{"id":1670,"date":"2011-03-08T11:22:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T16:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=1670"},"modified":"2011-03-08T11:22:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T16:22:28","slug":"spinach-in-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=1670","title":{"rendered":"Spinach in February"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last October I was chatting \ufeffat the market \ufeff\ufeffwith a local farmer who sells herb plants and greens, like lettuces, endive, and arugula, to plant in the garden.\u00a0 I asked if she thought it was too late to plant lettuce and spinach seeds for a fall crop.\u00a0 “Not at all,” she said,\u00a0“Plenty of time.”\u00a0 I was skeptical but\u00a0sowed some seeds anyway: red and green lettuce, turnips and spinach.\u00a0 They each grew about an inch or two by the time truly cold weather stopped them in their tracks.\u00a0 “Oh well,” I thought, “a small loss, but worth the try.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nature finds a way<\/p><\/div>\n

I put the poor, shivering,\u00a0little baby lettuce and spinach out of my mind, consigning them to temperatures down to the teens, snow, ice, and strong winds.\u00a0 Imagine my surprise in early February to see about a dozen spinach plants actually growing.\u00a0 Harsh winter\u00a0did not kill them.\u00a0 So\u00a0completely did I not believe that\u00a0the healthy little buggers were actually growing before my very eyes, it took my wife to say, “I think there’s enough for us to eat.\u00a0\u00a0Why don’t you\u00a0pick us a mess for supper.” \u00a0 And I did.\u00a0 And it was good.\u00a0 I\u00a0wonder what was most satisfying?\u00a0 Was\u00a0it eating the\u00a0delicious, fresh spinach, or feeling the pride and wonder\u00a0of produce from my own garden, miraculously grown and harvested in February!<\/p>\n

You’d think I’d get over being so surprised by the vigor of life, the inexorable press of nature to produce living things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last October I was chatting \ufeffat the market \ufeff\ufeffwith a local farmer who sells herb plants and greens, like lettuces, endive, and arugula, to plant in the garden.\u00a0 I asked if she thought it was too late to plant lettuce … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69],"tags":[70,71,174,99],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}