Like Buttah

New fan favorite Bordeaux spinach and the long-awaited Tom Thumb butterhead lettuce. The spinach is great because even when eaten raw it doesn't squeak between one's teeth, which gives me chills up my spine just thinking about it. The butterhead lettuce is so crisp and curly and succulent I can't get enough of it. Time to fix up a big bowl of leaves dressed simply and stylishly in nice olive oil, lemon juice, and salt.

Dressed Up

Quick, leave me your best salad dressing recipe in the comments! Salad season is officially upon us. Hooray!

Green with Frenzy

We're eating garden-fresh greens pretty much every day now. Still can't decide what to do with the rhubarb, much like the difficulty we're having deciding where to live. Mark is still busy in the garden even though we're leaving in just a few weeks. Looks like the new folks will appreciate the fruits of our labors. Also adopting out plants and concocting elaborate schemes to bring as much as possible with us. Stay tuned.

MacGyver Rides Again

We were busy little bees this weekend, seeding and transplanting and improvising hoop houses with clothespins and old fencing. Mark likes to channel MacGyver, and he's got the hockey hair to prove it.

The weather was delightfully cooperative on Saturday, lulling us into a sense of security. Even Sunday afternoon was cool and overcast, perfect for transplanting greens, so we put out the chard, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and arugula. However, Sunday evening brought hail and thunderstorms. Most of the broccoli and lettuce we'd planted outside was under row covers, but there were a few extras we planted in boxes along the driveway. They got pummeled pretty hard, but it looks like the broccoli and arugula are recovering. The jury's still out on the lettuce. We're fully anticipating an infestation of squirrels next, closely followed by a plague of locusts.

Radishes, spinach, sweet peas, and fennel seeds are all in the ground, and from the safety of our home we started marigolds, calendula, and okra. Mark raised the roof (literally) on the hoop houses, using PVC pipe to get another 18 inches out of our row covers. Last year, the plants outgrew the row covers long before the last frost date of May 15, so this solution should buy us some time.

We are very excited about the tomatoes, which are fast becoming behemoths at 4-6 inches tall, nice and bushy and not leggy at all. They're starting to fill the room with that earthy tomato-plant scent, which has been one of Kate's all-time favorite aromas ever since her very first job in a greenhouse at age 15.

And now Kate will leave you with one final image: Mark, crouched on the floor of the bathroom, with the door locked to keep the mewling cats out while he cuts the bottoms out of a dozen cat-food cans. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds. And a lot more hilarious, although I shouldn't have laughed at the bloodshed. All this to keep the cutworms off the broccoli this year, which is critical--I understand that--but this seems more painful and complicated than necessary.

Signs of Life

As soon as we saw buds on our neighbor's pussy willow tree, we started itching to put sweet peas in the ground.

The broccoli and greens are already hardening off in the garage, and soon they'll go out in the makeshift hoop houses to brave the elements for real.


I know we'll probably see a bit more wintry weather this year, but hope is now visible and tangible. Signs of life are all over the yard--rhubarb, iris, daffodils, garlic, and lots of strawberries. Maybe we'll actually get some fruit this year. Does anyone know if we should be nipping off the runners to encourage berry production? I'm reluctant to prune if it's not necessary.

A Little Patience

Had some broccoli trouble due to overcrowding. Those suckers got big fast. A few of the smaller plants shriveled and died, and the leaves on a couple others started turning yellow. I transplanted the larger seedlings into more spacious containers and all of the plants have rebounded. My conclusion is that the soil blocks are great for starting broccoli but are quickly outgrown after about four weeks.

The alliums continue to do well; not much to report there. The brassicas are also thriving. We planted lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard, and New Zealand spinach, and all had multiple seedlings by the end of the first week. We will be transplanting these and the broccoli into improvised hoop houses at the end of this month.

It's been about three weeks since we planted the eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers, and a few stragglers continue to sprout. All in all, we managed to get 6 Nyagous, 6 Isis Candy, and 7 San Marzano tomato plants, which is right on target for our needs. The hot peppers sprouted quickly, though the sweet varieties have been a little slower to germinate. Top performers include the Ancho Gigante (poblano) and Golden Treasure peppers. Kevin's Early Orange and King of the North have been very slow, yielding only 4 and 3 plants respectively to date. The small quantities of eggplants we planted have yielded two or three of each variety which is more than adequate. The lesson learned in here is the importance of patience, patience, PATIENCE. The old adage is certainly true: A watched plant never grows, but a watched spouse certainly grows angry. Quickly.