Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Salad Garden

When we first moved in I found this patch of ground that I'm pretty sure must have once been home to some veggies (there is a chive plant there and not much else besides weeds).  I decided to make it our salad garden since I will still have a large garden in town (that I feel very blessed to have access to) where I will grow most of our food. 
I'm in the process of clearing it out.  I planted some greens and radish there last week and am now trying to figure out a way to keep my cat from digging up all the seeds!!  Today we are having an unexpected day (mostly) at home and so we will plant some peas out there against the wall as well (with more peas to be planted in town to try to satisfy E's hunger for fresh peas).
Yesterday after work I was given a bag of freshly grown greens from the greenhouse.  What a treat!  E kept taking some and eating them and I kept saying that they were for dinner.  Finally I gave up and we both munched away for a bit...it had been so long since we'd had fresh young greens - because I do try to keep to local and/or in season foods as much as possible, E had only convinced me to buy him had lettuce twice since our last harvest.  He loves lettuce and was delighted with the gifted fresh greens and I was delighted to see him appreciate and savour them as the seasonal goodness that they are - there simply is no comparison between just picked greens and store-bought shipped greens.  Happily there were enough greens left for dinner as well and those we enjoyed with our favourite liquid gold dressing (we use grapeseed and/or olive oil instead of flax, parsley instead of cumin and always raspberry vinegar not balsamic - this is SO good that you want to drink it!).  So nice to be at the start of growing season again and have all sorts of fresh vegetables to look forward to.

4 comments:

Hazel said...

I'm starting a new kitchen garden too close to the back door for easy pickings. When our greens are finished for the year we switch to cabbage- green or red - as a base for salads; we actually like it better because it's chewy and filling! I'll watch as your gardens grow.

Jane said...

Just a word of caution here, if the garden is close to the house, make certain it was never painted with lead paint (most house pre-1970s were), or it can contaminate the soil. Don't want to discourage you, but just wanted to warn you.

Elizabeth said...

Amen to salad greens! I noticed a few brave spinach plants poking up in my lettuce box today. Off to check out the dressing recipe...

daisy g said...

Our lettuce season is almost over. I will really miss fresh greens. Enjoy yours!