The Farm
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How to Freeze Garden Salsa So It Actually Tastes Fresh in December
Fresh salsa turns to watery mush in the fridge, but frozen the right way it tastes just-made months later. Here’s what to leave out, how to pack it, and how long it actually keeps.
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The 5-Minute Soup That Uses Up Every Vegetable in Your July Garden
Nobody wants to turn on a stove when it’s 90 degrees out, and yet by mid-July the garden is handing over more tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers than any one family can eat fresh. Gazpacho solves both problems at once: it’s a real dinner, it takes about five minutes of actual work, and the blender does…
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Stone Fruit Season: Simple Ways to Enjoy Peaches and Plums Right Now
Mid-July is peak stone fruit season here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and if you’ve got even one peach or plum tree tucked into a sunny corner of the yard, you know the feeling: a few days of nothing, then suddenly more ripe fruit than you know what to do with. It’s a good problem…
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Tomato Season: Three Easy Ways to Use a Counter Full of Ripe Tomatoes
By mid-July, the tomato plants finally start earning their keep. After weeks of watching green fruit sit there doing nothing, they all seem to ripen at once, and suddenly there’s a bowl on the counter that needs dealing with before it turns into a science experiment. Here are three simple, forgiving ways I put a…
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Basil Everywhere: Pesto, Herb Butter & Other Ways to Use the Summer Glut
By July, the basil in my raised beds has gone from a few tidy seedlings to something closer to a hedge. It happens every year — a warm stretch and a little regular water and suddenly there’s more basil than any one family can eat fresh. The good news is that basil is one of…
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Zucchini Overload: Simple Ways to Use Up the Summer Glut
By this point in the season, zucchini isn’t really a vegetable you plant so much as a situation you manage. One or two hills tucked into a raised bed can outproduce a family of six without breaking a sweat, and the ones that hide under the leaves always seem to turn into baseball bats overnight.…
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Quick Refrigerator Pickles: What to Do With All Those Summer Cucumbers
This time of year the cucumber vines don’t slow down for anyone. If you’re growing them along a trellis or letting them sprawl through a raised bed, you already know the feeling of finding three more than you expected under the leaves. Refrigerator pickles are the easiest way to keep up with them — no…
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Dinners Ready: Easy Outdoor Cooking Straight From the Garden
Dinner’s ready — and it started in the raised beds, not the pantry. This one is a little shoutout to @Pawpawridgehomestead, whose outdoor cooking tutorial talked me through pulling this off. Thanks for the lesson. Plan and assemble Start with a main that cooks well over a grill or a single pan — chicken pieces,…
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Where I Slow Down
Most days, my life moves fast. Faster than I expect, faster than I plan for. School drop offs that blur into pick ups, sports schedules written in pencil because they always change, snacks passed to the backseat at stoplights. The calendar fills itself before I even realize it’s happening. Forest Girl Farm is where I…
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A New Year, Still Rooted
If you are stepping into this year feeling tired but hopeful, uncertain but willing, you belong here too. Let this be the year we grow something honest.
