plant sale recap, thanks, a nursery you must visit and kale salad recipe

Our plant sale last weekend felt so momentous, I want to thank you all who came out, spread the word, and brought home little gems to help with our tractor fund. We sold almost all the plants in the first few hours of Saturday, and Sunday I brought in a big part of my personal collection to put up for the cause. We raised around $4,000 in profits! After a week packed with phone calls to friends, dealers, and farmers we've settled on a new John Dheere 5055e with a bucket, brush hog and 47" roto tiller. Field flowers here we come!

Many thanks to the amazing growers/greenhouses we visited to collect all these beauties...Lloyd, Candy and Stephanie at Peace Tree, Roger at R&C Wholesale Nurseries in Ludlow, MA  the nice people at Atlantic Nursery, and Angel Plants. (Note: all these places are wholesale only, so you can only shop if you have a resale certificate. If you don't, see below for a great plant source...) Thanks to Anna for making the rope plant hangers, and to Elizabeth, our new intern who packed plants for 8 hours on Saturday without a break.

The following pictures are from Judy Becker's Lauray greenhouse in Salisbury, CT. You need to visit her little nursery if you ever find yourself trolling through the Hudson Valley on your way to the Berkshires. Call first - she's a one woman show. She has an incredible selection of small cuttings from her stock of rhizomatous begonias, cacti, and succulents along with a smattering of slightly larger plants kicking around.









I'm signing off my computer for the weekend. We're expecting our first spring workday crew here at the farm in a few hours. The temperatures are warming and there are countless things waiting to happen.
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Someone asked about my kale salad recipe:

1 bunch of nice laciano (dinosaur) kale washed dried, cut in very thin (1/4-12 inch ribbons)

for the dressing:

1 clove of garlic and smash it with some kosher or maldon salt. using the edge of a big chopping knife.

I put that in a big bowl and drizzle about 1-2tsp of champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar, or the juice of 1/2 a lemon depending on whats around) over, let it sit to macerate for 20 minutes.

Then I wisk in about 1 tsp of mayonaise

Then I wisk in around 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Then I wisk in a tiny bit of water to level it off, make it nice. Someone told me to do this once, and though counter intuitive to me at least, it works wonders to make a dressing finished.

Meanwhile I'm toasting some chopped hazelnuts, burning them, tossing them in the compost and then toasting new ones. 

The kale goes in the big bowl with the dressing and gets massaged with my hands to mix well and get the leaves to relax a bit. 

Then I grate an inordinate amount of pecarino romano cheese in there.

Then I take the nuts out and throw them right on while they are very hot - this helps wilt -- in only the slightest, best way, some of that kale.