Garden Happenings: Preserved Marigolds, Herby Grilled Peach Salad, & Healing Art
#27: Fall Happenings @ Featherstone Garden
Welcome to Featherstone’s Fall Happenings Newsletter. Each week we will share a variety of garden updates, heirloom seasonal produce features, veg-ed(ucation) content, farm stand news, plant-centered recipes and more. As a subscriber, you will be the first to know all about our Garden Happenings. If you’re not a subscriber but would like do be, you can click the button below to signup.
The Magnificence of Marigolds
We love marigolds! In our garden, they help attract our beneficial insect friends like hoverflies, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, honeybees and spiders. Marigolds also help deter whiteflies and detrimental soil nematodes. From a culinary standpoint, their petals lend mild citrusy and subtly spicy flavor to salads and sauces. Before we pull them out for the season to prepare our beds for next year we decided that we want to try dehydrating the petals, so that we can add them to our spice mix, seasoned salts, and use them as colorful decorative garnishes in the winter months.
If you have marigolds in your garden and are interested in dehydrating them, you can use your oven instead of an expensive dehydrator! Here are a few ideas on how to use your garden’s marigolds at the end of the season: flower salt, marigold garland, marigold butter, marigold saffron cookies.
Herby Grilled Peach Salad with Warm Farro
Trying to make the most of these last couple of weeks of summer like we are? Look no further than the fruit section of your local market (or farmers market) to stock up on those juicy summer peaches! We love the balance of flavors and textures in this Herby Grilled Peach Salad served on a bed of warm farro, sprinkled with crunchy radish, chopped dates, shaved almonds, and tossed in a homemade maple mustard vinaigrette. For our Featherstone microgreens subscribers, we recommend adding a handful of our microgreens on top of this salad for extra nutrients!
Salad prep notes: You can swap the greens and/or herbs with your greens and herbs of choice, though if you’re going with our version, we highly suggest that you massage your kale during salad prep! This step helps break down the enzymes for soft and tender leaves. You can read more about the benefits of massaging your uncooked kale via this article. For the farro, we recommend cooking it prior to prepping the salad, so you can allow it to cool down slightly before plating. For farro cooking tips & instructions, you can check out this link.
Maple Mustard Dressing Recipe Yields: approx. 4 oz
Salad Recipe Yields: 2 hardy salads. Double the recipe if you’re making this for 3-4 people.
Ingredients for dressing:
2 tsp spicy grainy mustard
1/3 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp maple syrup (preferably grade A)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
dash of salt & pepper
Ingredients for salad:
1 cup arugula (about 1 handful)
2 cups chopped and massaged kale
2 cups mixed herbs, chopped (we’re using dill & mint)
1 peach, sliced and grilled in butter (sliced raw peaches are perfectly fine, too!)
1-2 dates, cut into chunks
1 cup cooked farro (cooked in vegetable broth for extra flavor)
1 garlic clove, minced
2 radishes, thinly shaved
2 Tbsp shaved almonds or nuts/seeds of choice
Salad Assembly:
Step 1
Make the dressing: Add all ingredients into a jar and shake vigorously.
Step 2
In a large bowl, combine all of the salad ingredients minus the grilled peaches and farro. Toss with a few tablespoons of your homemade dressing, making sure all the greens are evenly coated.
Assemble
On two large plates (or wide bowls), divvy out 1/2 cup of farro per plate. Add the dressed salad ingredients on the farro, then top with the warm grilled peaches.
Enjoy!
Notes to our Stir Fry / Microgreens / Bread & Spread Subscribers —
This week, our meal kit subscribers will be receiving one (or all) of the sustenance below:
BibimPOW! Featherstone’s take on Bibimbap…
Our Stir Fry subscribers are in for a treat with Jessi & Phoebe’s BibimPOW kit— a modified vegan take on the traditional Korean dish called Bibimbap. Bibimbap is one of the most popular Korean dishes, and it actually translates to “mixed rice with meat and assorted vegetables”. Oftentimes this dish is topped with an egg, so if you’re looking for a way to add a non-meat protein, add your favorite style of egg on top! My personal favorite is a 7.5 minute soft boiled egg. Simply place an egg into boiling water, set your timer for 7 minutes 30 seconds, and once your timer goes off, promptly place your egg into a bowl of iced cold water for 1-2 minutes; then de-shell, cut in half, place on your bowl of BibimPOW, and add a tiny pinch of salt & pepper.
Sign up for our Farm Fresh Subscriptions!
It’s not too late! If you would like to sign up for the remaining 5-weeks of our either of our subscriptions (Stir Fry / Bread & Spread / Microgreens), we will continue offering member signups on a rolling basis throughout the duration of our subscription timeline. Head to the link below to sign up.
*STIR FRY SUBSCRIBERS: You will continue receiving our printed assembly instructions in your kits each week, but we are now including a digital document of our instructions as well. Click here to download our (print-friendly) assembly instructions document.
Meditative Artwork by Laurén Madga
In last week’s newsletter we were searching for a home for Frank, a sweet doggo, and we found one! Laurén Madga and her partner Brad are happily welcoming Frank to their family where he will get to enjoy living with his new brother, a rescued greyhound named Bogart. Laurén is a friend of ours and we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight her budding business. She is a multi-disciplinary artist from Ypsilanti who paints intuitive, meditative artwork. Her work is visionary, vibrant and bold yet tranquil. An advocate for healing trauma, particularly generational, Laurén uses her art practice as a platform for mental health empowerment. You can view more of her work here on instagram, and find her originals, prints and curated merchandise by clicking below.
Thanks for reading!
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Have a great week,
Annie, Aaron, Renee, Jessi, Phoebe + Chili, Pepper & Bean (our farm cats)
Please note: Featherstone Garden is neither paid nor sponsored by any brands, organizations or blogs we feature in our newsletter. We share this content because we found it to be valuable and thought you might, too.
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