First Harvest

My otherwise still dormant garden yielded it's first harvest yesterday. Asparagus spears! Within the hour of picking, they were steamed and added to my lunch menu. 

 

Steamed and garnished with fresh lime juice and a generous amount of pepper!

Should have focused the camera more on the spears and less on the soil.

 

Well, that was my first harvest from outdoors. This winter I've been growing and harvesting greens indoors. Namely, sprouts in glass mason jars. I experimented with several types of seeds and found mung beans and brown lentils my favourites. The flavour is much like freshly shelled garden peas. Yummy!

Oh, and I borrowed a very interesting e-book from our public library on indoor sprouting using soil. It's titled "Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening" by Peter Burke. He includes lots of inspiring and mouth-watering photos. I'm looking forward to trying broccoli sprouts with this new-to-me method.

Perhaps it's because of the COVID lockdowns but it seems more people are interested in gardening. The seed packets in the grocery stores are snapped up almost as fast as they are put on display. Especially vegetable seeds. I have not been able to find tomato seeds so decided to experiment. I liked two varieties of hothouse tomatoes I bought for sandwiches so took some seeds from each fruit and planted them in little containers. Every seed germinated so it will be interesting to see what they eventually produce.

Each year I sew sweet peas in the garden. They require considerable attention in providing climbing support, weeding, watering and feeding. And they want to be planted early, often before the beds here are dry enough to work. But when they do bloom, the payoff is weeks of beautiful and wonderfully scented cut flowers. Once again, under the influence of YouTube videos, I decided to try and start the seeds indoors. I've saved seed from the three purchased varieties to plant outdoors in case my house started vines become too spindly to transplant.

As for me, things are going fairly well. I've filed my income tax and changed my car's tires to the summer ones (it's snowing today but, oh well). I've arranged to have my first COVID vaccine in early May and my friends and family seem to be, so far, unscathed by the virus. Though still socially-distancing, we can at least virtually travel and visit the world thanks to bloggers who share their notes and photos. Trips without leaving the farm, so to speak. I appreciate you all! 

I'll end today's show-and-tell with another couple of photos from my patch.

Canada Geese prepare to land on a neighbouring corn field.

A bejewelled Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) drinking tree sap.