Harvest Monday 2-11-13
What a mixed bag on Harvest Monday! As always, you can see more harvests from around the world by checking out the others hosted at daphne’s dandelions.
In case you missed it, we did have a butterfly emerge in the house, though we still haven’t found the chrysalis. Last Friday we took it to the Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park in Dallas to be released in their butterfly house. This was our list pic before leaving.
I hope it has a long and happy life, and once again thank the fabulous Garden Cafe for their commitment to local foods, organics and delicious menu for giving us this unexpected gift when they sold us a sprig of dill and a sprig of mint a few weeks ago.
The mint rooted and is now in a pretty pot on the patio, waiting to fulfill all my many mint needs!
As for the rest of the news in the garden, I did get harvest:
I never thinned my carrots last fall so yesterday I pulled about half of them and replanted the teensiest ones. I don’t know if they’ll continue to grow. Time will tell. Also found one round radish, one teensy-teensy cauliflower and snipped some red and green mustards.
Friday I spent a number of hours getting our largest raised bed ready and planted various seeds, as you can see below:
And then to make sure (and also rush the season) we bought some lettuce, kale, and other plants which I added yesterday.
It’s such a glorious time of year. It has been almost one year since we started this experiment in backyard farming, and it has been the most fun ever, not to mention, fascinating and rewarding. For every failure we’ve had a success, even if it’s small. We are learning all the time and will be reaping the benefits for years to come, I hope.
This week I stumbled across references to a couple of books that looked like they might be good, but the reviews are more mixed (and the negatives more heavily weighted) than I like to see. Has anyone read either of these? Thumbs up or down? And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road
Tell me how your garden is growing! Or not. Or what you’ve eaten good lately. Yum, I am making myself hungry now.
Too early for gardening here…no good place to put starter plants inside…I’ll plant in May.
Pretty butterfly–must be good luck.
My grounds are covered with about 12 inches of snow and more in the forecast, not sure when I will be able to get my hands in the dirt. Should start some seedlings soon though.
Very wonderful to have such a beautiful butterfly emerge in your home.
You are busy growing lots of things and your enthusiasm for the beginning of the garden season is quite contagious. I have lots seedlings growing under my grow lights and it is almost time to give them their first drink of weak kelp emulsion tea and thin out the extra plants to get one per cell. It will also be time to start the next round of seeds this coming weekend. Things really start getting busy from that point on in my garden season.
What a gorgeous butterfly. It will be a long time before I can plant seeds outside. Well at least a month.
Tip the vegetables into a medium sized ceramic casserole dish and pour over the stock and the wine. Add the herbs and salt and pepper. Turn it all with your trusty wooden spoon to get everything all mixed together.