Three macro shots of a tulip in my backyard
I have been thinking of digging up all of my spring flowers and replacing them with edibles, even though they are such fun to photograph in the "wild" of my yard. I want to replace them with asparagus and strawberries and even jerusalem artichokes. But the tulips are pretty.
I've got about 200 sq feet of vegetable beds, planted out in potatoes, tomatoes, beans, salads. The main experiment this year is to try Eliot Coleman's strategy for extending the garden into fall and winter, if I can keep it going through the weedy, discouraging period of July.
Tonight we ate weeds, in that I have a few "walking onions" that dropped bulbs last year. I let them go until they grew to be somewhere in between leeks and scallions. I wanted fresh green onions for dinner-we had a fine mess of these alliums, otherwise known as Egyptian or tree onions that needed thinning. We also have random seedings of arugula, borage, and other things I couldn't be bothered to weed last summer after Montana. One year, I actually let everything flower, from lettuce to radishes, just to see what would happen (note to self: do not repeat). Radishes form edible pods that last on the plant much longer than the roots do in the garden. Lettuce will blow like dandelion heads, and come up for years.
This year, I let the tomato seedlings get sunburnt and bought fresh from the garden store; the amaranth experiment may be a total failure; and R is looking at the rhubarb division with great suspicion (quick, send rhubarb salsa recipes, please!). On the other hand, over the years I have counted 20 kinds of native bees in my tiny little plot. And not much comes up before the flower bulbs. So I am undecided on the tulips. But if you are in SLC and want some walking onions, come by with a vessel to carry some away, before I eat them all.
Comments (1)
Rhubarb???!? Tell you what.... you provide the rhubarb and we'll return it made into pie! Not the overly sweet strawberry/rhubarb kind, but the more tart pure rhubarb goodness.
Posted by BWJones | May 12, 2008 10:43 PM
Posted on May 12, 2008 22:43