Eliza's suggestion to eat young pea shoots as a salad green inspired me to make better use of other sub-prime crops in the garden.  About a third of last year's kale successfully made it through the winter, but after a couple of weeks of leaf harvests, hot weather prompted the plants to bolt.  I was tempted to let the kale go and save the seeds, but instead decided to clip the flower buds off and eat them like broccoli (or, really, broccoli raab.)

Meanwhile, the first shiitakes are coming out on our mushroom logs, and here the warm, dry weather has been a boon.  The mushrooms actually started breaking free of the wood a few weeks ago, but lack of humidity retarded their growth and caused a cracked cap.  The result is not only beautiful, but is considered by gourmet chefs to be the highest grade shiitake out there.  Mixed with our kale buds, copious Egyptian onion leaves, and eggs from our chicken tractors, the shiitakes were absolutely delicious!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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