Around the garden

Time for our weekly survey of the garden--thanks to Farmama for the tradition!

These poor ladies, all cooped up in their coop. Hopefully we'll be able to let them out to roam the garden soon, when the tender seedlings grow a bit more sturdy. In the mean time they get healthy supplements of weeds and slugs.

First strawberries this week! All gobbled up by the toddler before they make it to the house.

The peppers were the last of the seedlings to get planted out. So late this year, and it's still just cool and wet and dreary.

First nasturtiums. They reseed themselves and spring up every year around our front walkway. A cheerful welcome.

Poppies are about to pop!

And now for this dreadful eyesore. We discovered leaf miner eggs on our beets and chard this week, so decided to try covering them with an insect barrier fabric. I was resistant to allowing such an ugly unnatural abomination into the garden, but after tasting our first delectable beets yesterday, I decided it was worth it. The leaf miners destroyed our beets and chard last year, and nothing we tried to control them worked. So we found this row cover material at Johnny's Seeds--it's called Agribon--you can see it here. It's an experiment, and it's ugly, but if it means we get to eat home grown beets and chart this year, I'll take it! Anyone have experience with row covers in small home gardens?

This week brought several tasty additions to our meals--garlic scapes (first time I've ever tried them--yum!) sauted with pasta and scrambled with eggs, rhubarb in sauce and muffins, beets in Luscious Beet Salad from my favorite cookbook Feeding the Whole Family--such a delicious recipe! Not to mention all the fresh herbs--cilantro, sage, basil, parsley, thyme, oregano, rosemary...such a delight to have these plants growing out the back door.

Happy gardening!