Volunteers Welcome!

Thank you to the Rose Park Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Rose Park Community Council for spreading wood chips, weeding and planting wildflowers on our garden's perimeter. We welcome volunteer groups of all sizes and ages--many hands make relatively lighter work. Our weed harvest is always ready for you:)

Spinach, Please!

The other day my four-year old asked me to make sure his pasta had spinach in it and not meat. A momentary payoff for all my gardening! My goal for the past several years has been to grow spinach the size of palm fronds. Not literally, but big enough to fan yourself with on a hot day. Well, we have succeeded. We planted it in February, in April it appeared to freeze (it all looked like glass plants from Munchkin Land in the Wizard of Oz), and then it survived and thrived. The last couple years we have fought leaf miners, so this year I ordered a bolt of tulle from walmart.com for under $25 and created a floating row cover. We covered 250 square feet of spinach. Of course the little flies still found their way in, but I think we cut the problem by 85%. (There is a math problem in there I'm sure). Now with all this spinach we had to invent recipes. First, blanche and freeze for future lasagna and quiche (I make my quiche  ala Florentine AND Lorraine. I see no point in leaving out ham/bacon or spinach. They need each other). We also made Gateau de Crepes ala Florentine (a laborious effort  that required dancing to the oldies while using the crepe maker as a microphone) and Bee Bim Bop. Of course fresh spinach is delightful too. And for the grubby leaves: Chickens enjoy "meat" with their spinach salad.

Ladybugs & Rain

Season's Bounty: Ladybugs, Salad Greens and Rain. If April showers bring May flowers, what do we get from May showers? Apparently we get mud, weeds, radishes, salad greens, happy ladybugs, and behind-schedule peppers, squash, tomatoes, beans and cucumbers. And we're hoping for a lower water bill plus copious potatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, onions, garlic and strawberries.