Leftovers

I've been wondering what to do with all of my spinach, now that's it's ready to bolt and go to seed any day now. What does one do with daily handfuls of spinach?

Enter the Green Smoothie! Now, this concoction may look disgusting (I was tempted to throw it away after I blended it up for the first time), but not only is it super nutritious, it actually tastes great! Plus it's a great, frugal way to use up any extra greens you have in the garden or laying around in the fridge.

Ingredients:

1-2 cups of fresh greens - spinach, chard, lettuce, or any combination

1/4 cup juice (o.j. works great)

*Blend together greens with juice until well blended. Warning: at this point it will look gross. Just forget your instincts and keep going.

2 or more cups of frozen fruit (I use a combination of bananas, berries, and/or nectarine slices I have collected in my freezer)

2 T yogurt or milk

*Blend together with greens

I also add in:

1-2 tablespoons of honey

1/4 cup freshly ground flax seeds

Peppermint sprigs

Ta-da! A delicious snack that's a also powerhouse of nutrients.

Infection

My garden is infected. I'm pretty sure I've got powdery mildew on the butternut squash leaves, probably cause by overhead watering since I'm too cheap to buy a soaker hose system. I cut off the infected plants which hopefully solved the problem. If it continues to spread I'll have to take some serious action.

Note the white splotches...

I also pulled out a few potato plants because of suspected potato blight. Apparently this is a very, very bad year for potato and tomato blight. I'm not taking any chances - at the first sign of possible infection I'm ripping those suckers out of the ground.

On the upside, I did a little digging around and found a whole pile of potatoes! Hooray!!

 

I also spotted some zucchini growing the other day... 

Fun Fact #3 - Onions

Did you know "green onions" (aka scallions) are just the top part of an onion plant? Scallions are the part that grow above the ground while the onion bulb grows at the root. I've left most of the onions underground to get bigger but I'll take few scallions here and there when I need them. It's an amazing two-for-one veggie!

Using some of this fun fact in dinner tonight...

A big thanks to Cathay for donating all her onion "leftovers" to my garden!