Magnesium 101, The Miracle of Magnesium

Magnesium is essential to more than 300 biochemical processes in the human body and over 3,700 magnesium binding sites. The functions the need magnesium include:

• Blood pressure regulation
• Protein synthesis
• Neurological function
• Blood sugar control
• Energy metabolism
• Antioxidant production

Most of the US population is deficient in magnesium.

This post is about magnesium rich natural food sources...

Buckwheat pan cakes with Blue Berries

I've been doing a lower carb diet lately and I wanted to make pancakes for breakfast last Sunday morning.

Buckwheat is about half the carbs of regular flour.

I threw in some blue berries for good measure.

Here is the recipe.

The Marker

Radishes germinate and mature so quickly that we often use them as a marker for other slower germinating crops.

Crops like...

Carrots

I planted our third planting of carrots today. Marked them with over seeding of radishes. I'm trying out a new variety from Amsterdam, along with our standard candy carrots. Planted about 500 feet of row in a double row.

Radish - The Publication

We have a local publication called Radish that often does articles on growing food and farming.

They featured our farm in the June issue.

Here are the highlights.

Petersen's Market Menu for June 11

Still planting tomatoes, peppers, egg plant and other vegetables. The veggies in the field are coming on strong.

Here is our list for this week.

Brussels Sprout Slaw, with Maple Dressing

I know brussels sprouts are a little out of season here in Minnesota, but I had a craving for some slaw and that seemed like a good base.

It made a good complement to steel head trout.

Here is the recipe...

Bio mimicry

Did you know that Velcro was invented when a Swiss engineer thought long and hard about why burrs were so hard to get out of  the coat of his dog and his trousers. He analyzed the hook and loop structure over a number of years and came up with Velcro.

Using approaches from nature in engineering products is called Biomimicry. Here are some more examples...

Scapes

Garlic, the word brings out the best of flavor and and aroma. The garlic plant does its best to provide us with usable forms for most of the year. You can store hard neck garlic until March. In late March or April the garlic plant is up out of the ground and you can use green garlic until the aerial appearance of the curl.

What is the curl you might ask.

Five Feet Spacing

Andrea and I were getting ready to plant one of our crops that requires five feet between plants for maximum yield. The fruit averages 50 pounds each.

Can you guess what we were planting...