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Hi Reader,

It's that time of year when the garden is waking up and I find I want to (sometimes need to) do something everyday the weather allows in my flower beds and veggie garden.

Which is to warn you that the next few months will have more garden content along with recipes. 😀

The big thing this week was the arrival of bare root plants from Food Forest Nursery, a small family-run business in Arkansas with the goal of helping to turn our backyards into a food forest (and 10% of their profits go to helping schools build food forests!).

They offer lots of bare root fruit trees, fruiting vines, nut trees and berries, as well as some US native plants. I specifically needed berries to try growing them in a new area this year (all my raspberries died off over the last two years 😢) so I ordered these:

• Heritage Red Raspberry (everbearing)
• Killarney Red Raspberry (a cold hardy variety that ripens July-Aug)
• Anne Yellow Raspberry (July-Aug harvest with amazing flavor)
• Cumberland Black Raspberry (July-Aug) - I've never grown black raspberries, so this will be a new experience!
• Navaho Thornless Blackberry (an erect berry that ripens mid June through July, providing berries before my Triple Crown berries are ready).

I also got a couple Arrowwood Viburnum for our roadside hedgerow because the deer (usually) leave them alone, and 2 Eastern Redbuds for small trees on the edge of our sunken garden.

I shared in Instagram stories what the roots looked like on arrival (really healthy - and some were just HUGE), as well as how to take care of bare root plants when you get them and saved the two stories to the Garden Highlight bubble here (click through the tomato planting!).

If you're interested in ordering bare root fruit, nut, or natives through Food Forest Nursery, you can get 10% off your first order with the code:

jboys10

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I've potted the roots up while they wait for our new area to be ready (also shared on Instagram), so stay tuned to what that will look like! I'm hopeful for a few berries this year and handfuls next year.😀

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April Dinner Menu Ideas

Now onto your dinner ideas for April! This is a transition month for us, so I still have some soups, roasts, and bakes going on with a few salads or easy pastas thrown in for those days when the warm sun shines.

It's also a month I start to actively use up the preserved food in the freezer. I try to get most of our frozen produce used up between now and May, as we tend to eat fresh after that and then need room for this year's harvest.

Here are some highlights from this month's menu that I'm going to fit into our menus:

​Slow Cooker Italian Style Pot Roast​ The flavor of this is AMAZING - my favorite pot roast for sure. I never cook it with potatoes, preferring to serve it with my Sour Cream Garlic Mashed Potatoes instead.💜 ​

​Creamy Pesto Tortellini with Red Peppers​ This is another take on my creamy pesto pasta, this time with tortellini and red peppers. So quick and yummy.

​Easy Pesto Twist Bread​ Time to use up the frozen pesto before the basil starts producing again with this unique and delicious skillet bread. I'll serve this with simple baked chicken and a green salad.

​Savory Tomato Seafood Stew​ One of my favorite quick, lighter soups perfect for spring! I'll serve this with leftover pesto twist bread, though a good artisan bread works lovely, too.

​Chicken Pesto Greek Style Pizza​ My favorite pizza flavor by far, it's another way to use up pesto. This will appear on one of our Saturday pizza-movie nights!

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From The Blog

​Good Things List No.71: Blooming Fruit Trees, Vintage-Style Dishes, 6 Books Reviewed & More​ So excited about the blooms - and the GREEN floral plates I finally splurged on! And of the 6 books I read, THREE will be on my year's best book list for sure.😀 ​ Read it all here! ​ ​

​Quick & Easy Chef's Salad Recipe​ My favorite warm weather one dish meal, this is a template for how to layer and ideas of what to add. A perfect way to use up odds and ends in the fridge. ​ Get The Recipe Here! ​

A Few More Things

SAVE your favorites!! Did you know that you can SAVE your favorite recipes and tips on An Oregon Cottage? This feature has been around for awhile and thousands of readers have saved their very favorites! Once you are on the website, save your favorite recipes and articles by clicking on the heart on the lower right-hand side. You can also create an account if you choose, to save the recipes for the future!

New Summer Dress: I just got this flowy dress from Old Navy that feels like it will be perfect for hot weather (since it's not hot now when I tried it on, I'm projecting, lol). I don't usually do swing dresses, but the layers of this are actually pretty flattering. I also don't do really short - so my tip is to buy it in a TALL sizing! The tall hits barely above my knees, which is perfect (I'm 5'5).

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I hope you have a wonderful week!

P.S. Love these recipes and tips? Don't forget to save your recipe and gardening tips to easily organize them and find them in the future! (Also, this is a way to help my site - "voting" for favorites shows Google and Ad people that you like my content, like the recipe ratings and reviews do. 😀)

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