December 7th. Usually this time of year, fresh greens means bagged spinach from Food City. But not this year. I harvested some beautiful spicy mustard the other day from the raised beds at the Big Sandy Community and Technical College, took them home and cooked them up with some turnips given to me by a participant and served them for supper at the Monastery. Even the ladies who “don’t particularly like cooked greens” loved them.

Just another example of how real food just tastes better. Here are the greens before harvest. I’d show a picture of them after cooking but they didn’t last long enough.

In the background are the broccoli plants put in by the botany class. They harvested full heads for the food pantry and are now getting side shoots. While most people here in Floyd County do greens, only a couple in the botany class had grown broccoli. At the monastery, our winter crop did double duty too. Broccoli for the Sisters and greens for the chickens. They loved it at least as much as we did.

Hope your winter crops are doing well too. Sr. KC