Flourishing Garden Produce

As we get nearer and nearer to the end of the summer, it is incredible to see the garden continuing to grow and flourish - tomatoes are ripening daily, eggplants and peppers continue to thrive, and we even still have strawberries ripening!

Today is my final working day before I start a 12-week maternity leave, so I thought it was important to post some garden update pictures before I leave the garden in the knowing and able hands of our volunteer corps.

So far this year, we've harvested over 20 pounds of food from the garden - including two pounds of basil leaves that went to Purple Door Ice Cream (our neighbor on the first floor!) for their basil ice cream. Delicious!

Cooking from the Garden

Today we hosted our first CORE/El Centro Healthy Cooking class, in partnership with the Art Institute of Wisconsin's International Culinary Arts program.  The focus of today's class was "Cooking Seasonally - Market to Table Recipes" and featured eggplants, tomatoes, peppers and herbs from the Edible Skyline.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we have an abundance of eggplants on the roof, thanks to our windy conditions and ample water source. So eggplants were the centerpiece of today's recipes - Eggplant Pizzas (using sliced eggplant as the pizza dough), Ratatouille (using all ingredients from the rooftop and/or the local market), and Veggie Skewers.

What produce we didn't have on the rooftop, I picked up at the Walker's Square farmers market - held three days a week, four blocks from the Clock Shadow building.

This first class was a huge success and we'll be sure to keep you posted on future classes!