Precious baby!
Wait, didn't I just say this about...like...five months ago? On February 18th I planted beets and on March 3rd I peeked under the row cover and saw they'd sprouted. The cycle begins again....
But what about the yearly wheel of change, Barbara Kingsolver's vegetannual parade of seasonal crops? She urges us to eat peas in the spring, tomatoes in the summer, pumpkins in the fall and--in general--bananas not at all. Unless you live in the tropics, of course. I could go for a fresh apple banana right off the stalk right now...the Pacific ocean winds caressing my cheeks....
Ms. Kingsolver makes her point well (see: Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007)) -- eat foods where they're grown when they're grown and they'll taste better. Plus you skip the tax-subsidized cost of hard traveling most fruits and vegetables undergo these days. But she lives in the hills of east Kentucky, nine degrees latitude north of me and at a considerable higher elevation. She gets to have blueberries, morel mushrooms, and sweet frost-kissed broccoli--but I get to plant two crops of beets in a year.
I planted lettuce, too, but I don't think it will germinate until the days cool down more. We've gone from the mid-90s to mid-80s so I'll not complain. I still have lots of peppers,
cucumbers, okra that's beginning to resemble Jack's beanstalk,
basil enough to make a pesto-lover cry
and one tomato plant that still has fruit. I'd give a five-dollar-bill to know which one that is--stupid me for mixing up the labels!
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