Garlicky Green Saute

We needed a side dish for our baked fish dinner a couple of nights ago. I'd planned to bring home some fresh salad greens from the high tunnel, but completely forgot to pick them after a long day weeding, hoeing, and fixing irrigation on the farm.

Checking the fridge, I found that the Swiss Chard and Lambs quarters I'd brought home a week before were still bright, crisp in all the right places and waiting for me to do something with them. We had almost enough chard for the two of us, so I added a handful of lambs quarters leaves to give us a few more bites. Not only was it simple to prepare, the dark green, bright white and deep red looked so pretty in the cast iron skillet!

Ingredients

Half pound of Swiss Chard and lambsquarters leaves
2 teaspoons of oil or butter (I used Walnut)
Dash of turmeric, or to taste
1 teastpoon Garlic powder, or to taste

Preparation

Wash and spin the greens. Chop the chard stems, and coarsely chop the chard leaves. Heat oil in the skillet over medium heat. Add the stems to the pan and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the remaining chard and lambsquarter leaves, and sprinkle with turmeric and garlic powder. Saute for another 5 minutes. Add a bit of black pepper if you like, then serve the greens hot. Enjoy!

Germination Testing

We always have seeds left over from previous  years’ supply. This week I want to plant spinach and head lettuce, but my new seeds won't be here for a while. So I want to use seeds that are a few years old. When they arrived, the spinach was rated at 85% germination and the lettuce at 95%. These are pretty good rates, but neither spinach nor lettuce is a terrific keeper – their germination rates go down  just a little every year. So I really need to know how well they’ll perform because I want to get these babies into the ground!

So what do I do? A germination test! It’ll tell me what percentage of these seeds I can expect to come up. What I’m actually looking for is how much extra seed I’ll need to use for this first planting. You can do this at home, too!

Here’s how it works:

I placed a folded paper towel in a zip-top bag, labeled with the plant that’s going into it. Added 20 seeds, and moistened with warm water. The whole thing goes into a dark location at room temperature – in this case, right on top of a covered flat of tomato seeds. A towel laid over the top provides the buffer they need from direct light while they’re sprouting. While these little guys are in their bags, I might open them a couple of times to let in some air. Some species have just done better for me during germ tests when they get to breathe.

I’d expect the spinach to sprout in 5-12 days and the lettuce in about a week. So I’ll start checking them after 5 days to see how many have sprouted. If I’m lucky, I’ll get something close to the original estimated rate. If not, well, I’ll be able to calculate just how much extra is needed to fill up the beds.

Want to see how the test turns out? Check back next week for an update!