Tag archive for lettuce

It’s early evening in the garden. The sun is low on the horizon and the warmth of the day is beginning to fade. For some reason, this is the time of day when dozens of dragonflies make an appearance in the sky about my yard. I see them here every year in the summer. They dip and zoom through the air as they search for food, or whatever it is they are swarming over. This is about the time I turn on my new garden lights.

There are a couple of new additions to the garden this year, plantings of zucchini, cucumber, nasturtium and cheery overhead lights. I’ve devised a plan to hang strands of lights, zigzagging back and forth across the garden on the same stakes I put up for the plants. Since we are often our relaxing in the garden in the dusky evening, I think the lights are going to be a great addition to our enjoyment of the space.

My garden seems to be doing a very good job at reflecting life this year. Parts of it are planned and organized with neat straight rows and even spacing. I’ve been working towards the best way to create green “walls” around the garden with pole beans, towering tomatoes and colorful dahlias. It’s taken a few years, but I think I’m getting this figured out! Other plants are randomly taking over the pathways, like the lettuce stalk that went to seed last summer, tossing hundreds of seeds out amongst the gravel. Turns out that I am getting some really lovely heads of lettuce from this random seed placement. Same story with the arugula that has been growing so rapidly that I’ve resorted to sharing bags of it with friends to keep up with its growth.

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The lettuce and arugula have been a wonderful start to the season. Along with those volunteer crops, I have been tending to an early salad garden with generous plantings of kale, mizuna, pretty speckled lettuces and my favorite French breakfast radishes. My salad bowl is a pretty delicious place this time of year.

I am also giving the English peas another shot this year. I swore I wasn’t going to waste precious garden space on them again after last year’s dismal showing. The plants came up only to fall to some terrible pea pestilence before any pods reached maturity. But it’s funny what a winter’s worth of grey will do to my resolve. So with a new variety of seeds and a little crop rotation, my fingers are crossed for a better outcome this year.

Where ever you are this season, I hope a little spot of green – farmer’s market, community garden, herb pot in the window or acres of vegetables – crosses your path this summer.

It’s one of those things I can count on…when the holidays are over, the seed catalogues will come. And while I might have to wait for months before really even thinking about taking spade to garden, I can dream my way through the dahlia catalogue along with the stack of other seed catalogues that have been filing up my mailbox. A weekend or two will inevitably be spent trying to decide on what four tomato varieties will make the cut in the garden. Or what mixture of greens will kick off my spring salads. In short, it gives me a little hope that eventually, spring will come.

Last year was my first with a proper garden in a few years. My parents arrived on the scene with ideas aplenty and in no time had full plans sketched out for the garden. And this was no ordinary garden plot – they built me raised beds with rails for sitting, gravel walks for easy maintenance and a little fence to keep out wayward toddlers and anxious dogs! I know, this whole area was a very kind and thoughtful gesture and I am still touched by the generous gift this garden has been to me. By the time the summer was over and the tomatoes and dahlias were towering over the pathway, it felt jungle-like. A friend donated a chair and table, which I painted yellow, and hauled it into the garden. This was almost on the level of garden spa! (Tina, you may also note that the yellow spray paint idea is hardly something new – I was doing it months ago!)

I should be honest and tell you that things got a little out of control in the garden. I am not sure if it was the year or what, but my tomatoes fell over at least three times last summer. The plants were too vigorous to stay with their stakes. It became my weekend project to keep adding new stakes, pruning viciously to try and control the growth. The dahlias were so top-heavy with flowers that they drooped across the pathways, sprinkling spent petals at an alarming rate. I must come up with a new plan for proactive staking this year! But I embraced it all – tucked out of sight from most everyone, my little jungle was a quiet refuge all summer.

And now, through the silent winter, those beds have sat under the briefest cover of snow. I mulched them with leftover leaves and grass, just hoping to replenish the soil enough for a repeat performance this summer. I’ve already been out there once to see how the composting process is going and take a quick look at my volunteer fava beans, an added bonus from my composting antics. I am going to be so excited if those actually produce anything this year!

As I quietly surveyed the garden last week, I wondered just where I should plant the lettuce this spring? Where should the dahlias grow? Can I add any new flowers to my collection this year? Where will my first row of radishes grow? Tina suggested I draw a little planting map – it might help with my planning. Maybe I’ll share it here…
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My one new discovery last year was purslane. It’s not really a well-known green, but it is going to be. If you’re looking for the latest food trend, you heard it here first. To many, this is actually a weed, but the seeds I found were for an upright variety that made for easy picking. The leaves had a bit of a citrus flavor to them and lasted much further into the summer than any of the other lettuce varieties and was a welcome addition to salads. I think it was sometime toward the end of July when I finally decided it had run its course and pulled it out.

I’m always looking for new things to add to the garden mix. This year the idea came to me that perhaps I could add a Meyer lemon to the garden. Obviously, I am not going to be able to plant it anywhere. But in a pot, it could be quite a nice addition. In my mind, I’m thinking towering lemon tree. But this is likely going to be more of a small shrub – alas! And so long as I didn’t feel inspired to buy a whole grove of citrus, maybe I could winter one plant in the house. Maybe I’d have room for two…and who wouldn’t love a citrus tree in the living room? Just the thought of a future lemon or two would truly be a treat. Of course, this could be along the lines of my attempts with the fig tree. For all of my efforts hauling the massive barrel in and out, my fig harvest over the years has been scarce, at best. But still I try, just hoping that this might be the year. And who knows, I might have a real knack with citrus!

I’d best be off now…I really have to decide on those tomatoes!