Sunday, March 18, 2012

Salad in a box!

So, as spring is springing (so quickly) around here, I am a little concerned about all of the "cool weather" plants we've put in the garden. We have peas and broccoli and brussels sprouts in the garden, which are now just slightly ahead of the basil and tomatoes. So, crossing fingers that our willy-nilly planting methods will pay off. We've spent a lot of time in the last month or so getting things growing again, planting and prepping and looking at tiny leaves pushing up through the ground. It feels magical. Yesterday Chris came in and said, "Did you see the broccoli today? It grew three sizes!" His smile was huge. And the raspberry plant that we put in the backyard last summer...thought it was dead until I peeked at the very bottom of the twigs still sticking out of the ground. Eureka! Leaves! I did a little jig.

So, spring here in the south is a riot of pastels and bright yellows. The azaleas and redbuds  are full-on pink bonanzas and the buds on the dogwood in the corner of the front yard burst into flower as well. Camellias are paving the sidewalks with their blooms. I'm walking the dog a lot.

Last night, we harvested out first springtime greens, the salad in a box. This is what it looked like about a month ago:

And this is what it looked like shortly before I attacked it with scissors and threw it in a bowl:

Neat, right? And, I think it might actually result in a few salads from the box - hurrah! We also have lots of romaine in the garden, so we're lookin' at very salad-y spring.

Random side note...our cilantro is really happy at the moment, but one more eighty degree day and that stuff is gonna bolt...how did salsa ever come about? The two most important ingredients don't share a season?!? Riddle me that. Can one save/store cilantro without drying it? Cryo freeze it or something?


3 comments:

  1. Try a different variety of cilantro... some varieties can take the heat much better than others. I harvested cilantro all summer... but it was massachusetts and not the south.

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  2. And you have to seed new plants every few weeks. And then salsa all summer

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    1. I will try that! I am hereby coming to you with all of my gardening questions...be warned!

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