Harvest Day

Well we did finally get some rain yesterday, not enough, maybe just under a quarter of an inch. But it was at least some. A sunny spring day after a rain is always my favorite day. It means I pick whatever leafy green is ready to eat. I always pick them in the morning, and after a rain they are very crispy and sweet. I picked my Red Sails Lettuce and some more mizuna leaves.

Then I debated my Chinese cabbage. I planted them much closer together than I ought to have (you can see the second one stick out from underneath the first one). I figured I could pick half formed ones and eat them as early greens. But it looks so pretty and hasn’t started forming a head yet. I really wish I had planted them the correct distance apart. It seems so sad to take it out before it could fulfill its promise, but it had to come out or neither of them would grow. Sigh.

I have no trouble ripping out lettuce seedlings that are getting crowded and eating them. Why is a Chinese cabbage different? Maybe because I mostly grow leaf lettuce. The small ones are fairly much the same as a full grown head. Or maybe I put the sweet blanched head of the Chinese cabbage on a pedestal. Whatever the reason it was very hard to pull up, but pull it I did.

I also picked cilantro, but then I pick it every day. I eat it in salads and in Chinese, Thai or Mexican food. I rarely go a day without eating it. I have so much in my garden that I just can’t keep up with it. Every day the myriad of cilantro plants get bigger and bigger. Though I have been harvesting them for a while now, they are almost at a real harvestable size.