Sunday, May 4, 2008

too many choices

It felt great to get out to the house this weekend. Even though it rained every day and the fog never lifted and the temperatures were in the forties and I had to go back to sleeping in my flannel nightgown and Charlie Brown hat. Because after two weeks away, home is where my heart is.

The lettuces grew like crazy while we were away and we ate salads so fresh Michael swore he could taste the chlorophyll. When you eat something that was alive a mere five minutes earlier...well it doesn't get any better than that. I heard Barbara Damrosch speak at the NY Hort Society a few weeks ago and she said you can cut off an entire head of lettuce and it will regrow. I've always picked a few leaves from the outside of each head, but I think I'll experiment with Barbara's suggestion next weekend.

As I walked around the yard I wondered how to decide what to blog about: the white flowers of Amalanchier (aka Serviceberry) dramatically covered with drops of rain? the young leaves of Tiger Eye Sumac and black leaf Elderberry, bursting forth with those bold red pigments in full force? So many choices and it's barely even May.

Since both the sumac and elderberry have edible parts, I'll be able to keep them in my garden when I start the renovation. (I'm re-planting my front garden beds to make them entirely edible.) With a little luck I can start digging up the non-edibles next weekend. And don't worry, I'm sending them all to a nice farm in the country where they'll have plenty of room to run and play.








And lest you wonder, there's plenty of action indoors as well. The houseplants are well aware it's spring, and I've got Hoya lacunosa,













Hoya lobbii,


















and Hoya bilobata all in bloom.



















Sigh.

5 Comments:

At May 5, 2008 at 11:48 AM , Blogger Scott Calhoun said...

Hi Ellen,

I'm jealous of your lettuce crop. I won't see fresh garden lettuce until fall. We ate the last of the swiss chard last night along with artichokes and tomatoes, which are just coming on.

Scott

 
At May 5, 2008 at 2:47 PM , Blogger Ellen Zachos said...

Hi Scott,

OMG, you're getting tomatoes already? Talk about jealous! I won't even put out seedlings for another 2-3 weeks.

LN

 
At May 5, 2008 at 3:49 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm jealous of your lettuce crop, too! And I so agree that there's no matching picked-five-minutes-ago for taste and texture. You'll be getting arugala from my garden as part of dinner tonight...

 
At May 5, 2008 at 5:24 PM , Blogger SaraGardens said...

Despite the virtues of those other plants... like Leda & Scott, I'm all envious of the lettuces at the moment! Mine are still baby seedlings, though the variety is already thrilling. My over-wintered parsley bolting, and we've eaten all the chives the plants can spare at the moment.

 
At May 9, 2008 at 1:10 PM , Blogger molly said...

i don't know if its from reading your blog and being more aware or global warming or having the time...but, both rk and i notice SO many more blossoms this year!

 

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