Back to School BBQ!

A big thanks to everyone who joined us last Thursday for our Back to School BBQ! It was a perfect evening to chow down on delicious Buttz BBQ, with chilly hints of fall in the air and specks of burnt red and orange in the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are thrilled to see so many new faces, both students and community members, at the BBQ and at our daily morning work days.

Our morning work sessions take place from 7-8:30am every Monday through Firday, and include all kinds of jobs — from planting, cultivating, fertilizing, harvesting, and (of course)  a little weeding here and there! New readers interested in learning more about the garden and how to get involved, just shoot an email to mrr5q@virginia.edu. If you need an extra motivation to get up early and join us in the garden, you should know that we’ll always send you home with a bevy of veggies as a thank you!

August bounty

Wondering where we’ve been lately? Well, let’s just say that the incredible bounty that cometh every August has us doing all we can to keep up with all the ripe tomatoes, squash, beans, okra, melons, basil, eggplant, swiss chard.. oh my! While it is definitely a lot of work to get everything picked and into our CSA shares and restaurant kitchens, we certainly aren’t complaining!

The weather here in Charlottesville has been absolutely perfect for gardening the past few weeks — a spotty thunderstorm seems to come by just when our plants are looking a little thirsty, and the mornings and evenings are nice and cool and bug-free — perfect for a quiet few hours working in the garden.

Thanks to all the help from the guys at Morven, our groundhog situation has seriously improved! While we still get an animal getting in every now and then to nibble on our produce, for the most part we seem to be groundhog-free.

A few more updates and dates for your calendars:

• Thursday, September 13th — Back to School BBQ @ Morven! Kick off the fall season and join us at Morven for some delicious BBQ, plus learn how to get more involved at Morven this year! RSVP by sending an email to mrr5q@virginia.edu

• There are still a few spots left to join the Morven September CSA! Shares are $50 for 4 weeks of produce, an extra $6 to receive a half dozen eggs each week. Sign up by sending an email to Rowan (ris3xq@virginia.edu) Curious what kinds of veggies will be in your boxes next month? Check out the photos below to tease your taste-buds and inspire your inner chef…

Gazpacho goodness!

At exactly 6pm last Saturday, the gloomy skies parted and bursts of sunshine lit up the garden at Morven — just in time — as friends, families, and fellow farmers began streaming in to celebrate and enjoy the fruits of summer for Gazpacho in the Garden!

The full spread at Gazpacho in the Garden!

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, for what turned out to be a lovely (and unseasonably cool) July evening! Another HUGE thank you to some of our sponsors: The Local Food Hub for donating boxes of ripe, delicious, gorgeously colorful veggies for the gazpacho, as well as Albemarle Baking Company for generously provided dozens of freshly baked loaves of bread.

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes from the Local Food Hub

Homemade jams + loaves from Albemarle Baking Co.

Carter’s mountain peaches

Veggies, veggies, and more veggies

From three different kinds of homemade hummus, herb butters, bean + corn salsa, cukes, peppers, tomatoes, Carter’s Mountain peaches, watermelon, and 4 giant batches of gazpacho to soup — it’s safe to say there was plenty of deliciousness to go around. It seemed that everyone enjoyed strolling through the garden rows and sitting together on hay bales and picnic blankets — and youngin’s were having a blast digging into and leaping off our giant pile of compost!

Team Morven Kitchen Garden! (Rown, Libby, Marie, and Michelle)

The ladies in aprons (aka Team Morven) loved seeing old faces and meeting old friends — thanks for making our second annual Gazpacho in the Garden a huge success!

the Fruits of Summer!

July is fully upon us, and that means that more than anything these days, we finally get to harvest the many fruits of our labor! Today we are going to take you on a little tour of just a few of the delicious veggies that are finding their way into our bellies and into our CSA member’s weekly boxes.

First up, I can’t help but begin with the one veggie we have been wishing, hoping, watering, fertilizing, and bug-picking the most all summer in hopes that all our TLC would pay off — and behold! Houston, we (finally) have eggplant.

(Did I mention that we planted about 3x more eggplant than we did last season? That’s a lot of ratatouille!)

Next up, the award for the sweetest veggie to harvest thus far — sungold and sweet million tomatoes! These little guys make up for their small size with BIG sweet, summery taste:

The next shout-out goes to our most prolific summer vegetables — squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. Every day we find our selves harvesting more and more of these cucurbits — though we certainly aren’t complaining!

Last but not least, some of our gorgeous and colorful root veggies — carrots and beets! These beauties have been hibernating underground since early spring, and we can hardly help but help ourselves to a carrot here and there as we weed, water, and work away each morning in the garden.

This week, when we aren’t harvesting these lovely summer veggies, we are getting the garden in party-ready shape for Gazpacho in the Garden this Saturday! If you still haven’t RSVP’ed, be sure to email me at mrr5q@virginia.edu.

2nd Annual “Gazpacho in the Garden”!

An invitation to friends, farmers, and lovers of good food & merriment: Gazpacho in the Garden!

An agrarian celebration, dinner, and mingling at Morven Farm.
Saturday, July 21th @ 6-9pm

*Guests are asked to bring their own bowl and spoon, and we will happily provide a delicious dinner of homemade gazpacho, local breads, and an abundance of dishes featuring the tastes of summer. You are encouraged to bring along family, friends, picnic blankets, chairs, and outdoor games as we dine outside in the Morven Kitchen Garden.

Pay what you can (suggested donation $10) – all proceeds benefit the Morven Kitchen Garden, a 1-acre organic garden which hosts interdisciplinary student research and a unique UVA faculty/student CSA Program. Produce for the evening graciously donated by the Local Food Hub.

RSVP REQUIRED: Please send your name and number in your party to Michelle: mrr5q@virginia.edu (directions to Morven and additional details provided upon receiving your RSVP)

Ankle high by July?

It’s safe to say that after all the heat and sunshine we had last week, our veggies were loving yesterday’s rain and cool temperatures. Libby and I started working bright and early Monday trellising the tomatoes in what seemed to be just a light drizzle… which by 8am quickly became a DOWNPOUR as we (laughably) attempted to rototill the new Quadrant C to prep for corn planting! (Side note: yes, we realize that we are WAY behind on our corn planting — but hey, better late than never, right?)

Bush beans and Swiss Chard soaking in the rain!

Luckily, we got through most of the tilling, which meant that TODAY our corn finally went in the ground! You know that old saying, that corn should be “knee high by July?” Well, considering that the month of July is a mere 11 days away, we’ll be happy if our corn is just ankle high!

What else is growing in the garden this time of year? Here’s a little tour around to show you what we’re excited about this week! We have some very healthy looking flowering squash and zucchini plants…

Flowering squashes

We’ve already pulled some of our garlic, but we still have a few different varieties that needed more time in the ground, and they are looking beautiful..

Super hip garlic!

They still aren’t out of the woods yet, but we are feeling hopeful that our Eggplant have successfully fended off attacks from the flea beetles and will soon be providing us with delicious purple fruit! Slowly but surely..

Flea beetles, beware..

.. and we’re pretty proud of our bodacious cabbage heads! CSA members — be on the lookout for these beauties in your box this week…

Perfect little cabbage, almost ready for picking.

That’s your sneak peak for this week — if you want to see the growing garden with your own eyes (and perhaps help pull some weeds…) we’re always happy to have volunteers in the mornings! Just shoot an email to mrr5q@virginia.edu if you’re interested in early mornings, fresh picked veggies, and dirty fingernails.

 

Breaking Ground

Houston, we have a new quadrant!

Herbs, flowers, and melons galore.

After over a year of dreaming of the day when we would finally break new ground in the Kitchen Garden’s third quadrant, last weekend we finally made it happen! Thanks to the help of 1 hefty rototiller and 9 stellar students from a summer Horticulture course hosted by PVCC, a fresh patch of Virginia dirt was tilled, prepped, planted and watered — all in one morning! It never ceases to amaze me the truth of the adage: “many hands make light work” !

Helping hands from PVCC Horticulture students.

Though the new quadrant isn’t finished quite yet, we’ve already planted 9 different kinds of herbs, a plethora of different flowers and sweet potatoes, along with many varieties of cantaloupe and watermelons. Next up: corn!

Happy staked tomatoes.

Stayed tuned for more updates this week on our progress in the new quadrant, plus — this week marks the start of the Morven Kitchen Garden CSA Program! 14 local shareholders will now begin receiving weekly boxes of freshly picked produce each Thursday afternoon. We will also be sharing receipes on the blog for everyone to get inspired to get cookin’ in the kitchen with their bounty of veggies!

Many hands make light work!

The Morven Summer Institute is in full swing, which is GREAT because it means that there is an abundance of helping hands in the Kitchen Garden. Last Friday, we had nearly 10 students helping us harvest a big crop for a produce order from the Boar’s Head Inn restaurant.

Summer Institute students lend a hand in the garden

Together we harvested a colorful bounty of mixed lettuces, specialty greens, pea shoots, kale, and radishes. Once everything was picked, it washed and packed up — soon to be served to guests of the Boar’s Head! The partnership with the Boar’s Head is one that we are thrilled to foster, and we are pleased that their chefs have made a dedication to supporting local food and are always eager to bring our produce into their kitchens.

Freshly picked lettuce heads

Lovely leafy greens

In addition to harvesting all sorts of leafy greens, the past few days in the Kitchen Garden have been spent planting our summer transplants — tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant! Because we love to experiment with many different varieties of each plant, we’re planting over 10 varieties of tomatoes and 6 kinds of peppers. Not only does each variety have its own unique taste and physical appearance, but they tend to mature at different times, which means that crops ripen at staggered intervals, which makes it easier when it comes time to harvest.

Two rows of tomatoes, 10 different varieties!

Everywhere you look in the garden, things are green and growing FAST thanks to all the rain and sunshine we’ve been getting this spring — the potatoes are flowering, the onions are getting taller and bigger each day, sugar snap peas continue to climb, the broccoli is getting ready to harvest, lettuces are bountiful, and the radishes are making their way onto our dinner plates every night!

Ripe radishes

Gorgeous greens!

A view of Quadrant B

As you can see, we’re keeping busy and eating well these days in the garden. Be on the lookout soon for information on how to sign up for our highly popular CSA Program! Also coming up this week, you’ll be meeting Libby Lyon, who will be joining Rowan as a star Kitchen Garden apprentice all summer long! Libby, Rowan, and I will be updating this blog three times a week to make sure that you all get your fill of all the happenings in the garden.

Any of you readers have your own gardens you’re working in this season? Tell us what you’re growing! What are you cooking? We’d love to hear from you.

April showers & sunshine

Thanks to a bounty of both rain and sunshine the past few days, all of our plants in the kitchen garden couldn’t be happier!  Today we’re taking you on a mini-tour of the garden, starting with all of the beets, carrots, radishes and turnips that have all popped up in their teeny-tiny glory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I usually don’t like to play favorites, but I can’t help it — sugar snap peas make me absolutely giddy. Next week we will be trellising these gorgeous greens and selectively harvesting pea-shoots for some yummy salads (and making one of my favorite spring culinary creations: Pea Shoot Pesto! Stay tuned for the recipe):

The kale and swiss chard are cruisin’ right along and seem to grow inches overnight:

and our lettuces look like perfect little salads, just waiting to be picked:

Did we mention that the potatoes and onions are looking positively radiant? I’ll be honest, we’re already excited about digging up the potatoes later this summer — it may in fact be one of the most fun farm activities out there:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and last (but certainly not least), the broccoli and cabbage are busy doin’ their brassica thing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there you have it — a few glimpses of the Kitchen Garden in the midst of all this beautiful spring weather! Of course, none of it could be possible without all of the help from our daily student volunteers — THANK YOU to everyone (and there are lots of you) who have been lending a hand this season. If you’re inspired to join us at one of our daily morning workdays (Monday – Friday, 7am to 8:30am) just shoot me an email: mrr5q@virginia.edu.

Thanks for checking in, we hope to see you soon in the garden!

Sunday workday!

If you’re looking to get a little dirt under your fingernails while enjoying sunshine this weekend, then we have just the thing for you! This Sunday, March 18th, from 2-5pm we are holding our first spring workday in the Kitchen Garden!

We can’t wait to get some extra hands to help prep rows and PLANT. Lettuces, onions, sugar snap peas, carrots and beets — oh my! All helpers will also get to go home with a bag of kale and delicious asian greens that have been overwintering and are still tasty as ever.

If you’d like to join us on Sunday, please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDdEZ1lPekhKOEdTdnRrcXlOUzJINkE6MQ (we will help coordinate carpools)!

Hope to see you Sunday!