There. A harvest.

Finally, my long absence from Harvest Monday has ended. A week or so ago, I commented to Daphne that I would return soon, even with a yield of thinned-out lettuce plants. And here we have them, mainly the Summertime Iceberg my daughter sowed behind our garage sometime in March, the first seeds of our 2010 gardens. I waved hello to my Minton Stable Community Garden plot yesterday as I rode home from a conference that had kept me indoors most of the weekend. My Iceberg and Romaine lettuces as well as my spinach were not as far along, as they were planted a few weeks later, but because they receive more sunlight the leaves were firmer and healthier. Those seedlings will outpace whatever my daughter and I plant in our increasingly shady backyard. Still, we manage to reap enough greens to make the backyard efforts worthwhile. A few years ago, my husband built some boxes along a retaining wall at the edge of our driveway that gets more sun, so I may try some Chinese cabbage and Quarantina Raab, although I probably should have planted them yesterday.

Since I wrote that first paragraph, the lettuce leaves, shown above, were combined with store-bought Romaine, rinsed with boiled water, and consumed in a salad. I'm looking forward to my locally-grown lettuce and other greens making up a larger percentage of our vegetable intake.

For more (and probably better) harvest news, visit the other blogs listed at Daphne's Dandelions that are participating in Harvest Monday.