Potatoes!

We're excited to have red, white and blue potatoes in time for the Fourth of July this weekend. We'll have a combination of regular red, Yukon Gold, Purple Majesty and Red Thumb potatoes mixed together in bags for Market starting this Tuesday at Edwards. Potatoes are one of our favorite parts about the garden. There's not much better than roasted potatoes to go along with barbecue over the summer.

Along with potatoes, the other new produce we *finally* have are shelling peas. It's been a bizarre season so far. Peas took forever, and it's looking like we'll have a few tomatoes for home use for the Fourth.

We also have some baseball-sized watermelons that are growing quickly. Melons are Mom's favorite part of the garden. She's counting down until we have Crenshaws. With the recent hot weather, it's been fun to go out into the garden to see what new things we can find. It's sort of like an Easter Egg hunt for grownups. Sometimes, I feel like a little kid with how excited I get about finding goodies.

Chicken Breasts with Sage

One of our favorite things about the garden is the opportunity to experiment with different recipes. Sarah & Jeff and Michelle & Scott are part of what we like to call Lazy Dog Test Kitchens. It's a great way to give suggestions to customers on what they can do with our vegetables. I know sometimes figuring out what to cook is the biggest obstacle in making dinner.

Scott and I picked up Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World a few weeks ago, and this chicken recipe was a perfect match with the Lazy Dog Salad Mix. We're looking forward to trying it again when the potatoes are ready. We haven't tried the balsamic variation, but the lemon was delicious. The pan sauce is just calling out for roasted fingerling potatoes.

3 Tbsp olive oil, butter, or a combination

2 garlic cloves, peeled & lightly crushed

20 or 30 fresh sage leaves

4 chicken breast halves

1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar or fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup chicken stock

Salt & pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in deep skillet on medium-high. Add garlic and half the sage, then chicken skin side down. Brown chicken well, rotating breasts as necessary (don't worry about the bone side), for 5-10 minutes. Turn meat browned side up and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Add remaining sage, along with the 1/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice and stock. Turn heat to low and cover; cook until the chicken is tender & no trace of blood remains near the bone, 15 minutes or so.

3. Transfer chicken to platter. If the sauce is thin, raise the heat to high, stirring and reducing until it is thick and glossy, just a few minutes. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

The Garden

One of the most frustrating parts about no spray farming/gardening is the weed issue. It seems like a never-ending process, and it's easy to get overwhelmed. We skipped Tuesday Market this week to try and find the potatoes. Yes, find them. We had ragweed in the garden that was more than waist high. The poor potatoes were looking pretty spindly when we finally pulled out the weeds around them. We're not quite done yet, but we've completed enough to make it feel less daunting. Our fingers are stiff and sore, but today was a lovely day away from the garden.

We're so close to having peas. It's been a strange spring. This time last year, we had peas coming out our ears. Some of the volunteer pea plants in the garden have babies that are may

be half and inch long on them. There are plenty of blooms, and the plants themselves are looking great. I'm feeling a little impatient: peas are my favorite spring vegetable.

We're close to picking garlic. Mom and I pulled some for Scott and me to take to Elko. It was delicious. Mom and Curt are talking about putting on a garlic braiding clinic out at the house for interested customers.

Baby Joanna is growing. It's amazing to see how much she changes each week we see her. She's become a lot more aware of her surroundings and loves to watch people.