Tuesday, November 27, 2012

See ya spinach!


If picking and eating vegies straight from your garden is the very best thing, then preserving a portion to eat in later months is second, and saving the seeds to growit again next season is the third.


Yesterday, after three or four months of spinach eating. After pasta pocket fillings, pasties, pies, stir fries, triangles, salads, pizzas, pestos, lasagne's, frittatas, on toast and in soups, we decided that this season's spinach growing days were over. 

So we pulled up all but one bed of spinach.





Then we stripped the leaves and composted the stalks.

And then we steamed, squeezed and froze the rest.

While pulling a spinach portion out of the freezer over the next few months wont quite be the same as cutting a few leaves out of the garden, it will still be spinach that we grew with love and care, in great soil, organically, in our own garden. And it will still be delicious.


And the one bed we left we'll collect spinach seed off to store and plant next year.

I do love growing and eating seasonally. It makes us appreciate what we have when we have it so much more. And the preserved stuff is just icing on the spinach cake.

Is your spinach going to seed?
Or perhaps you are just putting yours in?
What's your favourite way to enjoy the green stuff?
What have you got going on in your garden right now?

Bye. x

37 comments:

  1. That sounds like just about the most perfect day there is! What a wonderful feeling to be not only nourishing you and your babies' bodies but your minds too with such blissful days. WIshing you a magic week. Steph :) x
    thisbrownwren.blogspot.com
    P.S. How are you storing the spinach in the freezer?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A while ago I bought some glass tupper-ware like containers.
      They don't stack which is annoying, but they are great for preserving.

      Delete
  2. I wish my veggie garden grew. I must have black thumbs or poison soil. It's not for lack of trying :( I'll just stick to crafting. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Creamed spinach is just the best comfort food. Yum! xK

    ReplyDelete
  4. We have broad beans galore at the moment! Were podding away every night and our thumbs will be green for a few weeks yet.
    Our spinach started going to seed a few weeks ago so its already in the freezer but we wont be eating it in the next few months, the babies will be eating it in the next few weeks as I added it to mashed veggies for them, so this year we will miss out! I should have grown more.
    Your girls are gorgeous. I love the cheeky grin on the far left.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ours in going to seed, and I am such a lazy gardener that it will stay and self seed the bed again. Steaming and freezing is a great idea, thanks for the tip!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh how I wish i had spinach to harvest, it's one of my favourite vegies and so versatile. I have a tendency to throw it in everything, even our morning smoothies.
    Love the life lessons your children are getting Kate and that I too gan from reading your blog :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a bit of a ladies vege patch which is a mishmash of different things. I just plant a new thing when Ive pulled an old seedy thing out. At the moment there are strawberries, which we're sharing with the sneaky slugs & birds, young sunflowers, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, garlic, beetroot & afew herbs. Plus the lettuce & spinach which is now going to seed. I've loved being able to use my own home grown spinach too, it's so satisfying. Must research how to save the seeds for next year.
    P.s miss Peppers cheeky, cute face! Makes me smile every time :)
    mollie

    ReplyDelete
  8. HI Kate - I love visiting your blog - I dream that we can one day do something similar on some land but for now we are doing our best on a big urban block. We have bees, chooks, fruit and veg...I wish I loved kale as much as I love spinach. That's the green stuff in our garden right now. Cavelo Nero is my all time favourite green thing next to parsley. I use it to make pesto. Looking forward to seeing what else you are growing this summer!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love spinach in a creamy mushroom pasta sauce! I also like spinach & feta pastries.

    xox

    ReplyDelete
  10. What I have I got going on in my garden right now? Crickets. Tiny little green leaf eating machines. They have demolised my oregano and mint and I fear an invasion on our tomatoes is next. I don't want to spray them but I don't know what organic remedy use that will actually work. I must be feeling a little like how you felt when you first started out, not knowing but asking and researching. My tiny garden cannot compare though to your farm hahahaha! This is our first time at seriously trying to garden as we kept putting it off for until we buy our own place. We are still renting and the kids are growing up not knowing where their food comes from hence our sudden urge to grow food. xxxx (I love spinach!)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I haven't grown any spinach, which is a shame, since I love spinach. My favourite things in the vegie garden at the moment are the things I consider to be "free". The extra lettuce, tomato, brocoli, and parsley plants that have sprung up from seeds from last years crop. I also love my peas. Have you noticed that fresh peas from the garden have a beautiful smell, that the peas in those frozen packets do not. Also, the plants, right from when they are seedlings also have that same smell. I love the smell of pea-plants.

    ReplyDelete
  12. We are having an early winter this year.. Garden is the most beautiful green at the moment :) Lots of veggies growing , Broccoli, corriander, Spinach ( we mostly prepare it the Indian way, as a veggie http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com/palak-paneer.aspx
    to go with Indian bread called chappati, or soup ) fenugreek, beans, raddish, carrot, yum green chillies, lettuce..

    ReplyDelete
  13. Our spinach/silverbeet mix has been bolting to seed for ages, thanks to this unseasonably warm spring we are having in SA. But anything I can pinch off the snail invasion is a win in my books. All your vegetable beds look so lush and healthy (as do your gorgeous girls!) I'm getting really excited about our tomato harvest, as our Tigerella is already flowering. Wahoo!!

    ReplyDelete
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  15. Our favorite way to enjoy spinach is in smoothies. So delicious with a bit of fruit.

    I love your photos and stories of your adventures.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'm such a twit I don't know what to do with it when it goes to seed. Or what the seeds are, even. I need to read a book, I'm wasting so much time! And spinach!

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