This recipe is provided by the lovely gardeners from Grace Lutheran Community garden. If you were lucky enough to attend the garden tour, then you probably tried this dip that the gardeners made for everyone to try. This is a great way to get rid of all of your extra eggplant!!
Enjoy!
Baba Ghanoush
1 eggplant
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup tahini
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Lightly grease a baking sheet
2. Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, and place into a large bowl of cold water. Remove from water, and peel skin off.
3. Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.
The W.I.S.C. Community garden is booming right now!! Yesterday the garden gave twenty five plus pounds of produce to the Willits Daily Bread and has contributed food to 15 households and approximately 45 people in the last week. We also received a donation for some chicken eggs and now have a chicken feed fund.
Last night we had a Winter Planting Workshop that featured the expertise of Antonia Partridge our local Brookside School Farm Manager. About ten people were in attendance and we learned how to plant most of the fall crops, how to irrigate to achieve maximum harvest, what some of the companion plants are, and we received a vegetable planting guide to help us the rest of the year.
We are having a potluck this evening starting at 5:00, Wednesday, September 22nd where we will be honoring the Solstice and eating some of our amazing food. Please come and join us and bring a dish to 221 D. South Lenore Ave. Willits CA.
Jaxon Keys winery and The Gardens Project have teamed up to host a run/walk with all proceeds going to The Gardens Project. The run, which will take place on October 3rd, will be 5 kilometers of pure winery bliss. Enjoy a run through Jaxon Keys estate with 1,200 acres of rolling land with oak and grapes lining the way. The run will be timed by North Coast striders, and you will receive a T-shirt, glass of wine, and a light lunch for your registration price.
Get together to enjoy some local food, wine, and some beautiful scenery in Hopland.
Adults $35, Kids under 12 $15
To register call 462-2596 x 185, or email kburwell@ncoinc.org
Pre-register ends September 28th, and T-shirts are limited!
September is coming to a close, but its not over yet! Check out the garden tips from Master Gardener Suzanne Millard. Thanks again, Suzanne!
What to do in Your Garden this month
September brings a season of change.The kids have started back to school and the summer garden is starting to wane.This is a great time to renew your garden with a fresh crop of fall plants to extend your season and to continue to grow your own food.If you are a new gardener this is a great time to start!
September also brings generous crops of vine ripened, home grown tomatoes.If you haven’t already experienced the joys of home canning, why not start now?You’ll smile every time you open a jar of home canned tomatoes to make a beautiful pasta sauce in the midst of winter.
In September you can directly sow beets, garlic, carrots, fava beans, peas, cilantro, spinach, radishes and Asian greens.You can also start lettuce, sweet peas, brassicas, Asian greens indoors for planting.Plants ready for transplanting are lettuce, brassicas, fennel, leeks, chard, kale and nettles.
Flower and Herbs that can be directly sown in September are cold tolerant flowers such as Calendula, Viola, Larkspur, Clarkia, poppies, all California wildflowers, Nigella, Limonium, Borage, Dianthus, Centaureas, wallflowers, Love-in-a-mist, Snapdragon, etc.Flowers and herbs that can be started from seed are all of the above including medicinals and biodynamics such as Yarrow, Chamomile, Dandelion, Nettles, Lavender, Thyme, Sage, Valerians, Echinacea, etc.
Other activities for September are cleaning-up and composting fallen fruit, mulch perennials, make compost, start sheet mulching, continue to preserve the harvest and as always, weed!
For more Gardener's Tips, please click Greater Hopland Planting Guide (Peter Huff and Kate Frey's Monthly Planting Calendar for Inland Mendocino, also found at the "How to - Grow Food" page on The Garden's Project Website).
Other September Activities…
Clean up spent summer plants and weed planting areas to get ready for fall planting.Amend your soil as necessary with fresh organic material to boost soil structure and add nutrients.This is also the time to compost fruits and vegetables that are past their prime in order to reduce the attraction of garden pests.Avoid adding any plants, fruits or vegetables that are diseased to your compost pile.
When in doubt, there is a tremendous body of knowledge about gardening in California, provided by University of California Cooperative Extension.This site, geared toward the home gardener can be found at http://cagardenweb.ucdavis.edu/.
The Willits Integrated Service Center Community Garden is very glad to harvesting great food right now. Many of our plants are producing food and the potlucks have been the most fun yet. If you have the time come visit us every Wednesday afternoon and share in the fun and food of the garden. Our chickens lay five eggs last night and the Hopi Blue corn is ripe. Last week we gave away about 25 pounds of food to the Food Bank, The Daily Bread, and some hungry people who came to the office. Please enjoy the latest pictures of all the goodies.
Here are some recent pictures of the Wisc Community Garden.
This is a short season corn patch for the local public schools.
This heirloom tomato looks delicious!
We have HUGE sunflowers! Some are 20 feet tall!
This is a view right down the middle of the garden. My how it has grown.
Last Saturday was a celebration of Ukiah's efforts to become a more self reliant community. We hope that everyone who came out had a blast, enjoyed lots of good food, met some new people, and got a different preservative on whats being grown in our community spaces of Mendocino County.
In case you missed it some highlights include: Jack Simpson gardener Oliver Schearer dazzling us with his vibraphone skills. Cleveland Lane gardeners showing us what a mini Ukiahn-Michoacan would look like. Washington Ave. gardeners celebrating their successful first season with Ensalda de Nopalitos. April Cunnighman from Head Start showing off school garden curriculum. Grace Lutheran gardeners sharing their favorite recipes.
Thank you again to all of our supporters: Tierra-Art,Garden, and wine for the use of their space. Ukiah Brewing Company, Patrona Resteraunt and Lounge, and The Ukiah Valley Medical Center for chef time of Molly Vogel, Phil and Craig, and Jim Stuart. Together we Can! for providing us with volunteers. Mara Montiel, Sid Cooperrider, and Will Siegel and friends for providing music, and of course all of our wine donors - Rivino Wines, Frey Vineyards, and Raye's Hill vineyard.
Check out some pictures below taken or check out our facebook page. Pictures were taken by two awesome volunteer photographers Cate Oliver and Paul Taylor. Again, thank you all for your support - we hope to see you again next year.
The Gardens Project love the United Way and their Day of Caring. Over a dozen volunteers descended on the new Washington Avenue Community Garden and the Nokomis Elementary and Head Start School Garden this Wednesday, September 8th. Within 3 hours this fantastic crew dug and installed a 100ft. french drain to deal with soggy paths and installed an arbor and herb bed at the Washington Garden.
At the Nokomis Garden, this crew did a thorough clean-up, weeding, and harvesting of the garden in preparation for the Homegrown in Ukiah Community Garden Tour and Fall plantings.
Much thanks to the fantastic volunteers and their employers who gifted them to the Gardens Project for a day: Mendocino Co. Health and Human Services, First 5 Mendocino, Fetzer Vineyards, and Ukiah Valley Medical Center.
Click on the photo of Kelly and the United Way volunteers digging a the drain to see all of the pictures of the day!
