Remember every day that I have a reason to smile.

In the warm months, my vegetable garden almost always makes me smile. I love seeing the plants grow and produce food. It makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished something worthwhile every time I stand in the middle of lush, dark green, thriving plants or eat a fresh strawberry, pea, cut parsley, etc.

The first of the peas are out, all 3 pods! (Good thing this isn’t substinance farming; we’d starve.) They’re on the two plants that survived the mole attack early on.

The tomatoes are still flowering, but not setting fruit, yet.

The biennials are blooming and some of the overwintered annuals as well: leeks and onions have flower buds; one of the overwintered chicories is blooming (this usually is the LAST flower to bloom in my garden, like late September?), the parsley is flowering too.

The baby lettuces that I planted (last year?) that never came up are a line of green and the lettuces that I planted near the card rack have been thinned twice although they’re at the most 1” tall.

There’s an abundance of pea and bean bushes and plants out there, but except for the oldest of the pea vines, nothing but leaves, yet. (And I poked some more bush bean seeds in the ground in odd places today.)

The squashes, celery, cauliflower, pepper plants are growing away but no harvests yet, although I’ll pick some of the celery soon and start making celery salt.

The first of the broccoli heads are budded out, not enough yet to eat. Hopefully one or two more will start so that we can actually eat more than 1 spear each at a time.

The first year we grew broccoli, they were still in the garden on Thanksgiving. We hadn’t had a killing frost yet, but we’d had several light frosts. I took all the broccoli I could for our holiday meal. The frost had made the broccoli sweet. It was the best broccoli I’ve ever had! Hopefully, I’ll be able to do that again this year.

I thought I had bought cherry tomato seeds, as those I CAN grow. But I went to plant them today and discovered that I hadn’t bought a single tomato seed! Now I need to go and frantically see if I can’t find cherry tomato plants. All the plants I’ve got in the ground now are mid and larger tomatoes, I can’t start those from scratch, my season isn’t long enough. But I can’t imagine a summer without cherry tomatoes to munch on when I’m out in the yard!

I started making herbal salt last week. I put savory herbs in sea salt. It was a success, so much of so that 1/2 of what I’d made is gone! Maybe I’ll give the neighbors seasoned salt along with their bread this year? (If I can make enough.)

Judith

It’s very green (cockadoodle doo is GREAT stuff!) and thriving happily. I have peas, beans, lettuces, tomatoes, radishes, leek, parsley, lemon balm, spearmint, thyme, sage, oregano, horseradish, onions, strawberries, chives, basil, cilantro, broccoli, acorn squash, and peppers growing out there.

Still to plant/transplant: asparagus (from the old bed where it did NOT thrive to the new deep bed where it appears to), kohl rabi, more greens, more onions, corn (maybe), carrots, more beans, more peas, fennel, and zucchini and crookneck squash (if I can find plants).
[Found ‘em, they’re planted.]

I have a lot of seed left and have only got three beds completely full. Of course, all the seeds I planted won’t grow full size, some will be pulled to cull things down and eaten, some will simply be crowded out. The lettuce mix that I planted behind the peas/card spinner rack are about 1/4” high now, still no true leaves, but there’s two rows of very tiny plants out there! When they get a bit bigger, I’ll thin them down, then do it again and again.

I wish the tomatoes had fruit on them, I’d love to be able to get fruit from my garden and not worry about salmonella! But they’re only about 8” tall, and haven’t flowered yet. Maybe next week?

The garden’s thriving and it makes me smile every time I look at it!

jkd

has “watered in” all of the day lilies, daffs, etc. that I transplanted the week before. Things look “settled” and green. Yeah!

jkd

by a lyrca-clad fellow, my fellow, in the best way!

jkd

has become my newest addiction. Fast, yummy, not that hard to do, and you can use up almost anything with it.

I made two batches of risotto this a.m.: asparagus, Canadian bacon in one (to freeze); asparagus, Canadian bacon, a little shallot, and pine nuts, which we ate for lunch with some Parmesan cheese. Yummy!

The whole thing used not quite 1 qt liquid, 2 cans condensed chick. broth and the rest water, approx 2 Tb butter/olive oil mixed, 2C rice, the ends of the not-so-great asparagus, about 10 spears of the good stuff, and cheese.

The broth was $2, the Canadian bacon was a buy one get one last month and we’d used some of it, so figure it was like $1.50, the asparagus was (mostly) the ends and not great parts of 1 lb of asparagus I would have otherwise pitched, and the good stuff was about 1/2 a bunch, approx. .90 . I don’t know what the cheese, pine nuts, shallot, olive oil, butter or rice works out to, sorry. (I tend to buy arborio rice, which is used for risotto, every time I see it. I had like 3 packages of it around here, which is why I started making it, I decided I had to use it up!

Now I’ll be looking for arborio rice whenever I can. Truly yummy, great with leftovers, fairly cheap, and fast. Why would you go to McDonalds?

jkd

if I can, I’ll post an image. I have a small, purple flower (a hyacynth?)budded in one of the vegetable garden beds. I did NOT plant this, a chipmunk or mole or squirrel or God did. Anyway, there’s the small flowering plant budding in a vegetable garden bed. Cool!

Also, the daffodils that I transplanted from near the front door to the side yard are starting to spread, as are the chives I put there. The north side of the house, except for the vernal pond and the 100+ year old oak has always been an eyesore. If I can get the daffs, chives, and maybe a daylily or two to naturalize there and do some minor landscaping, I can turn this piece of land that has always been the worst part of the yard into the best. Oh yeah, the wild violet patch is out there too.

The daffs are sprouting, the chives are green, but there’s no evidence of the wild violets yet this year. Soon…but never soon enough.

There was this minor bird riot. Five or more red-breasted robins were having a territorial dispute I’d guess. Great flurries of ruddy chests, wings, yellow beaks, and lots of squawking. Shortly after they flurried by me, they broke it up. The danger from the human was apparently more significant than whether George or Phil or Fred got the girl/the prime hunting ground.

Nice to know that I count for something! (smirk)

jkd

maybe it’s because I’m an L.A. kid and snow is still “weird” to me, or maybe it’s just human. But early spring, like now, I end up, inevitably puttering in my garden.

Today, I wandered out, robe covering my sleep shirt/undies and my stocking feet. I could not wait until I’d gotten dressed, wet socks and pulling the robe tight to offset any breeze and/or not scandalize the neighbors (or frighten them!) was a small price to pay.

I immediately got sworn at by what I thought was an immature gray squirrel, but it was not. We have a red squirrel again!

I love the feisty, small fiery little creatures. Their bigger cousins, the more aggressive gray squirrels, had run off the red squirrel family we’d had in the yard 10 years ago or so, and we’ve had none since. Being royally told off was wonderful!

There were some small birds feeding on the grass, the red squirrel, and other birds up high in the pine trees this morning.

I sifted through the veg. garden to see if the peas had sprouted yet (no) and removed stones from the bed. I wound up with a robe pocket full of small stones, which I threw into the driveway.

This always amuses me…at the rate I add “gravel” to our driveway, it will take a millenia (or two) to have any significant effect, but still I do this season after season…Sisyphus got nothin’ on me!

I’m off to go get dressed. I wonder what I can do that I “have” to do outdoors? Maybe I’ll get sworn at again? That would be grand!

jkd

not a cloud anywhere. The snow from yesterday’s storm is falling from the trees in big wet clumpy snow bombs. It’s clear, bright, and cold (-2C) but it’s quiet at the moment. I’m warm, not hungry, and enjoying the brilliant spring light.

jkd

I made a daily goals list, and I did it!

It’s not much, only 5 things…but I’m not scared.

Yes, I know this sounds silly, I don’t care, it makes me teary eyed. You likely have no idea how scary the idea of being seen has been for years and years and years. When you think you are a “defective” and are scared you are a murderer, you don’t want people to be able to see you, you don’t even want to see yourself.

And there I was for most of 50 years.

This is a tiny step, but it feels great, even with the tears!

jkd

he worked hard today to give it to me, despite being not-quite sick, doing some stuff around the house and darkroom.

smile

(It’s nice to be loved, and it’s also nice to be taken seriously!)

jkd