March 1, 2012

March Garden Inventory

Bed # 1, that poor bed that was seeded and reseeded in the fall, has matured some.  Those two unidentified brassicas were a purple cauliflower and a broccoli, both of which we harvested in February, but anyway... There's a row of cilantro, a couple parsley plants, a celery that's not doing much, and a few rows of poppies.  The poppies look like weeds right now (or overgrown lettuces), but in a month or so they'll shoot up with short-lived pretty painted poppies.  My lone dill plant sits there faithfully waiting for me to get some culinary inspiration for it.  And there are some root vegetables that, by the looks of their tops, haven't done much underground yet: carrots, beets and parsnips.  As if that wasn't enough, there are onions in that bed too.

In Bed #2, which we planted with two varieties of onion in the fall, we've been able to clip off a seemingly endless supply of green onions.  Soon it will end though; as the bulbs form and tops with get too tough to enjoy.  My row of chives and garlic chives is faithful waits for the next time we make baked potatoes.  Volunteer mustard greens have sprouted up all over this bed, and I feel like I am in a race to use them before they mature to the point when their flavor gets too strong.  I throw big handfuls into stir-fries and soups and yet the leaves which sprout up keep getting bigger and bigger (and more strongly-flavored).  I'm sure my family would prefer that I tore them out and gave the onions more room to grow, but I can't bear seeing "good" fresh vegetables go to waste.

In Bed #3 the garlic is busy growing underground and the thyme is there waiting for the next time I roast a chicken or make chicken soup.

Most of our potted herbs are just pots of dirt or weeds this time of year, but there's still a little bit of green on the spearmint and the lemon balm

oOo

Our 50-year-old grapefruit trees are scheduled to be removed next week.  They are messy and the fruit is not as sweet as people like it to be nowadays.  I'm a bit sad to see them go, but I am hoping their removal will make room for more sun and space to grow new things: Berries? A couple more vegetable beds? A miniature lime tree?