Today was the final day of work for my Urban Farm externship. I completed 30 hours at Econ Farm. On Wednesday we are celebrating with a Pot Luck gathering. Today we built a trellis for the cucumbers that will provide shade to the lettuce beneath. It's already starting to heat up here. We built the trellis with onsite bamboo and zip ties.
Check out the cocoon of this moth. A literal twig house.
Look how enormously amazing this Giant Collard Green plant is in the forefront.
Back home in my own garden, the Malabar Spinach gifted to me is doing well. It grows like a vine. The leaves are thick and bright green, and slightly heart shaped. I can't seem to get regular old spinach to do anything, but this Malabar stuff is taking off. The pests in my garden are attacking nearly everything, but not this. No wonder it's a favorite in permaculture design: low maintenance! Anyway, here's the deal with Malabar Spinach-and this is only true if you are someone who cares about the texture of your food-there is something very slimy and off putting about good ole' Malabar. I tried it raw in a salad with other greens and it has a very strong presence, and not in a good way. Trying to convince myself that all green is good, I tried sautéing it. Yuck. The stuff does not cook well. But what to do? The spinach is growing like Jack's beanstalk. I harvest a bowl of it and take it to my juicer. Juicing Malabar Spinach is like some crazy science experiment. Kelly green snot, yes, snot. When you juice Malabar Spinach it comes out as some gooey, slimy, liquid snot that happens to be a beautiful vibrant shade of green, but is so offensive it belongs on a show like Fear Factor. And just so you know that I made a valiant effort, I did try to cut the green slime with lemon juice, cucumber and apple, which did absolutely nothing to offset the disgusting sliminess of Malabar juice. Malabar Spinach was my first lesson in planting only food that you are going to eat. Just because it grows doesn't mean you have to grow it!
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