Zinnias

Zinnia

Zinnias are native to Mexico and the American southwest. Zinnias are now grown throughout climates in America as a beautiful cutting flower. If you like cut flowers in your house during the summer, zinnias might be a good choice for you. Zinnias are easy so grow from seed. They like rich, amended soil. If you continue to cut and harvest flowers, the plant will branch, giving you a new supply of flowers every few days for weeks. At One Love Farm, we grow many different colors of zinnia along with sunflowers, grasses and other cutting flowers. They are all available in arrangements at the Richmond Farmers' Market.

Pesto

Basil

Pesto generally refers to a sause used on pasta made of crushed basil and garlic with olive oil, parmesean cheese, pine nuts and hot, red pepper. However, there are many variations on pesto. You can substitute walnuts for the pine nuts or omit the nuts altogether and still have pesto. You can even make pesto out of garlic scapes (see earlier blog entry) or arugula.

By far the most popular pesto is made with basil. Italian basil. While we grow Thai basil and purple basil among other varieties at One Love Farm, by far the most popular variety is Italian Large Leaf Basil. Most people buy our basil to make pesto, but some use the bail in garden salad or with cut tomatoes and mozerella cheese for Caprese salad.

Besides serving on pasta, there are many other ways to serve pesto. French cooking often uses a variation of pesto, called pisto, in soups. We often use pesto as a marinade for vegetables before grilling. It is also good with grilled tofu. Whatever your use for bail, now is the time of year to get it in New England, while it is local and in season!

Garlic

Pesto:

One big bunch of basil, leaves only

One clove garlic

Olive oil

Toasted pine nuts

Parmesean Cheese

Crushed Red Pepper

Salt

Mince garlic clove in food processor

Put basil leaves in food processor, but do not overfill.

Drizzle in olive oil until pesto becomse a smooth paste

Add toasted pine nuts and grated cheese and pulse. Add more olive oil if needed.

Add salt and crushed red pepper to taste

Pesto can be frozen and kept in the freezer up to a year or longer. However, I have found it best that when freezing to omit garlic, cheese and nuts as they can discolor and get bitter. I have also found it best to freeze pesto using less olive oil. Once thawed, you can add in garlic, cheese and nuts and additional olive oil.

Tomato Cages

New fangled tomato supports

I have been struggling for years with the best way to support tomato plants. They seem so puny in the spring when you plant them. How could they possibly need so much support? Eggplant is a prolific producer and needs no support. So too, most pepper plants. But tomatoes are different. Their fruit is weighted down with lots of water and are super heavy.

In the past we have used tomato cages (anyone need about 100?). They work great at the beginning of the season. But by the time harvest rolls around, they are toppled over and the plants are back on the ground. In addition, the cages make it difficult to prune branches, a very important step when growing tomatoes.

Tomato stakes work well. But they are a huge labor drain. Every tomato has to be individually staked and they have to be retied to the stake every week or two. With so many things to do in the garden this time of year, that seems less than efficient. What usually ends up happening is that you get a top heavy plant with lots of broken branches.

This year, we decided to try something new. Pantyhose! By tieing pantyhose to tomato stakes, we can get several plants per stake. In addition, pantyhose has way more give than twine, so the delicate tomato plant branches don't break or get cut. Also, pantyhose is strong enough to support even a huge tomato plant weighed down with fruit.

The only issue was getting the pantyhose home. I just couldn't bring myself to buy 60 pairs of hose by myself (what would the clerk think I was doing with them?) So, I brought Karen along and we got out with no questions asked! I'll let you know how our new experiment works for better or worse.