Recipe: Spring strawberry salad with fresh violets
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As fresh and pretty as spring: Strawberry salad with fresh violets. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)
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This vibrant spring salad is as flavorful as it is colorful. Both cut crosswise, fresh strawberries and radishes contrast nicely in both taste and texture. They look especially pretty combined with the rich greens of fresh spinach and leaf lettuce. (The variety used in this recipe: Red butterhead.)
The garnish is a conversation starter: Fresh violets. The white and blue varieties of Viola are edible.
Viola alba , the white perennial violet, is native to America’s woodlands. It’s a cast-iron ground cover in low-water gardens. It grows so easily, many gardeners consider it a weed.
If you can’t beat it, eat it. (Just make sure your violets haven’t been exposed to pesticides or herbicides.)
Pick your violets with about ½ inch of stem.
Plunge flowers immediately into ice-cold water. Keep them in cold water until ready to use. Other varieties of Viola may be substituted for violets; the smaller the varieties, the tastier.
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Put just-picked violets into very cold water to keep
them fresh.
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Spring strawberry salad with fresh violets
Makes 2 to 4 servings
Ingredients:
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Food in My Back Yard Series
SUMMER
July 15: Does this plant need water?
July 8: Tear out that sad plant or baby it? Midsummer decisions
July 1: How to grow summer salad greens
June 24: Weird stuff that's perfectly normal
SPRING
June 17: Help pollinators help your garden
June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests
June 3: Make your own compost
May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?
May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days
May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can
May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success
April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
WINTER
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden checklist for week of July 13
Put off big chores and planting until later in the week when the weather is cooler. In the meantime, remember to stay hydrated – advice for both you and your garden.
* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.
* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.
* Give vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.
* Add some summer color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.
* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers. Plant Halloween pumpkins now.
* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.
* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.
* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.
* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.
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