Leafy Greens Update

The weather has warmed up and things in our garden are moving fast, so this is a good time to do an update on all of our fruits and veggies. In this post, I will specifically talk about our green leafy vegetables.

Firstly, our first lettuce plantings have now gone to seed, so we're taking a break from eating lots of lettuce. Our second lettuce plantings are coming along though and I expect we'll be able to cut them anytime now. Unfortunately we've run out of our mixed lettuce seeds that we collected last year, so we purchased some endive frisee seeds, or chicory seeds as it is called in the US, and I planted a row of those. I am really happy to see the little seedlings poking out of the ground.

Second Lettuce Plantings

 To help fill in some more space, we purchased six radicchio which is an Italian head lettuce. It is very bitter when eaten, so it's best in combination with other lettuces. I don't have a picture of any of it, because it was eaten down by something; probably a rabbit or some deer.

Arugula

 The growth of our arugula has increased immensely so we are cutting a lot of that. We might even have to give some away to friends who live nearby. I love the peppery bite of this green! Thus far we've been eating it a lot as a salad, but it would be fun to try it with a homemade pasta, and maybe some lemon and Parmesan. We'll see.

Tatsoi

We cut the first of our tatsoi mustard green, which is an Asian green. I've read that it is supposed to have a spicy flavour, but when I tasted it fresh I found it to be more reminiscent of the bitterness and sweetness of eating fresh peas with the pod straight out of the garden.

Unfortunately, we noticed some of this green going to seed already due to the humid hot weather we've been having here in southern Ontario, so we chose to cut some whole bunches of the tatsoi out of the garden and left some of the younger ones in. Hopefully we'll be able to harvest more of this before they all go to seed. You can eat the leaves fresh as a salad, but we wilted them with a dressing of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, and sesame seeds which tasted very good.

Lucullus Swiss Chard

Our Lucullus Swiss Chard is well on its way to being of a size to harvest and we're hoping we will get a lot more of it than we did last year. Swiss chard is so delicious sauteed with some olive oil and onions as a healthy side dish and we've even added it to lasagna and pasta too.

Jennifer