Tansies

Tansies, the yellow flowers above, are very tall and hardy plants. Here is some interesting information about them. The story of our Tansies again includes Helen. She found a very small tansy plant on the farm, dug it up and rooted it to then create more plants. Her ability with cultivating plants out of just tiny bits of nothing is incredible. She transplanted these newly rooted plants into a row in the perennial bed and now we have an abundance of Tansy.

I don’t have much else to share this week as I was busy with the flowers. Here is a bouquet that I particularly liked.

But I did manage to take a few shots of some new vegetables that made their way to market this week.

Beautiful basil bunches.

Big old heirloom tomatoes:

Here is Amelia, Elizabeth’s helpful niece, packaging up the cherry tomatoes.

 

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Elderberry syrup, and more.

I had to start with this fish-eye view of Elizabeth in one of the flower fields. Makes me feel like I’m somewhere other, like Scandanavia. I don’t even know if they have sunflowers and marigolds there, but in my mind, it is a place that is very orderly yet magical.

OK. Now that I have that off my chest, on to the Elderberries. Here is lots of information about their medicinal benefits, which are mighty! They grow all over the place so you could collect them yourself, if so inclined. Here is our Elderberry Tree – These flowers are just starting to turn purple. Helen harvests them while they are still white and turns them into a delicious and healthy syrup by soaking them for four days in a pot. She does this every year. Helen is from Austria, where many people harvest their elderberries. Here is her recipe, as written down by Elizabeth:

The magic happening:My kids love it. And it is especially good for strengthening the respiratory system.

And now, for some other Friday shots from my day at the farm:

The flowers were so bountiful yesterday that Elizabeth had her hands full making bouquets with Helen. So I got to clean the eggs, which I loved. I love cleaning them maybe in contrast to how much I hate collecting them. I can NOT mess with a brooding mama hen and steal her eggs out from under! Just can not. So I got Gillen to help with that part. I guess I’m too city, still. But I can make a mean cucumber salad with these:

It’s actually Helen’s recipe. You just peel them, slice them really thin (I use a mandolin) and then mix them up with lots of sour cream, apple cider vinegar, some olive oil, dulce (shakeable kind of seaweed seasoning) and salt. Yum.

And here is Helen, our resident sweet, nutritious, beautiful Elder Berry, making bouquets:

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Still infatuated with the flowers..

There are new characters popping up every week. The Coneflowers (Echinacea) showed up last Friday.

And though I picked many of them, below is the only shot I have of the newly blooming Marigolds, here making their way to our home, along with more strawberries to freeze. I love the bittersweet smell of Marigolds. Last week, Helen and Elizabeth had so many fewer flowers to work with. It all changes so quickly with each new hour of sun or rain.

And below is funny, wonderful Heather, yet another farmer whom I hadn’t introduced!

Next week I’ll try to make may way back into the vegetables for a bit and even include one some of our farmers’ recipes.

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