Garlic & Coconut

I really love the fall here on the Palouse, the leaves are changing, its getting cold and the apples are delicious! Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to buy all the delicious locally grown apples at the farmers market. This is where Backyard Harvest comes into play. Backyard Harvest started when its founder accidentally grew 200+ heads of lettuce one year thanks to her young sons scattering the seeds all over their backyard. Rather than throw them away she donated them to the local foodbank.

I has since grown into much larger project, they have farm plots around the town, they will harvest fruit trees in peoples yards, they set up a program so that people can use their food stamps at the farmers market, its really a fantastic program.


What does this have to do with Garlic & Coconut? Well, it has nothing to do with coconut, but I spent a little time volunteering on Saturday planting garlic for Backyard Harvest. We planted a lot of garlic! I had no idea that if you just plant a clove of garlic in the fall, come next harvest you'll have a whole bulb. I found out that we were planting the garlic because BYH also does a CSA, where people pay a fee and have fresh fruits and vegtables delivered weekly during the growing season. It is subsized for those with low incomes, just $5 a week. I learned a lot this weekend. And, we harvested a couple of apple trees right next to the plot. Yummy apples! It was kinda cool standing in the branches of the tree munching on an apple and picking them for seniors and the food bank.

Green Apples we harvested.

The garlic field all planted. We covered it with Hay to protect it this winter.

And Coconut...?? I've been saying to Mike for a few weeks that I wanted to try and make a coconut cake. So yesterday, I made a coconut cake. It was blustery raining day so it seemed like the perfect day to bake. I don't have a picture of it because . . . well my phone was dead and it didn't occur to me to use the actual camera. Ooops! But it turned out really well, really messy, but really yummy! The frosting was almost like a homemade marshmellow cream. And I think I'll be finding shredded coconut around my kitchen for days, but it was fun.