Fleur-de-Scrambled

Scrambled. That’s how my life is now.

So much so that when my mother and great aunt were visiting over the weekend, it didn’t occur to me to hide the four trays of chitting (sprouting) seed potatoes – All Blue, Lehigh, Adirondack Red, and Purple Sun – laying on the living room floor (planting No. 3).

“What are those things?” asked the 80-something duo. “They look like cookies or something.”

The dining room table covered with semi-organized piles of paperwork, seed catalogs, and planting charts is invisible to me; to them, it was a glaring example of domestic disarray. In their homes, there’s not a paper or knickknack out of place. The pots of luffas crowded on the kitchen windowsill are as natural as the wall-to-wall tomato seedlings in the hoop house or the ladybugs in the bathroom.

“You must like this life,” said the woman who is planning her 90^th birthday around nine holes of golf and knows how to relax with a glass of “white water” (vodka with a splash).

It’s spring. Although there is never a month I’d earn the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for my homemaking skills, this time of year is especially bad. Why, when I was carrying out a flat of Giant of Prague celeriac and assorted heirloom peppers to transplant and the tray flipped and spilled all over the front steps, I was more concerned with rescuing seedlings than sweeping up the mess.

Add demands of a part-time job, family obligations that cut weekends from each month, and rain that encourages mats and mounds of weeds … no wonder I feel like I’m always scrambling. So, if I’m not available when you visit, please understand. Bring change or write me a note and remind me what I owe you on your next visit. But most of all, stop in and enjoy our fresh eggs, fresh asparagus, fresh green garlic – and, if I’m around, fresh-cut arugula, sorrel, lettuce, chives and other lovely herbs.  No matter what life brings, I promise never to be hard-boiled. And one of these days, things will settle down and I’ll be sunny-side up, or at least, over-easy. Laurie Lynch

More Chick Names: All of the Easter Peeps came back safe and sound. The rest of the names are as fun as the first group: Pecky Anne, HENrietta, Queenie Black (a Crevecour with a crown of feathers), Chocolate Turtle, Arabeth, Aussie, Shelly, Flippy-Flip Chick, Blackie, and Blondie.

Sweet Potato Slips Soon: $10 for a dozen slips. Heirloom varieties include Georgia Jet, Beauregard, Vardaman, Yellow Jewel, Nancy Hall, and White Triumphs. New varieties: Carolina Ruby and Red Japanese. Please call or email to reserve. They should arrive in mid-May.

Llama Beans: We’ve got bags of llama beans (aka llama manure pellets) to cook your compost … and more on the way. Our llama beans can become your black gold … and they’re free!

Dandy Soup: Soon after I was raving about my garden-harvested dandelion meals, Valerie sent me an email that shows how she’s unscrambling her life. “Thinking of you today. I made a soup with beef bone broth, dried beef, your carrots, sheep sorrel, thistle roots, wild garlic, and oregano that grow in my yard. And mint tea, also from my yard. Why do we bother planting anything? Just learn weeds. My rule of thumb when making soup is; If it’s growing at the same time, then it all goes in the soup.”

Written on Slate: “If my heart were a garden, it would be in bloom with roses and wrinkly Indian poppies and wild flowers. There would be two unmarked tracts of scorched earth, and scattered headstones covered with weeds and ivy and moss, a functioning compost pile, great tangles of blackberry bushes, and some piles of trash I’ve meant to haul away for years.” – Anne Lamott

Sign Gone, We’re Not:  We are having a new Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market sign made. On occasion during the next month or so, we may be sign-less. But, we’re still open.

Fleur-de-CircleofLife

Last weekend was our second wave of potato planting.

The first was a few weeks ago when I started several pounds of fingerlings in large black plastic pots in the hoop house. It’s a painless way to grow potatoes – no digging trenches, just add a little compost when the leaves shoot up, and then, after the plants flower, you simply reach into the pot and pull out tender gems for dinner.

But last weekend, it was the more traditional way of planting potatoes, with a few Fleur-de-Lys twists. I still dig trenches, three of them, but instead of numbering them 1-2-3, they are Red, White, and Blue. That way, I plant all my red-fleshed or red-skinned potatoes in the red row; all the white-fleshed potatoes in the white row, and yes, the blue-skinned and fleshed potatoes in the blue row. I separate varieties in rows with stakes. Later in the season, when I want to harvest a few pounds of white and blue potatoes for a Penn State tailgate, I know which rows to go to. These mind games come in handy for us graying market gardeners.

Another trick of the trade is making sure the seed potatoes have a generous helping of composted manure. After I dig my trenches and place my potatoes, I start wheeling in loads of compost to start filling in the trenches, covering the seed potatoes. As I move along the row, I search for the fat, C-shaped white grubs in the black compost. I gently pick them out, collecting them in a bucket. Then, as I return the empty wheelbarrow to the composted manure pile for a refill, I take the writhing beetle grubs up to the chicken pasture. Bonbons for the hens.

It’s Easter Peep return week, so I’ve been busy collecting all of the names for the girls (more on that later), getting them reacquaintedwith their sisters, and gathering eggs from last year’s peeps. We’re also starting to pick asparagus, baby arugula, sorrel, chives, green garlic (scallions of the garlic variety), shiso, and, we have local Milk & Honey Farm honey. One interesting first for us was about a third of our Red Russian kale over-wintered and has sprouted new, tender, tasty leaves! I’m perplexed, but not complaining. Then, I got a call from Karen, a great gardener on the other side of Kutztown. Her broccoli raab did the same thing! All I can think is that we didn’t have a brutally cold winter, and we had more snow cover than usual, acting as a blanket for tough plants and perhaps helping them survive and now thrive. Here’s to thriving! Laurie Lynch

Name Game: Yes, we want our peep customers to name their chicks! The week before Easter we had former peep family who trudged the whole way up Hen Hill to call for last year’s peep: “Pancake, Pancake.” She came running … along with the rest of the flock! This year’s youngsters liked the letter C. We have Claire, Charlotte, and Candice. We also have two chicks named Chipmunk and two chicks named Chippy. (I have to stop describing the Aracauna chicks as looking like chipmunks. I’m afraid I’m skewing the data.) Other names are Goldie and Princess and Peepers, Sorrel and Shadow, Brownie and Blackberry, Tulip and Daffodil and Lilly, Bird and Buddha, and, simply, “Him” (we are hoping “Him” is really “Her”). We also got Pecky and Picky, as well as pictures of Pecky and Picky Perching on a Pot. But my special Easter treat this year came from a customer/photographer in the Philadelphia area. She brought me a trio of photographs of her precious babe in an Easter bonnet and special dress playing with her first Easter peep. Charming.

Tomato, Tomahto: Started transplanting tomato seedings this week. New heirloom varieties headed to our Fleur-de-Lys field: Violet Jasper, Carbon, Black Ruffles, Rowdy Red, and three vintage plum tomatoes: Assalito Family, Roughwood Garden and Pompeii.

Written on Slate: “I call everyone ‘Darling’ because I can’t remember their names.” – Zsa Zsa Gabor

Fleur-de-CrackedEggs

People think I’m kidding when I tell them the only eggs my family eats are the cracked ones. But it’s true.

Yes, egg production from the hens on the hill kicks in for the spring equinox, but still the dozens fly out of the shop. Just the other day Margaret emailed to reserve two dozen and sent along a beautiful photo (hanging in the shop) of last year’s eggs decorated for Easter with swirls and swoops of sepia.  How could I turn her down? There just never seem to be enough eggs … and yet, when our Easter chicks arrive, there’s a promise of more good eggs to come.

During Rent-a-Peep week, I need to keep life simple because after farm tours, chick care instructions, breed descriptions, and packing and organizing supplies, I have a hard time telling my Aracaunas and from my Australorps. Yesterday, I was solo. Marina’s in Belgium, Richard’s in Brasil, Aunt France was here for two days but had to go home to Philadelphia, and Paul went sailing. I could handle the customers and the chores, but what would I do about dinner – Good Friday dinner?

The KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) evolved as the day progressed. I started weeding early in the strawberry patch and noticed an abundance of robust, frilly rosettes of Maxatawny dandelions. I could just pull them up and feed them to the chickens, like all of the other weeds, or, I could try the Pennsylvania German spring tonic of Dandelion Greens and Hot Bacon Dressing. Ding-ding-ding, my Catholic upbringing started sending out signals: “Good Friday, no Meat. Good Friday, no meat.”

Well, OK. So, there has to be another way to prepare dandelion greens – minus the bacon. I thought about it while I picked and pulled, taking a break now and then to greet customers. As the day went on, I realized a bag of dandelion greens would not a dinner make. What to do? What to do?  There is always Chinese takeout … then I recalled a woman at February’s PASA conference talking about eating local and switching to a different attitude: Eat what you have, not what you “want”.

That’s where the cracked eggs come in. I had three of them in the frig. Ping the duck is laying again, so I could use one of her eggs to make a four-egg frittata. But how to jazz it up? I noticed the fresh spring growth on the herb garden chives. And sorrel, those leaves are the first to come up as the snow melts. Arugula – one of the chores on my mental to-do list was to thin the arugula. I’d toss in some arugula too! What cheese would be good with the herbs, yet not overpower them? My weeding brain was in overdrive. Then, it came to me. I had two partial containers of plain Stonyfield yogurt – well, actually only the dregs. I decided to pour the soupy leftovers through cheesecloth and a strainer to separate the whey from the solid. The whey is used to ferment veggies and the solid becomes a super creamy, mild yogurt cheese – perfect for my frittata.

After a day of meal-making in my mind, I must say the end result came together quickly in the kitchen. It was the fluffiest frittata I’ve every made and a healthy side of a “messa greens” reminded me of my years in Charleston, S. C. Fresh, local, oh so simple, and as good as I could want.

Sauteed Dandelion Greens

4-8 cups (approximately) of dandelion greens

1/3 cup olive oil

4-6 Picasso shallots, sliced

A couple shakes of dried hot red-pepper flakes and freshly cracked black pepper

Sea salt to taste

I had never picked dandelions to eat before. Everything I read said to do it BEFORE the flowers developed, which is now, because after blossoming the greens are too bitter. Of course, you want to pick dandelions that have not been treated with pesticides. Remove roots from dandelions and place greens in salad spinner. Rinse well. (I probably gave them a half-dozen rinses just to get all of the soil and straw off.)

Heat sauté pan and add olive oil, shallots and pepper. Stir and sauté until golden. Add dandelion greens. They will wilt and shrink in volume almost immediately. Keep stirring and sautéing for a minute or two. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve.

Fleur-de-Lys Cracked-Egg Frittata

(Serves 2)

2 tablespoons butter

4 fresh eggs

Handful of freshly snipped herbs (whatever you have in the garden)

1/3 cup “yogurt cheese” (see above)

Melt butter in frying pan. Whisk eggs, herbs and yogurt cheese, and pour into pan. Cook on medium heat, lifting edges with a spatula to cook the runny mixture. When eggs are almost done, except for the top, remove from heat and place in oven with broiler on. Toast the top until firm and golden.

Llama Beans: We still have a few bags left to heat up your compost pile. Stop by.

Honey of a Deal: We’ve got a batch of Milk and Honey Farm honey for sale in the shop. Local honey at its best. $5 a  pound.

Written on Slate: Maybe a person’s time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to buy food. – Frank A. Clark

Happy early spring eating! And, as they say in Belgium and Brasil: “Kisses”.

Laurie Lynch