Monday, May 3, 2010

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.

7 comments:

Ottawa Gardener said...

I too posted with some thinned greens. They count! They do. Nice harvest and welcome back.

Bryan Bunch said...

This year my best early greens are burgandy spinach. Emerald lettuce, while technically thinnings, is also large enough to count as mesclun ingredient. I have had a couple of salads based on this combination. Arugala looks big enough to start harvesting for the next salad, also.

Anonymous said...

Nice harvest, soon there will be more!

Daphne Gould said...

Isn't nice to have water again? Congrats on the start of your spring harvests again.

Sally said...

Ottawa Gardener: Thanks for the encouragement.

Bryan: I'm not familiar with those varieties. I'd be curious to see/taste them.

Vrtlarica: Thanks! Looking forward to more.

Daphne: Thanks! And it's nice to have hassle-free water again. One of those things we take for granted.

Bryan Bunch said...

Both the Burgundy spinach, apparently so named because it has a maroon stem and some veins so colored, and the Emerald lettuce ("Its crisp, buttery-heart and sweet flavor make Emerald Oak a real jewel! Rounded oakleaf shaped leaves are thick and tighten to form dense heads") are not only tasty, but grow to harvestable size faster than other varieties I planted. The Red Salad Bowl lettuce planted the same day and in the same plot is at least two weeks behind.

Dan said...

The first harvest is always the best!