April 22, 2011
We’ve been eating red leaf lettuce and spinach I planted in the Lorelei for several weeks now, yet I didn’t feel like we were really eating produce from the garden. Is that odd? I think I was waiting to harvest things I had actually planted this season. I declare today, the day. We each ate a huge bowl of salad, brimful with red leaf, buttercrunch, and yes, even a few leaves of my precious Spotted Trout romaine lettuce, with chopped radishes and green onions, all harvested from Jones, all planted this year.
Washing newly picked lettuce, I nibble pieces of it as I go along. Like sneaking licks of icing from the bowl, they’re sweet and satisfying and fun. I still can’t believe what happens in a garden. My mind can not take it in that any particular leaf of lettuce came from a particular plant that grew from a single, particular seed I planted. I consider it a miracle, and like someone who has lost his or her short-term memory, I am amazed all over again, every time I see my garden, every time I take a sweet, lettucey bite.
We also harvested one of the three bok choi I planted (while planting seeds in flats back in January, I found three bok choi seeds left from last year; each one sprouted: 100%, not bad at all!). We noticed a few small, but ominous holes that had appeared and decided, let’s pick it now. It was amazingly large, about 12 inches from top to bottom, and seven or eight inches across. Not only do seeds in general amaze me every time they sprout and grow, but especially planting one the size of a tiny pinhead, like bok choi or cabbage or broccoli seeds, and having them grow into something hundreds of times bigger. We’ll eat it soon.
