Friday, November 14, 2008

Winter garden!

In mid-October, we had a lovely visit from Adam's mom and dad, Leslie and Steve. Steve put in a winter garden for us, showed me how to plant seeds in rows, and gave me lots of excellent instructions for caring for the garden. It's been so much fun to watch the plants come up and grow--the first day I saw specks of green, I was so excited that I took a cell phone picture and texted it to Adam right away.

Confession: A big reason I haven't posted pics of the winter garden is that the weeds have been sort of rioting all over it. Basically, after the rain a few weeks ago, the plants in the vegetable garden, happy with the gorgeous soil created by 30 years of farming by the family who lived here before us and quenched after a long dry spell, immediately exploded into all sorts of fantastic verdancy. However, the weeds appreciated the rain and gorgeous soil too, and while they are very pretty--forming this lacy, jade-green carpet all around our vegetables--I hadn't kept pace with them well enough to feel like the pictures would do the veggies justice.

But I've spent the last few days assiduously weeding, especially since alot of the veggies are ready or close to ready to harvest. The weeds are still thriving, but they're a bit more under control.

And dinner tonight is featuring a salad made from our first harvest from this garden (of various baby lettuces, French breakfast radishes, and baby beet greens that were thinned out today) so I thought I'd get some pictures before we started picking. Here they are!

Pak choi (and indigo radicchio to its left):



Spinach:


Radish tops:



Swiss chard and purple kohlrabi:


Mesclun mix:



"Kitchen sink" lettuce mix:


French breakfast radishes, ready to go:


Beets:



Lots of lettuce!:


And even more lettuce:



And here's a picture of the dinner Adam made tonight--potatoes sent to us from Adam's parents, needing nothing more than a quick boil and a touch of butter and salt; rare porterhouse steak topped with Point Reyes blue cheese; and our fancy from-the-garden salad with a simple vinaigrette.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steve says "pull out some of that mizuna before it takes over."
Loved your update and feel honored.
Garden Buddy

November 15, 2008 at 1:00 PM  
Blogger emily said...

um...yum

November 15, 2008 at 3:31 PM  

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