SALAD!

On Saturday I spent the afternoon moving the compost pile to the side of the house and then spreading out the compost that was ready into a few of the beds and in the open area at the top of the garden, which will become this summer’s corn and melon playground.

I also took a look at my winter veggies to see what they were up to.  All winter long I have watched my lettuce just slowly kinda hang out in the front of the garden.  It survived the 10 inches (!) of rain we got just before Christmas and the 80 degree temps and Santa Ana winds of January and its time came to be harvested.  I planted ‘oak leaf’ lettuce in the fall last year and picked about half of it on Saturday.

You can see why its called oak leaf lettuce.  My hands are a smidge ‘pruny’ as a result of the washing of all the lettuce I picked.  Apparently, I can’t remember to take pictures of things until after it is nearly too late.  Well anyway, it all got washed, trimmed and packed up in some Tupperware Rubbermaid re-sealable plastic containers.

Tonight, we made a DELICIOUS salad with said greens.  Chopped up some apple slices, toasted pecans and goat cheese with some raspberry walnut vinaigrette.  Scrumdiddlyumptious…

We probably have enough for 3-4 more salads and 2-3 salads-worth still out in the garden.  It puts things in perspective to wait 4-5 months for 6-7 salads.  But food is supposed to be slow, right?  We’re just spoiled by the grocery store.  But that’s probably something for another blog post.

Getting started in 2011

Well, I'm getting the garden in order and while I was at it I figured I'd try to resurrect my blogging efforts from last year.  I'm excited to expound on my garden thoughts and actions.  We'll see how it goes...

Over the fall and winter I never expect much from the garden, but this year I decided to sew a few things that were 'winter-friendly' and see what happened.  I planted some lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and green onions.  Not much of it really took, except the lettuce, until the week of rain we had just before Christmas last month.  So today we had a taco salad using a head of butter lettuce.

Also, over the fall and winter I started a compost area in one end of the garden where I loosened up the soil over an area of about 3 feet in diameter and would just toss in veggie scraps, shredded junkmail and cereal boxes, etc. forming a compost 'pit'.  Later, I started piling up the grass clippings in a compost 'pile'.  Its worked very well and the pile and pit are full of earthworms and Green Fruit Beetle grubs, which are breaking down the organic matter.  I also started adding some of the compost material into the beds to get ready for this spring's planting.