors than I had ever met before, as they bemusedly but cheerfully let me haul away their garden wastes to build my own garden bed.  Whenever I look at my garden now, I see their smiling faces and their generosity.  The county, too, was generous, offering mulch, compost bins, and information – all for free.

The urge to build more lasagna beds is hard to ignore.  Just one more, I thought last month; I won’t plant anything in it, I’ll just let it cook down and get it ready for next year.  A few weeks later, when a friend had too many squash seedlings and offered the extras to me, I found I had the perfect place to put them.  Lasagna gardening feels like bounty springing up from nothing.  I drive around town, passing tall brown yard waste bags, and I feel rich.