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...

Ten Below on the French Riveria Part II

In our last post we made the observation that, many of the Minnesota "locals" do not realize that South East Minnesota is at the same latitude as the southern coast of France. The Reveria is known for its mild Mediterranean climate and stands in stark contrast to the Minnesota cold.

The reason for this is Minnesota is land locked and is exposed to the Canadian Arctic weather systems. While the southern coast of France has a hugh body of warm water call the Mediterranean Sea to moderate its climate.

But the real key is the amount of sunshine both locations get...they are the same.

So why all the fuss and why does this matter?

Anchor

Anchor is typically a seafaring term used for a device to tether a boat to the bottom of a body of water.

I like to use it to talk about roots. If the root is healthy the plant is healthy. Wisdom from Mr. Miyagi the sage of the "Karate Kid" trilogy.

Have you ever gone out after a good rain to pull weeds because it is easier. The rain loosens the soil and lubricates the roots so they have less "anchoring" ability.

This time of year roots have a slightly different anchoring function...

Spinach Cakes with Parmesan

These delightful little cakes are like baby quiches. An elegant way to increase the super food spinach in your diet.

Asparagus. Wilted Spinach, Scallion and Black Bean Pasta (gluten Free)

The vegetables in the title of this post sounds like our market menu for this week. It is very nice to have a medley of vegetables that we can use in the kitchen once again.

This dish is heavy on the veggies and uses the black bean pasta to add interest. The pasta and vegetables are gluten free.

I boiled the pasta per instructions, added the asparagus and scallions to the boiling water about half way through. After straining the pasta and veggie mixture to drain off the water. I added the hot mix to the spinach and let it wilt down a bit.

Here is the recipe....

Thinking Differently - As easy as 1, 2, 3

Farmers can often circumvent the conventional wisdom and improve their bottom line by just thinking differently.

Let's look at some examples...

Spinach Spinach Every Where

Spinach will over winter here in our Zone 4 climate. That is good news, becuase the baby spinach plants go to sleep (go dormant) over the winter and wake up in April to start growing again.

The year Reed was born (17 years ago) we had and El Nino year with a very early warm spring.

What do you think happened to the spinach?

Turning Hostile in to Habitat

Spring in Minnesota can be wild and unpredictable. You won't be able to do any serious tillage until middle to end of April. So what do you do if you want to get a jump on the growing season and get things planted as early as possible?

Last Night I Planted Spinach, Swiss Chard and Beets

As an example of a summer planting for fall, last night I planted Spinach, Swiss Chard and Beets. Each has its own characteristics for successful germination.

How to get Lettuce and Spinach to Germinate in the Summer

I have had many people tell me they have tried to start a second crop of lettuce or spinach in the hot summer soils of June, July and August. But have had a crop failure.

What happens is the seeds go dormant in the soil temps above 85 degrees and only a few seeds or no seeds germinate.

Here is a solution...

What seeds can I plant for a fall garden?

Along about the first of July the garden centers box up all their remaining seeds and send them back to the seed companies. But you know as a educated and well informed gardener that the season is far from over. In fact some of the best vegetables come from the fall garden.

I just got my fall seed order from Johnny's seeds in Maine. Let's talk about what you can plant from seed that will thrive in the fall.  Here is my top 10 list.

Plants That Do Well Together in Pots

There are a number of combinations of garden plants that do well together in pots. Here are 10 combinations:

1. Sunflower, squash and peas. Similar to the three sisters that were planted by the native Americas when the Europeans first settled in America.
2. Two peppers do well in pots. They also do well planted together in the garden.
3. Combinations of herbs, such as Basil, Rosemary and Thyme.
4. Edible flowers such as pansies work well with shorter herbs.

Ten Reasons Why Day Length Is Important

Right now sunrise is at 5:28 am and sunset is at 8:51 pm here is Rochester, Minnesota. I am writing this at 4:30 am on Friday so it is still pretty dark outside. I like to rise early and Friday's are my day for a men's small group at our church. So the coffee is on and I am listening to some Hillsong tunes on YouTube.

Day Length Illustrated in this Picture, Taken at About 8:00PM in April. Photo Credit: Reed Petersen

Right now the day length is approximately 15 hours and 21 minutes. In about three weeks we will top out at nearly 16 hours during the spring/summer solstice. Other than if you are a morning person "like me" or like to work in the garden until bed time "like me" (feels like double dipping this time of year) why should you care...

First Fruits

We had some beautiful 50 degree weather today. I took Reed to do his driving test after work, he passed. Good job Reed!

I got home a little early so I planted our first greens of the 2014 growing season.  I planted...

Ravioli and Winter Vegetables

I don't know about you, but I like about any kind of ravioli. Jenna and I made spinach and rigotta ravioli pasta last night for supper after we all got back from Christmas shopping. It was very good. I'm going to put the recipe in the blog, but realize that the ravioli filling can take lots of forms and many of the winter storage vegetable work well for ravioli.

Ingredients:

Dough:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
6 eggs

Filling:

1 pound fresh spinach
1 tablespoon salt
1 pound ricotta
1 egg
2 tablespoons heavy cream
4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch black pepper

Sauce:

1/4 pound butter
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon chopped sage

Directions:

Dough is formed by making an indentation in the floor on a tabletop or bowl.  Add the eggs to the center of the flour indentation. Incorporate the flour into the eggs with a fork. Knead the flour and eggs together to form dough and continue to knead until the dough is thoroughly worked together, this should take 4 to 5 minutes. Reserve the dough until ready to assemble.

Cook the spinach until tender. Remove the spinach from the boiling water and cool for 2 to 3 minutes. Put into a colander and squeeze out the water from the spinach. Chop the spinach coarsely and combine spinach, ricotta, egg, heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Season with nutmeg, remaining salt, and black pepper.

To make the sauce, melt the butter in in a skillet. Simmer the nutmeg, saga and butter for 1 minute. Reserve until the raviolis are cooked.

Assemble the raviolis, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll out each piece to form a thin layer (about 1/8 inch).  Place 1 spoonful of filling onto a sheet of dough 1/2 inch from the edge. Continue to place spoonfuls of filling along the dough 1-inch apart. Put another strip of dough on top of the strip with the filling on it. Pinch the edges of each ravioli with the tines of a fork.  Use a knife  to cut out the raviolis. Set aside each ravioli on a cookie sheet dusted with flour. Avoid stacking so they don't stick together.

Add raviolis  to boiling water. When they are fully cooked, they will float, this takes about 2-3 minutes to finish cooking. Serve each portion with sage butter and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of grated parsmesan cheese.

Other fillings for ravioli are:

• carrots
• kale
• cheese
• winter squash: butternut, acorn, delicate, jester (are all good types)

Sweeter with Frost - Spinach

Spinach takes the grand prize of frost hardy and frost sweetened. Spinach will overwinter in Minnesota with a little snow cover. It goes dormant in the freeze up and wakes back up in the spring thaw and will start growing again. The leaves that have been frozen all winter are edible but not good quality, but the new growth is outstanding.

We plant fall and winter spinach between September 1-15 and plant about 3x the amount we would plant for the main summer season. It grows throughout the fall and we harvest as needed. The earlier planting often is harvested twice. The later planting is typically harvested just before freeze up and we often stop harvesting due to snow in early December.

Spinach is always sweet but is especially so after a few light frosts...

Summer Greens Are Amazing

For the freshest, just out of the garden flavor, visit our farmers market stand for some amazing greens. We are at the market right now getting set-up (I wrote and scheduled this post at 4:00 this morning.) I think the cooler weather over the last few weeks has contributed to the exceptional flavor. We have:

1. Baby spinach is back after taking a break for a few weeks.
2. Spring mix with gorgeous baby kale, 4 varieties of lettuce, baby beet greens and a touch of sweet ruby
3. Red Russian Kale micro greens, very small
4. Baby Kale
5. Arugula, Arugula, Arugula zesty and fresh
6. Sweet Ruby
7. Cress
8. Dandelion Greens

Don't miss the fresh basil and cilantro. 

We picked 20 pounds of beautiful basil yesterday evening. Stand half way between the onions and the basil for the Italian experience.

How to Pick Smooth or Savoyed Spinach

I prefer Savoyed-Leaf spinach over Smooth-Leaf for the Farmers Market as I think the presentation is better. Savoyed-Leaf has better loft and fills the bag better. Smooth-Leaf packs down in the bag more. From a flavor stand point I can't tell the difference.

The savoyed varieties like Tyee have good powdery mildue resistance and resistance to other diseases.

I had some problems with damping off of seedlings last year. Turns out good old food grade hydrogen peroxide can help with this. Don't use the medicinal kind as that has preservatives. You can get a quart of food grade H2O2 at the Peoples Food Coop. Be careful handling it, as 35% can burn your skin.

The June Solstice is This Week

The June Solstice occurs on Friday, June 21 at 12:04 AM. Did you know this is the longest day of the year and the days begin to shorten after this?

This is a very important event in the plant world as many of the garden and wild plants are day length sensitive. Many of the mile markers of the season in terms of plant development are driven by light.

Many of the greens such as lettuce, spinach and mustard greens want to bolt at this point no matter what size the plants are. Bolting is the process of the plants sending up a see head and is usually accompanied by a bitterness in the plant. We avoid this by planting a second or third crop long about now.

The enlargement of the bulb on long day northern onions is triggered by the long days at the end of June (see post on counting onion leaves). The effect is quite striking as the onions go from the size of my index finger to the size of a baseball or softball in a matter of weeks. The cellular replication rate must be off the charts.

The shear length of the days make plants like corn do double time in growth. That is why plants near the Arctic circle, while they have a short growing season often can grow rapidly, and make a crop in the land of the mid night sun. We often notice that the late full season corn for green chopping for the silo would reach phenomenal heights of 10-12 feet because it was planted late and leveraged those long days.

Tell someone you love, that you enjoyed sharing the longest day with them.

Heavenly Tasting Greens

It is show time in the garden for those heavenly tasting greens. Lettuce, spinach, kale, mizuna, tatsoi, cress and arugula are our favorite greens. They are especially flavorful compared to store purchased greens. We have been told this by our customers many many times and they often ask why this is. Some customers have even gone so far as to do a taste test.

There are several reasons for this amazing flavor.

First we work very hard at remineralizing our soils. We add kelp meal, low magnesium lime, and highly mineralized salts. These minerals replace those removed from the soils over the years of farming activity.

Second we use several inches of compost in each bed. The substrate for this compost is vegetable matter such as leaves and alfalfa hay that brings up minerals from deep in the soil. These minerals are maintained by the compost. Compost is not a fertilizer perse, but it does contain a nice amount of slow release nitrogen that is just right for light feeding greens. It is more of a soil amendment that feeds the microorganisms in the coil. A primary purpose for the compost is to provide a weed free shield for the greens to get ahead of any weeds that may be present. This makes for a low maintenance growing site.

Third we harvest the greens Friday night right before market. They are extremely fresh for the market and that gives them incredible shelf life. We have had many customers tell us that they have been able to enjoy their salads for two weeks after purchase.

The best way to get the maximum shelf life is to wash the greens you purchase and then spin or pat the greens free of moisture. Then put them in a zip lock bag with a paper towel to collect any residual moisture. It is the anaerobic conditions where drops of moisture collect that cause spoilage.