Hattie’s Garden has a bounty of beautiful green tomatoes that will be harvested and offered this week for sale. The days are shorter and shorter as the winter solstice approaches and our tomatoes won’t fully ripen before the weather turns colder.

The good news is that green tomatoes are still edible, delicious, and good for many things. We sold lots of green tomatoes this summer and found there are many people who love to use them that way, so we thought it appropriate to end the 2014 tomato season with some advise on using green tomatoes!

For many, this brings to mind fried green tomatoes which is extremely easy to make. Simply slice your tomatoes, coat with flour, dip into an egg/milk mixture and then dredge them in a mixture of cornmeal, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Fry in vegetable oil. That’s it. Easy peasy and good good good!

Did you know you can also use green tomatoes for many great recipes? Green tomatoes can be used to make wonderful pickle dishes, a flaky biscuit, tangy salsa, a delightful pasta sauce, a delicious bundt cake, and even green tomato mint sorbet. I’m sure I could find even more ways to use them.

Take a Look at Hattie’s Delivery Service list of vendors and product information that will be available on December 6.

What’s Available This Week

The following items will be available at Hattie’s Garden on Thursday, November 13, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday, November 15, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Historic Lewes Farmer’s Market (HLFM), now located at the Shields Elementary parking lot.

Please note we will not have lettuce this week since it was severely damaged by the freeze we had last Friday night. We will only have enough to make our mesclun this week.

• Green Tomatoes – these tomatoes have most of the same health benefits as red tomatoes, with almost the same amount of beta-carotene. Enjoy eating them fried, sautéed, in stews or sauces or even pickled. They are rich in antioxidants and B vitamins and may even help fight cancer.

  Here’s a great recipe for pasta with green tomatoes that you can make use of our mint, parsley, and arugula with.

• Young Carrots – slim early carrots are sweet and delicious.
• Spicy Arugula – We have lots of nice semi-mature arugula (it is never large and tough, but more of a medium-sized leaf). It is packaged in a slightly larger amount than the young arugula and is great for eating raw, but also is the leaf you want if you are going to use your arugula for cooking.
• Young Arugula – a beautiful new planting of young arugula will be cut for this week as well as for our final market.
• Mesclun – a mixture of lettuce, arugula and other nice young baby greens this week from our other new leafy green plantings
• Daikon Radishes – this is a most delicious, large root crop. Please see this recent blog post for information on how to prepare daikon.
• Toscano Kale – also called Dinosaur Kale, Lacinato Kale and Cavolo Palmizio. Toscano kale has a long tradition in Italian cuisine, especially Tuscany, going back centuries. It is a traditional ingredient in minestrone. Dark blue-green leaves have an embossed texture with a taste slightly sweeter, earthy and more delicate than curly kale.
• Beedy’s Camden Kale – silvery wide leaves with a sweet delightful taste. Also very tender. We like this new-to-us open-pollinated kale from Beedy Parker in Camden, Maine.
• Red Russian Kale – always a nice kale and very different from typical curly kale. Curly kale has more of a bitter taste while Red Russian kale is mild and sweet.



• Herbs – will include parsley, cilantro, dill, sage and mint. They will be available in small bunches of about one ounce each and sold for just $2 each or 3 for $5. For a description of these herbs and some of their many benefits, please scroll down to the bottom of this recent post.

Coming Soon: Hattie’s Garden Delivery Service

Hattie’s Garden delivery service begins Saturday, December 6. We will deliver produce and other vendor products during the months of December, January and perhaps February on most Saturday mornings.

You will receive detailed information prior to the first scheduled delivery.

Below is the tentative list of vendors, along with their products, who will participate in the delivery service with Hattie’s Garden. It should be noted that all produce sold is either certified organic or grown using sustainable methods without the use of synthetic pesticides or fungicides.

• Hattie’s Garden – Produce
• Greenbranch Organic Farm – Produce, free-range beef and pork
• Chesapeake Organics – Certified organic produce
• Deep Grass Nursery – Certified organic produce, vinegar, jams, salsas, horseradish mustard
• Backyard Jams and Jellies – Dozens of homemade jams and jellies, mustards and chutneys
• Baues’ Busy Bees – Raw honey
• Chapel’s Country Creamery – Artisan cheeses made from raw milk from grass fed cows
• Pure Harvest Farm – Pasture-raised chickens fed certified organic feed
• Twin Post Farm – Free-range chicken eggs
• Old World Breads – Artisan breads and wholesome desserts and pies made with European-style butter

We want to bring you the very best whole local food that we can, and look forward to your continued support of local growers and producers.

Yours at the market and garden…