Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sunday Harvest: Cilantro and Strawberries

Gardening is such a passion of mine and something our family does to reduce our grocery budget as well as enjoy a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. I have lots of readers and friends who would love to start their own garden, but don't know where to start. Sometimes I think you just need the right inspiration. Pictures go a long way and I hope through my blog I may inspire some of you to start your own garden.

To help inspire my readers, I thought I'd start sharing on Sunday's what we are harvesting from the garden. This week we are dining on lots (pints and pints!) of fresh strawberries and cilantro.

Cilantro is a favorite at the Little Blue Bungalow for us to add to Mexican dishes, casseroles and spice up our regular lettuce salads. I always use regular household scissors to harvest my cilantro and rubber band it (just like the store) and use it from our vegetable drawer for several weeks. I plan on replanting this week for our second harvest of cilantro in a another couple of weeks. The key to many spices and green leaf lettuce is to continually replant throughout the growing season to maximize the potential harvests.

Unfortunately most of our strawberries are eaten straight out of the garden...which in the big scheme of things is a good thing. For instance, I picked 4 pints of strawberries this morning and Keegan ate entire pint while I was picking them. (Slightly annoyed, I tried to remember he had just eaten strawberries, not an entire bag of Cheetos or something.) During strawberry season we normally eat a pint at every dinner meal...it truly is a beautiful three weeks. I have thought about drying some strawberries on a food dehydrator, but somehow they always get eaten. (Smile.)

From inside the little blue bungalow,
Katie Jean
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How big is your strawberry patch KJ? And what variety do you have planted? Ours never seem to do anything. :( We need new plants I think.