The Salad Garden

The Salad Garden

 Last night we had our first complete salad from the garden, with the exception of a yellow and red sweet pepper!  Hurray...this means the season of healthy eating is underway. Now the hard work begins to pay off.

After harvesting yesterday morning, I realized I had a little work to do in this garden, so spent a few hours weeding and caring for these hard working vegetables.

The salad garden is having it's ups and downs this year. Usually I follow pretty closely a four-year rotation schedule in my vegetable garden.  But this year I decided to make one area a simple salad garden.  It contains snow peas, two kinds of lettuce, spinach, radishes, pac choi, and celery. I also put my basil, parsley, cilantro and dill in this bed.

Snow peas

The snow peas are doing so well this year.  Probably due to the cooler and wetter spring.  My grandsons love them dipped in ranch dressing.  This year we have had several meals with sauteed snow peas with just a tiny sprinkle of sugar to help them carmelize. So very good!

Pac Choi

However, my radishes are woody and inedible. One of my favorite things in a salad.  I planted some more today. 

My big disappointment is the Pac Choi.  We have never grown this vegetable before, but love it in stir fry. We planted the seeds indoors in March and were late getting them in the ground. Even though the weather has been cool and wet, they are beginning to go to seed.  I know I didn't thin them as quickly as I should have.

I read on a garden forum that many people find the plant edible even though it is bolting as long as you eat it before the flowers have actually bloomed, so maybe we will have it tomorrow.

Lettuces

And lastly in the salad garden are the pretty lettuces and spinach. They are doing so well in this bed! There is nothing better than a home grown salad or fresh from the garden lettuce on your sandwich. Yum, Yum.

I think it might work out okay to grow the salad garden as a fifth rotation bed. There may be two years of the same crop, but three years before any crop gets repeated.  More about my rotation at a later date.

Happy salad making!

Spring is More than a Date on the Calendar.

We have had an early spring here in the Pacific Northwest. And my abundant backyard is beginning to grow. We actually started things in January when temperatures were in the 50’s with lows of 42 degrees. I don’t believe we have seen any frost since before January 25.

In January we cut down some wild plum trees (not good for anything but pectin), trimmed the clematis on the south fence, and gave the Wisteria a haircut in hopes of a bloom here and there. If it doesn’t bloom this year then I know the 10 year old vine will never bloom. If anyone has any helpful tips, let me know.

February remained dry and warm and we chipped the tree branches, pruned rose bushes, pulled strawberries from the walkways, and planted peas outside. Inside broccoli, leeks, red onions, basil and parsley are beginning to show themselves.

March has been exceptionally warm. The peas are beginning to show and I have managed to get spinach, radishes, lettuces, carrots and walla walla onions planted. Today I planted a rhubarb start. Can’t wait for the rhubarb crisp!

Flowers are not absent from this picture. Violets are blooming. They are one of my grandmother’s favorite flowers so I always think of her. Plus she had a sister named Violet and one named Myrtle. My grandmother was named Florest (nickname Flo). So great-grandma Whitney must have loved flowers herself.

And of course my most favorite of all……my treasured bleeding heart! My sister brought me a start of my grandmothers plant several years ago. I delight in the fact that it comes out of the ground blooming.! Isn’t that the most spectacular sign of spring?