First Harvest

The unusually warm and wet spring has been a boon to our gardening efforts and our first fruits are coming into harvest. The first picture show fresh Swiss Chard and the other is Lisa's first beet which has red and white rings when cut at the equator.

Lisa planted these in hanging tubs outside on our front porch to keep the slugs from devouring our swiss chard; something they did with dogged regularity last year.  Aren't the colors just beautiful?

A trip to the farmer's market this morning served as the stimulus for Lisa to dig up one of her own chioggia beets. Chioggia beets are italian in origin and are considered an heirloom variety. She'll leave the rest in the ground and give them a chance to grow big and fat.

We also got our first box of produce this week from Blue Bird Farm our local CSA (community supported agriculture). Our fridge is full of fresh lettuce, kale, spinach, radishes, pea's and some baby broccoli. We've already enjoyed a beautiful stir fry that was absolutely delicious. As the season goes by, we'll get a weekly box with whatever is being harvested at the time. When we add this to what we are growing ourselves and with Louise, our gardening partner, we should have plenty of food put up for the winter in addition to the food we enjoy all summer.