Country Abundance....

This is real life, in real time here on BeeHaven Farm.  I had no idea when I picked these for dinner that they were this huge.  When Eden turned around she was inspired to take a picture and I laugh when I see this glorious abundance.  This amound of lettuce  should last two weeks.

It inspried me to make Wilted Lettuce for dinner.  This is something Bill's mother introduced me to and I loved it from day one.  It's a salad that bites you back.  I always wash the lettuce thouroughly and give it a spin to get out the excess water.

 The ingredients are simple.  Fresh lettuce, chopped onions, fried bacon, bacon grease (hot) and vinegar.  Google it as I'm sure you could find a more health conscious version, but because the bacon is from home raised pigs and it's what we have, that what I went with.

 This was dinner: pizza on a whole wheat crust where I  ground wheat berries in my wonder mill grain grinder and loaded with sausage and tons of veggies, wilted lettuce, and milk from our milk cow. 

 This is the "meat" of my topic really.  Those heads of lettuce came from this raised bed made by my husband (greatest guy on earth).  Without it we would not be enjoying such bounty yet.  Planting it early (end of March) and covering it with re-may frost protection cloth until May was the key here. 

The soil in raised beds warm up so much earlier.  He framed this up and used old tin roofing for the side walls.  Personally, I don't really like raised beds, they are too much work to keep up and water but I do believe that having one or two, to get some early veggies going, is a good idea.    We used 1/2" electrical PVC that are stuck over 3/8" rebar that were driven into the ground.  Then we clamp on the re-may with clamps from any hardware store.

Come on.....you've got to do this.  Look at these carrots, beets, lettuce, broccoli and cabbage.  If you look out in the real vegetable garden you won't see anything like this, especially with a cold and wet spring like this year.  In the old days you didn't starve in the middle of winter......you starved to death in spring.   OK, that's morbid, but you get my point.   We don't need to wait until July before we are eating from our gardens. 

Side note: We really are a flower farm, but I can't help what I am inspired to share and this blog is about Flowers, Farming, Food, and Fun so check in every once and awhile to see what's goinig on.