a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

  • Out of the Garden Today – June 10, 2014

    So what should I make for supper tonight? It’s an answer we all answer day after day. For some it’s going to a restaurant. For others, it’s take out. For others, it’s what is in the fridge or in the cupboard. For others it’s what they picked up in the grocery on the way home from work. For me the answer is in the garden.

    Tonight I found raspberries, Chrysanthemum greens, garlic scapes, shallot greens, arugula, choy, sage and rosemary. Everything but the rosemary is going into a stir fry. The rosemary is going into rosemary crackers.

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    After “grocery shopping” out of the garden and making meals with just-picked produce for years, I’m spoiled. It’s nearly impossible to find food so fresh when we eat out. Very few places have gardens full of produce, which the chefs can go into and gather the produce they need to make your meal.

  • Upcoming Berry Season

    Berry season is fast approaching. Salmon berries are starting to turn golden. Thimble berries are taking shape and will be turning red in a few weeks. Raspberries are just about ready to be picked. Berries make the long, wet winter worth enduring.

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  • On the Board Today – June 5, 2014

    Greens for this evening’s meal include young onions, chrysanthemum greens, lettuce, and arugula. Vegetables are best eaten as soon as they are picked, and yet few live in an environment where that is possible. If you can step outside your door and harvest the produce for your meal, consider yourself infinitely blessed.

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  • Out of the Ground Today – June 5, 2014

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    It’s egg and salad delivery day. In the cool, early morning, the produce in the vegetable beds is awake and succulent. Picking the greens in the quiet of the morning is almost a meditative exercise. It’s an opportunity to clear the mind and think of nothing as I snip, snip, snip away. It’s much better than toiling away in a corporate cubicle, staring into a monitor for hours on end.

    Once washed and stacked, the fresh produce has a beauty all its own. If you’re eating at Tweets this weekend, you may be lucky and enjoy some of these fresh greens. Currently, I’m making a single delivery on Thursdays, but in the near future I will be making deliveries of produced picked that morning on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You’ll enjoy salads at Tweets made from greens picked just hours before. You can’t get that Mickey D’s or most any restaurant.

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  • The Joy of Weeds


    Play the bird song above and you can experience what it is like to spend an afternoon weeding here at a man and his hoe®. That is the song of the Black-headed Grosbeak, one of the more colorful birds that are in the woods this time of year. The weeds have such beautiful flowers, even if some are tiny, that it’s a shame to dig them up … but I have customers who want their fresh vegetables, so the weeds will have to be satisfied with blooming on the sides of the vegetable beds.

    Tourists from all over the world make pilgrimages to Tweets Café, and they are expecting to savor fresh, local produce. Some of it will come from this special spot where the Black-headed Grosbeaks sing. When you’re at Tweets having a salad, close your eyes and imagine those salad greens listening to the singing of wild songbirds.

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