Garden Notes

 

It's spring in the garden, and I'd like to take you on a little tour.

The strawberries are starting to ripen; the first strawberries are always the most delicious, I think. I've been having them with my yogurt for breakfast; they are so sweet and juicy.

So far, I'm keeping up with them; I've been picking every day. I'm sure they will get ahead of me at some point, but right now, there isn't a lot else to harvest, and I can devote the time to searching under the leaves and finding each and every ripe morsel.

Or at least the ones that the blue jays don't find first!

The artichokes get ahead of me very fast; although I love them, they are great producers, and they're so much better fresh than frozen. I've learned to pig out on them in their season, and let my anticipation for them build when they're not in season.

I'm always happy when an artichoke lover comes to visit; today I sent some home with a visitor and we were both happy about it. I'm just hoping that there weren't any bugs hitchhiking along! That's one of the problems with organic gardening - bugs happen. I'm used to them now, but I do worry when I send stuff home with people. I probably overdo it with the bug warnings; it's not like they're covered with bugs, but my produce isn't pristine like their supermarket cousins.

It's still several weeks off, but the blackberry harvest looks very promising this year.

We planted an additional row last year, and they will be fruiting this summer; we're expecting about twice as much fruit as we harvested last year.

Last year, I froze a lot of berries, and we've enjoyed them all winter. This year, I want to make more juice, and perhaps some fruit leathers.

Based on what is already developing, I think there will be more than enough fruit for my experiments. Of course, I have to leave enough for Dan to make his famous blackberry pies and cobblers!

But there's even more, waiting around the corner:  In this bed, you can see cantaloupe at the bottom, then several rows of popcorn, onions, and the asparagus, whose harvest is already over, at the top of the photo.

Cantaloupe is another thing that I only eat in season now; fresh vine ripened cantaloupe is like nothing else. My mouth is watering at the thought of it; when it starts ripening, we will eat it every day.

We had so much fun making and eating our popcorn last winter; we're already looking forward to doing it again. In a few weeks, these little shoots will be over six feet high.