Arugula is still blooming in my community garden plot!

#Arugula #GardenPlot14 #zone6b

What’s a Good Substitute For Basil in Pesto Sauce? Expert Guides

We're diving into expert tips and creative alternatives like #Arugula, #Spinach, #Parsley, and even unique options like carrot tops or garlic scapes. Discover the perfect herb or green to add to your next batch of homemade sauce. 👇

URL: https://spiceworld.online/substitute-for-basil/

#Pesto #PestoSauce #HomemadePesto #BasilSubstitute #PestoRecipe #AlternativePesto #HomeCooking #VeganPesto #CookingTips #Foodie #SauceBoss #MastodonFood #PastaLover

Arugula went to flower 🌸🪴✨

#GrowYourOwn #Arugula #GardenPlot14

Beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in older people by changing oral microbiome, study shows:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-beetroot-juice-lowers-blood-pressure.html
#beetroot #blood #BloodPressure #NitricOxide #spinach #arugula #fennel #celery #kale #fogies #beet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975O7qkJaFU

Salad in my favorite Fiesta Lilac bowl.
.
#Kale #beets #Arugula #Salad #fiestaware #lilacfiestaware

Eat Your Weeds

Hello friends, it’s been a minute. When it’s between the garden and sitting down to write a post about the garden, the garden wins every time. Priorities!

Everything but for a few still too small to plant out perennials started from seeds is finally planted, which means the work has shifted to harvesting and maintenance. And wow, is there a lot of maintenance to do thanks to fairly regular rainfall and the occasional blast of heat. It’s a good thing we like to eat our weeds in this house! I use weeds broadly here since I have feral arugula all over, walking onions all over, sochan (aka yellow cone flower) in abundance, also violets, nettles, and actual plants considered weeds—lamb’s quarters, wood sorrel, and creeping bellflower. So many spring greens for salads and stir fries, soups and pasta. 

The newest weed to the edible lineup is the creeping bellflower. I have it growing all over underneath the apple trees in the front yard. When it first appeared many years ago I didn’t know it was an invasive weed. I’ve seen it in yards all around town and it gets pretty purple flower stalks on it. Since I was having trouble getting plants to grow in the shade beneath the apples trees, I let it do its thing. For several years. And then I learned what a horrible weed it is.

It spreads by seed and roots and once it is established, it is impossible to get rid of unless you manage to remove every last bit of root. I no longer allow it to flower, and the stalks are easy to pull out, but pulling out the stalks doesn’t hurt the plant because of the insidious roots lurking everywhere.

Last fall, I learned the stuff is edible, both greens and roots. So why not give it a try since I have plenty? The roots are not big and are harder to get at than I expected. I probably spent about 30-45 minutes digging around for a kind of small payoff. I also picked greens. James, ever the trooper, sautéed the roots and greens along with some nettle, arugula, walking onion, and seitan and we had them for dinner over mashed sunchokes (I can at this point, count these as garden weeds too). I don’t think I will ever grow potatoes again because mashed sunchokes turn out to have a potato-y flavor, though they aren’t very starchy so lack a bit of “fluff.” If you want to learn all about sunchokes, I just listened to an episode of a new to me podcast today (The Poor Prole’s Almanac), Exploring the Many Names and Tales of the Sunchoke.

Our patch of wild ginger has also grown pleasingly large, and I dug up one of the little roots for the first time to try in the dinner. Wild ginger is native to North America and loves the shade. It is not the big rooted tropical ginger you buy at the grocery. These roots are small—rhizomes actually—and they do have a mild ginger flavor that is kind of earthy with a hint of pepper. You may have heard that wild ginger is toxic. Well yes, it does contain a toxin. However, I’d have to eat a whole lot of it, like a pound or more, for it to have any sort of affect, and really, that’s not going to happen. Everything in moderation!

So how did it all taste? Delicious!

If things keep on as they have been, it is going to be a banner year for black raspberries! I am so very excited. After the drought a few years ago they really suffered and have been making a slow climb back to fruitful. Well, it looks like this year they have made it! My mouth is watering in anticipation.

The cherries are doing well too. And, I’m afraid I am going to jinx it, but it appears I will be getting plums this year! There are quite a few that have reached olive size already. I am over the moon about this. Please think good plumy thoughts!

The chokeberries are also covered in little green fruit. And the clove currant likewise. I have two freezer bags full of rhubarb. Nom nom nom! My heart is so happy! And my mouth will be too.

The roses are covered in flowers at the moment. I picked a jar of petals, some petals from the two peony flowers that bloomed this year, and thawed out the rose hips I put in the freezer and forgot about last fall. James then undertook to make jam. I had rose jam on toast with some spiced chai for an afternoon snack. Divine!

The chickens are always disgruntled about not being allowed in the big garden, but they are quite pleased that we moved the compost bins out next to the coop. Sia especially loves to climb on top and mine for gold. When I am out in the garden she alternates between the compost bin and standing at the gate complaining loudly. Sometimes she stands on the compost pile, looks at me over the fence, and complains. But she can’t help but like me because we’ve got a treat thing going.

When I find a beetle, grub or cutworm I carry it over to the gate and yell chickens! in a sing songy voice. Sia rockets over from wherever she may be because she knows there is a treat at hand. Because of her bouffant, she can’t look up to see me drop the bug, but stands at the gate looking down at the ground in front of her. I drop the bug and she sees it when it hit the ground—most of the time—and gulps it down. It’s only Sia who comes running to the gate when I call. I’ve tried calling her by name but she doesn’t respond. Clearly I’ve established a recognizable treat call and I am now required to stick to it. Chic-ken!

Today I played garden statue while a young robin hopped around near me looking for insects. He must be able to hear them under the ground because he never scratched like the chickens do, but would hold still then stab his beak into the ground and pull out a cut worm or earthworm. It was pretty amazing to watch and I felt so honored that he hunted around for quite some time while I stood just a few feet away.

A week or so ago I was eating dinner and looking out the sliding glass door into the garden when a big crow swooped through with something in their claws and landed on my neighbor’s garage roof. That’s when I got a good look at what the crow had—a baby rabbit! I briefly felt bad for the rabbit, but then was glad there will be one fewer of them testing my anti-rabbit garden defenses. Soon there were a two other crows wanting to enjoy some rabbit and a bird—possibly a robin—who began dive bombing the crows trying to get them to leave. It was all a big ruckus. Finally the crow with the rabbit decided they had had enough and took off with their dinner, followed by the other crows and the poor parent bird, who obviously had a nest in the tree next to the garage, could relax.

When I mentioned the ruckus to someone the next day he was surprised to learn that crows eat meat. And then he was upset about the crow eating a baby rabbit. He said he found it disturbing when animals eat other animals (clearly he didn’t grow up watching nature shows on TV or reading nature books). I said, well you are an animal and you eat other animals and don’t find that disturbing so why would you be bothered by other animals eating each other? From the look he gave me I had clearly just rocked his world. Finally he managed to mutter, well I never thought of it like that before.

Speaking of crows, we have three adolescents hanging around. They were all in the maple tree squabbling but they didn’t have their grown up crow voices yet and James and I had to look up the tree to see who was making the noise. And then we laughed and laughed. Their voices are now starting to change. Sometimes they manage a big crow caw before their adolescent voice takes back over. It’s like when boys hit puberty and their voices change, only it’s crows, and it is utterly delightful.

That’s it for today. I will try to catch up with all the kind comments folks have left on previous posts as soon as I can!

Reading

So many good books!

• The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. An important book everyone should read, especially the long final essay on Palestine and Jim Crow.
• One Day Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar Al Akkad. Another important book everyone should read. And also be sure to listen to his interview on the Between the Covers podcast.
• Salvage: Readings from the Wreck by Dionne Brand. A sort of reading autobiography and literary criticism of what it’s like to be Black and taught racist white imperial literature in school. She does a deep dive into Oroonoko, Robinson Crusoe, and Mansfield Park. There is also a Between the Covers podcast interview with Brand about her book.
• The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk, illustrated by Joanna Concejo. Everyone moves so fast in today’s world that we lose our souls because they are not able to keep up with us. Soulless, we try to fill the void with other things. In this story, a man slows down long enough for his soul to find him again.

#arugula #creepingBellflower #crows #nettles #roseJam #sunchokes #walkingOnions #weeds #wildGinger

Only took a few days to get the first seedlings*! Wow, that was quick.

*sugar snap peas, green beans, zucchini, summer squash, #arugula, cucumber 🌱✨

#growYourOwn

The early vegetables are growing good and there is some progress on new raised beds. I need to thin the beets and probably get the melons, cucumbers, beans, and squash started indoors but I still don't trust the weather 2 weeks out. Too many side projects.

#gardening #peas #beets #spinach #arugula #radish #RaisedBeds #garden #GrowYourOwn

#roastedsweetpotatoes #blackbeans #redonion on a bed of #romaine dressed in guacamole

oh yeah, and #arugula that invaded the lawn lol #yardtotable

#potluck #familydinner #wfpb #homecook #mastonoms

Peas, beets, radish, spinach, and arugula. I tasted a French breakfast radish the other day, it's like a spicy carrot but it was small too. I guess they're good on toast with butter and pepper. Warm low temps forecast for a week so everything should start growing more and I need to get those raised beds finished if the warm is going to continue.

#gardening #peas #beets #radish #spinach #arugula #beetroot #garden #GrowYourOwn #RaisedBeds #April25

There should be some salads of arugula, spinach, and radish soon and might have some lettuce left or new by then too.

#gardening #arugula #spinach #radish #garden #GrowYourOwn

Beets, radish, spinach, and arugula or rocket, colewort, roquette, ruchetta, rucola, rucoli, and rugula... ;)

It was a nice sunny day so I waited until the sun was down to take photos.

#Gardening #GrowYourOwn #VegetableGardening #BeetRoot #beets #spinach #radish #arugula #garden #April14 #radishes

Garden update. Rhubarb growing nicely in the new spot, everything else growing slowly. There are a lot of first true leaves on the peas, radish, and spinach. Lots of beets to thin out.

#gardening #rhubarb #peas #beets #beetroot #spinach #arugula #GrowYourOwn #garden #April8

✨ How to make it:
1️⃣ Toss clean, bite-sized arugula in a bowl.
2️⃣ Drizzle with olive oil & fresh lemon juice.
3️⃣ Season with salt & pepper to taste.
4️⃣ Sprinkle with sunflower seeds & Parmesan (if using).
5️⃣ Give it a good toss & serve.
🌻Crisp, nutty, and bright—this salad is a fresh take on a classic. Try it alongside pasta, grilled veggies, or as a light lunch on its own!

#Blog #Murfreesboro #Community #Garden #Arugula #Salad #Recipe

https://www.murfreesborocommunitygardening.com/post/arugula-the-zesty-mediterranean-salad-green

🔥 Popular Arugula Varieties:
🥗 Astro – Mild & tender, perfect for salads.
🌿 Wild Arugula – Spicy, intense, and great for gourmet dishes.
🍕 Rocket – The classic arugula with deep lobes & bold flavor.
🟥 Red Giant – Beautiful reddish leaves with a nutty taste.
👶 Baby Arugula – Delicate, mild, and perfect for fresh eating.

Whether you love it mild or spicy, arugula adds a peppery punch to salads, sandwiches, pastas, and more! 🌱🔥

#Arugula #Blog #Murfreesboro #Community #Garden #Food

In southern Italy, arugula is called "aruculu" or "rucola," and in other parts of the country, it’s known as "ruchetta." As Italian immigrants brought this beloved green to the United States, the name evolved into "arugula."

#Blog #Murfreesboro #Community #Garden #Food #Arugula

https://www.murfreesborocommunitygardening.com/post/arugula-the-zesty-mediterranean-salad-green

A spring gardening surprise: green leaves instead of green shoots

So much is terrible in the world right now, but at least I’m not looking at lettuce as a grocery line-item expense on the first day of spring. That’s not because I’ve renounced leafy greens as a sandwich fixing, but because the spinach and some of the arugula that I grew from seed in the fall somehow survived winter.

Alongside them in the raised bed outside the back patio, parsley and, even less likely, cilantro have staged their own late-winter resurrections.

I can’t imagine why even the most fault-tolerant of these plants should have done that. This winter, unlike many in recent years, not only had extended hard freezes but multiple snow days that left that bed buried in snow for days at a stretch. Even building a cold frame should have been inadequate.

Having done nothing to prolong those crops, I should have had to start from scratch about two weeks before today, scattering dirt and seeds and looking forward to seeing the first green shoots emerge from the soil later this month.

(To anybody reading this intimidated by the idea of starting a vegetable garden: It’s hard to screw up arugula in the spring, and it’s also hard to find a recipe that can’t be improved with a little of it.)

Instead, after 20 years of having this questionably-productive hobby, I now need to decide if want to dig up some of these survivors to try growing some lettuce to mix things up. And if this means that my long losing streak of trying to cultivate tomatoes might be due for a change in a couple of months. This unearned gardening luck is not much in the larger scheme of things, but I’ll take it.

#arugula #cilantro #gardening #kitchenGarden #lettuce #March #overwinter #seasons #spinach #springEquinox #thyme #vernalEquinox #winter