A plug for Schartner's

Yesterday we went to Schartner's Farms in Exeter. I hadn't been there for years, and I have to say I didn't want to leave! What a great place that must be to work. It's just HUGE! And full of beautiful flowers and gifts. And when you first walk in, the strawberry smell hits you like a pie in the face. So of course we had to have some. Oh, you can use the ones they have in early June at Stop and Shop, hard and tasteless and pale , but nothing even comes close to fresh-picked local strawberries. I have a recipe for Strawberry Shortcake that I will post on my website this week...I know you can buy those sponge cake things but...ick. This biscuit recipe is from scratch, it doesn't even use bisquick. ( If you've come upon this blog from the other direction, my site is www.incrediblethreads.com. ) The problem, though, is usually that by the time the local strawberries are ripe, it's too hot to light the oven. You've gotta understand, I live and work in at 500-square-foot house. It's easy to heat in the winter, also easy to heat in the summer which is why I have this thing about using my oven when it's hot out. But the weather during the past few days has been absolutely beautiful, so I took advantage!

We actually went to Schartner's to see if they had any summer squash plants...no luck. So I got seeds, and planted them last night. Now I know nobody in their right mind plants seeds at the end of June in Rhode Island, but what have I got to lose? I was pretty happy to see that all the stuff I planted the other day lived (I don't have much of a green thumb.), especially the beets which didn't have much in the way of roots, and what they had was all tangled up. There wasn't much to plant, and I expected to come out the next day and find them all lying on the ground but NO, almost all of them were still standing. I remember the first time I planted beets, I didn't realize you weren't supposed to peel them (ok, go ahead and laugh) before cooking, so when I cooked them they bled out and I was left with sickly white turnip-looking things. So now I know better. Mom has already laid claim to the greens, and she can have them!

Farmer's Almanac, I believe, and old folk wisdom will tell you to plant on a new moon, not on a full moon. So probably my squash will not flourish. We'll see.